Behind the Curtains: Wambui's Fun Tales from Gone With The Wind

I'm going to start with a story that starts in 1976.

I'm 26 years old, living in New York City.

I'm an actress.

Of course, as an actress, you're always looking for your next job.

So I get a call that they're looking for a press seat for a musical version of Gone with the Wind.

Now, I'd heard about a musical version of Gone with the Wind a few years prior.

I think it started on the west coast, and then it ended up in London.

I don't know what happened to it after that.

So this was a call.

They were trying to cast a prissy for a Dallas summer musicals production that would go to a few other cities, and if everything went well, it would come back to Broadway in the fall.

So I wanted to audition.

Plus, I loved watching Butterfly McQueen in that movie.

And so I thought, well, yeah, I'd like to be prissy in a musical version of Gone with the Wind.

Problem was, I had just decided to go through my blonde phase a few days before I got to call.

My hair was blonde.

Now, I'm not saying it was white or platinum.

I'm saying it was significantly light or lighter.

And so it didn't look very slave like.

Okay.

So I decided I was going to go to the audition anyway, and I would just wear a bandana around my head when it was time to audition, which is exactly what I did.

And ordinarily I don't think I would do that, but I was auditioning for a slave, and people just thought it was part of the character, that I'm really getting into it.

So I.

Because I had my bandana covering my head.

So I went into the audition and they asked me to say my name.

Now, that's not uncommon for them to ask you to say your name sometimes just to get you talking, hear you talk, and sometimes just to make sure you have.

They have the right person.

So, plus my name.

I was asked about my name more when my name was John Ann Washington, which is my birth name and my actor's union name that I had back in 1976.

And so I.

I used to get asked more about my name, which was John Ann Washington, more than I get asked about my name today.

So they asked my name, and I told them my name.

Now, in the room, there were about three people who were part of the audition process, but then there was a black woman who was sitting kind of off to the side who didn't seem to be part of the process.

She seemed to be maybe someone's guest or someone that they had invited just to sit in on the auditions.

So when I said my name, this very distinct voice from this black woman that was sitting off on the side, this very distinct voice said, what kind of name is that?

I would know the voice of Pearl Bailey anywhere because I grew up with Pearl Bailey in my house.

My father had every single Pearl Bailey record album, anything.

If Pearl Bailey did it, he had it.

So I knew her, I admired her.

I loved her.

The first Broadway show I ever saw was hello Dolly starring Pearl Bailey.

I just always thought she was beautiful.

I admired her.

I loved the way she dressed and I loved her risque songs.

I just loved everything about her.

I thought she was a fabulous entertainer.

Now to this day, I don't know why she was in the room.

Like I said, perhaps she was a guest of someone or just invited to sit in because there was no connection other than that when she asked about my name.

And so I told her about my name.

So I auditioned and I was cast as Prissy.

So I immediately, of course, went and dyed my hair back.

And there were three, four of us coming from New York.

That would be Prissy, Mammy, Scarlet and Rhett Butler.

So the woman who was going to be Mammy was a woman named Katherine Kelly.

I know there is a white actress named Catherine Kelly, not to be confused.

Our Mammy was named for the show was Katherine Kelly.

Sherri Mathis was Scarlett O'Hara.

Wonderful actress and most.

A lot of people know her from the soap operas.

And then David Canary.

Oh, my God, David Canary.

Such a wonderful resume down and around the world.

But I think again, most people would know him and know him as one of Erica's husband's.

I think the main husband for Erica on All My Children.

What a great guy.

He has since passed on.

So we were coming from New York, the four of us, and we were going to join the Dallas local actors who would fill in the other parts and the chorus and all of that.

When I say this was a grand production, it seemed like a production where no expense was spared.

That's what it appeared to be to me.

I know that at one point there was a real horse on stage.

I know that there were all these guys who were hired just to be wounded and dead bodies.

It was just fabulous.

I understand it was Disney who came in and helped them do the burning of Atlanta scene.

And when Atlanta burned, you would have thought that theater was on fire.

It was so amazing.

It was just a really fabulous and grand production that I was so Proud and happy to be a part of.

Now, there were two disappointments, two disappointments in that production.

Now, it had nothing to do with the actors, the acting, the directing, the production had nothing to do with that.

All of that was amazing.

The two disappointing moments in the show were had to do with copyright because we were told we could not say any lines that were unique to the movie.

We could only say lines that were in the book.

Say lines that were in the book.

But if there was a line that was unique just to the movie, then we could not say that in our production.

So guess what that meant.

That meant that I could not say prissy, could not say, I don't know nothing about birthing babies.

I had to say having or something.

I just could not say, I don't know nothing about birthing babies.

So when I got to that part, I was always thinking that the audience is always thinking, oh, this is some actress.

She can't even get that one important line right.

Or every night I kept waiting for somebody to say, it's birthing, it's birthing.

But I was not allowed to say, I don't know nothing about birthing babies.

And the other line, oh, my goodness, I feel like a lot of people were coming to the show, a lot of them, just to hear that one line.

And that was the line where Rhett Butler at the end of the movie says, frankly, Scarlet, I don't give a damn.

Well, that was unique to the movie.

So he was not allowed to say that in this production.

So he had to use a workaround.

It was good.

He was a great actor, but it wasn't the same.

Another memory, and these memories are in no particular order, but I remember there was this fabulous chorus of dancers and singers, and there was every.

I.

It was to my recollection and from my point of view, everybody just got along really fabulously and it was just a really fabulous production and we all had a really good time.

So I remember one of the dancers, a young.

Like a girl I'm going to call a girl.

