Margaret Tallichet Screen Tests

00:00 Introduction by Liana Kroll, Head of Information, Research and Access, Moving Image Department, George Eastman Museum
03:15 Gone with the Wind – Technicolor test
04:12 Gone with the Wind – Material test
04:44 Gone with the Wind – Sound test (Dressing for Barbecue scene)
07:27 Gone with the Wind – Sound test (Library scene)
13:35 The Young in Heart – Sound test

Filmography

Preservation of these screen tests was funded by the Family of William Wyler and Margaret Tallichet

Margaret Tallichet arrived in Hollywood with the vague intention of becoming an actress. With a background in journalism, she got a job in the Paramount Pictures publicity department. While overseeing an interview with Carole Lombard, she found a mentor and a champion. Lombard lent her clothes to pose in, counseled her on the pitfalls of Hollywood, and invited her to join her and Clark Gable for dinner at their home. Soon, Tallichet had found an agent (Zeppo Marx), tested for David O. Selznick’s The Young in Heart, gotten a job as an extra in A Star Is Born, and signed a seven-year contract. After acting lessons in New York City and a couple of summer stock productions, she returned to Hollywood in time to test for Gone with the Wind. 

Tallichet’s tests for Gone with the Wind are early ones, dating from March 1938 during the great nationwide “search for Scarlett O’Hara.” It is clear Selznick was giving Tallichet a major opportunity, and she acquitted herself well. She tested for the roles of Scarlett and Suellen under the guidance of the film’s original director, George Cukor. In the library scene test, she is featured alongside actors Phillips Holmes (as Ashley) and Kent Taylor (as Rhett), neither of whom appeared in the film. (Both actors, however, do bear strong resemblances to the stars who eventually played the parts, Leslie Howard and Clark Gable.) In the “dressing for the barbeque” scene, Tallichet appears with stage actress Georgette Harvey, who is testing for the role of Mammy. Harvey had a long career in theatre, creating the role of Maria in the original Broadway productions of Dorothy Heyward and DuBose Heyward’s play Porgy in 1927 and of George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess in 1935, both under the direction of Rouben Mamoulian. She appeared in only four films, in the mid to late 1930s, and resumed her career on the stage. The silent Technicolor test in which Tallichet appears with the actual Scarlett—Vivien Leigh—also includes Georgiana Young, half-sister to actresses Loretta Young, Sally Blane, and Polly Ann Young. Only fourteen when she tested for the role of Carreen O’Hara, Young was 5’9” and a head taller than Leigh; the role would be won by petite Ann Rutherford, who played Polly Benedict in the Andy Hardy series.

Despite the many tests she made for Gone with the Wind, Tallichet was not cast in the film. But during this period, she did meet and marry director William Wyler after a whirlwind courtship. In 2007, Tallichet and Wyler’s children generously funded the preservation of their mother’s screen tests that are seen here.