"Rhett Butler" Ended Segregation On The 'Gone With The Wind' Set
“When Clark Gable arrived on the set of “Gone With The Wind” in 1938, he was already one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Lennie Bluett was an 18-year-old extra who wouldn’t even receive screen credit. But what they did together reflects lasting credit on both.
Bluett was a young African American man who lived in Culver City, California and who was just starting a career in which he would make a good living as a movie extra. He had attended Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, where he claimed Jack Webb of future “Dragnet” fame as a personal friend. He was not shy with movie celebrities -- his father drove a bus for the great silent movie comedian, Buster Keaton, and his mother was Humphrey Bogart’s cook.
In 1938 Lennie Bluett was hired as an extra on “Gone With The Wind,” which was expected to be a blockbuster when it was released the next year. Bluett was one of hundreds who would be on the lot to film the burning of Atlanta scene.
When he arrived that morning, Bluett immediately noticed something that to him was quite startling. There were dozens of portable toilets set up to accommodate the large numbers who would be on the lot that day. But what startled, then enraged young Bluett was the fact that above each toilet door was a sign. On some the sign read “White.” On others, “Colored."
https://reelrundown.com/film-industry/Clark-Gable-Desegregates-Gone-With-The-Wind-Movie-Set
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This is what happens when you get interrupted...
Really good to know.
I always like to know the background stories on what goes on making movies. I often think of what the Extras are like.. and how they would tell their family and friends.. "Hey I got a job as an extra in such and such a movie!" lol
And, Grateful to people like Lennie Bruitt and Clark Gable.. whom I adored!