I think she maybe have been maybe in her late teens, early 20s, very pretty girl, very nice girl, Just.

Just a real good personality.

And she was.

Well, I'm going to.

The only way I can describe her is like what you think of when you think of a Barbie doll.

That's, you know, because she was a dancer, so she had the nice body and she had this long blonde hair.

But I used to watch her because from the first day I started noticing that whenever we had a break, whether it was a lunch break, a five minute break, a ten minute break.

If there was a break.

When she came back, she had on a whole new set of dancing clothes.

And she always had a bow that match.

And so throughout the rehearsal process, I would watch her and I always be curious to see what she was going to have on when we would get back from break.

And to my recollection, I never saw her wear the same outfit twice.

Okay, I know what does that have to do with any.

But it is a memory.

And I have carried that memory with me all these years.

It's just something that stands out in my mind.

The other memory that I have is when we're doing the show.

There was a part at the barbecue scene where me and another young black actor would start a cakewalk dance at the barbecue.

And we would do a few steps, I mean, very few together, and then we'd kind of like saunter off the stage.

And as we were sauntering off the stage, this flood of chorus dancers came onto the stage and they were twirling each other and throwing each other in the air and swinging each other and splitting and jumping and hopping, and they were just fabulous.

And that went on for a significant amount of time.

And then when that ended, they would kind of dance their way off stage while me and this young black actor would kind of just stand, step our way back on stage.

And we would be there in the center stage as the song ended and we would get all of the applause.

And I just always thought there was something wrong with that, but not enough to complain because it also was just something about it.

So fabulous.

I also remember that the woman who played Scarlet's mother invited me to her home in Dallas because she said her husband had just bought her a new microwave oven.

This is 1976, a microwave oven.

And that she wanted to experiment and try it out.

And she said, I want you to come to my house.

I'm going to cook you dinner.

And I'm going to have all these courses, and every course I make, everything I make, I'm going to make it in the microwave oven.

And so I went to her house, and that was a lot of fun.

And her family was really kind to me and it was a great meal.

Although today I won't go near anything that I think had been cooked in a microwave oven.

But at that time, it was so fabulous and so much fun.

I'm just talking about some of the amazing memories that I have.

I have a memory of when it was approaching our opening night and Word was getting around that everybody in the show was not going to be invited to the party.

There was a certain cutoff.

Now, it wasn't going to affect me because I was a principal from New York and so.

But I believe there was some kind of cutoff they were doing that seemed unfair for all the people that had worked so hard to make this production work.

So I do remember that David Canary, the actor who was playing Rhett Butler, did let them know that if all of us couldn't come, then he wouldn't be coming to the party either.

And so all of us were invited to the opening night party.

And it was quite fabulous.

Let's see, what are some other memories?

I remember.

I remember because I was from New York, people would often come to me and say, well, have you done a Dallas barbecue yet?

And I would say, well, yes, and I say, so.

And so had us over to their house and they had a barbecue and they'd say, what?

They don't know how to do a barbecue?

You haven't been to a barbecue.

You have to come to our house for a barbecue.

And so it seemed like everybody was trying to top everybody with their barbecue.

And people were always say, have you been to a barbecue yet here in Dallas?

And I'd say, well, yeah, went here, Went here.

When here, they said, no, those weren't barbecues.

You gotta come over to our house.

So we were constantly and always being invited to different people's houses for barbecue.

When the show left Dallas, Texas, we went to Atlanta, Georgia, and then we went to Kansas City, Missouri, the Starlight Theater in Kansas City, Missouri, one of the most fabulous places to do theater because you're outdoors, you're in the open, you're actually performing under the stars.

The best memory, the best feeling that I have sometimes is when I think about doing a show like Gone with the Wind, outdoors, on a stage underneath the stars.

After Kansas City, Missouri, we went to Miami Beach, Florida.

And the thing I remember about that show, one of the things that stands out about Miami Beach, Florida, was every city we would go to, we'd pick up a young child, a young girl to play the daughter of Rhett Butler and Scarlett.

And in the movie, her name is Bonnie Blue.

Bonnie Blue Butler.

So Bonnie Blue was kind of a small part, but of course an important part.

And so instead of having a child travel with us, we'd just pick up a child in.

In each city that we'd get to.

When we got to Miami Beach, Florida, the young lady that had been cast to be the daughter of Scarlet and Rhett.

The woman, the girl who was going to be Bonnie Blue Butler, was Hispanic and she had a very heavy Spanish accent, which to me just made me laugh every time I'd see the scene because her parents were very Southern and kind of that droll thing going on.

And then she had this Hispanic accent.

And I just thought that was.

I'll never forget that.

I just thought it was quite interesting.

I don't know how that happened, but it did.

So those are just some of the memories that I have about Gone with the Wind.

And these are memories that I treasure.

I also remember that when I first got a VHS in the 80s, I believe the first VHS or first movie that I purchased was the two set, the two volume set of Gone with the Wind.

So I always thought it was a beautiful piece of art.

When I was playing Prissy, I knew that I was acting, that I was not really a slave.

Ooh, I remember how much respect and love I had for Butterfly McQueen, who was Prissy in the movie, and Ms.

Hattie McDaniel, who was Mammy in the movie.

And it was in this movie, as a result of this movie, that the first person of color received an Oscar, and that was Hattie McDaniel for the role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind.

And so lately, when I hear people talking about, as you young people might say, canceling Gone with the Wind or talk about perhaps banning Gone with the Wind, it feels a little strange to hear that.

Maybe because I have different memories than other people do.

But I'm just here today to say that I never thought I'd live to see the day when people would want to or be talking about banning Gone with the Wind.