Ashley Wilkes uniform from Gone With the Wind.

I honestly used to think that the line in the credits that said CSA meant that Confederate veterans were somehow involved in the making of the film.
Ha!!
I didn't believe that but I do comment to my family about it and try to make a joke about the CSA.
 
@Rusk County Avengers Not sure but I think her name was Vivian Leigh. Looked it up on my kindle device and it was her. (And my family thinks I'm a computer idiot.) She was British if I'm not mistaken.

John
Vivien Leigh was English. She married Laurence Olivier shortly after GWTW was made.

The actor who played Ashley Wilkes was also a Brit, Leslie Howard. He was killed in 1943 when German fighters shot down a DC-3 airliner in which he was travelling from neutral Portugal to UK.
 
@major bill , after you shared your Ashley with us yesterday; it got me thinking of GWTW items. You can’t go to a gift shop in Atlanta without running into GWTW items- and for a complete overload, be sure to visit the Margaret Mitchell House which she lovingly called “the Dump.” (It was an apartment within the house.)

I’ve known folks who collected anything and everything GWTW. And, you’d be surprised at what a company will license with images from that film.

But, I was scrolling through the many dolls offered and found one I don’t think I’d ever seen. You could always add it to your Ashley-

( Please know I’m just teasing you. But, this was too good/bad not to share. )

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Vivien Leigh was English. She married Laurence Olivier shortly after GWTW was made.

The actor who played Ashley Wilkes was also a Brit, Leslie Howard. He was killed in 1943 when German fighters shot down a DC-3 airliner in which he was travelling from neutral Portugal to UK.
At the time, Southerners were not happy that a "foreigner" was cast to play Scarlett, but they consoled themselves by the fact that at least she was not a Yankee lol.
 
Very sweet of her to think of you.
This was my first thought - so many people have spouses that are indifferent or even hostile to their hobbies. Your wife is a winner if she a) knows what you are keen on and b) is willing to add to your collection.

I love the idea of Ashely on the shelf looming over the books. The trick now is to praise the purchase enough to make her happy while not praising it so much that she gets you more dolls from this collection!
 
@major bill , after you shared your Ashley with us yesterday; it got me thinking of GWTW items. You can’t go to a gift shop in Atlanta without running into GWTW items- and for a complete overload, be sure to visit the Margaret Mitchell House which she lovingly called “the Dump.” (It was an apartment within the house.)

I’ve known folks who collected anything and everything GWTW. And, you’d be surprised at what a company will license with images from that film.
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More stuff from the museum; be sure to notice the Donald Trump/Rosie O'Donnell cover on MAD! For even more in case you missed it:

 
At the time, Southerners were not happy that a "foreigner" was cast to play Scarlett, but they consoled themselves by the fact that at least she was not a Yankee lol.

Well English is the next best thing to actually being a Southerner , I suspect a mass DNA test in the South would provide a lot of English heritage.

Their was a TV programme in Britain called blood of the Vikings which showed a split between the North of England and the South of England , A lot of immigration to the colonies came from the South of England and the Mid county's as they were more populous than the North at the time.

If you look at ACW units for the Confederacy their were not many immigrants maybe 10% or less compared to the Norths 25-30% i think its quite reasonable to think the vast majority of people in Southern states are very much Anglo Saxon in origin so an English lady playing a southern belle not to far off the mark in my view although obviously not the real thing.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0340733853/
 
When it comes to uniforms I suspect they're costumers did they're homework, a rarity for early CW films. Most uniforms they have in the movie are similar to originals, and maybe sometimes miss-represented, (like in the charity ball scenes), but incorrect uniforms and accoutrements show up. Spanish-American War surplus haversacks, and uniforms on Union soldiers also the same surplus, and other stuff.

At the time CW veterans were still around in pretty large numbers, as was the UCV. There were companies that made "Confederate" uniforms for UCV members in Ohio and elsewhere, that are pretty much the same pattern as US Army 1880's sack coats, but in cadet gray and other colors. You can see these not-very-reminiscent-of-CW-pattern uniforms all over the place in Gone With the Wind.
My greatest peeves are the metal insignia on his hat and the fantasy belt buckle. Of course the hat insignia is adapted from the UCV and GAR insignias everyone at the time was familiar with; I can't figure out where they got the design for the buckle.
 
My greatest peeves are the metal insignia on his hat and the fantasy belt buckle. Of course the hat insignia is adapted from the UCV and GAR insignias everyone at the time was familiar with; I can't figure out where they got the design for the buckle.

They probably designed the buckle themselves in Hollywood for comfort and style. (Rounded top on a square buckle would in the theory of many I know be more comfortable.)
 
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I think in the end Ashley will get put on a book case full of books about Civil War uniforms. He will stand there looming over the books like a huge angry Titan, always ready to destroy his subjects.
No doubt much like the fellows I have all over the place "guarding" my books; above, two Confederate infantrymen flank Forrest, Lee, and Stonewall Jackson.

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Meanwhile, in the back former bedroom, now my library, a Band of Brothers waits beside the WWII bookshelf, and below, their opponents stand atop a glass-front bookcase containing older books and all sorts of other oddities!

Soldiers 002.jpg
 
View attachment 382057

No doubt much like the fellows I have all over the place "guarding" my books; above, two Confederate infantrymen flank Forrest, Lee, and Stonewall Jackson.

View attachment 382056

Meanwhile, in the back former bedroom, now my library, a Band of Brothers waits beside the WWII bookshelf, and below, their opponents stand atop a glass-front bookcase containing older books and all sorts of other oddities!

View attachment 382058
Those are fantastic- is that MacAurther I spy? I need to talk to you about some WWII things off the forum. :smile:
 
I read somewhere that for the 1915 "Birth of a Nation", CSA surplus uniforms were used.

I've actually looked into this, and I don't think they were. At the end of the war a lot of stored Confederate uniforms ended up getting the torch, even in quiet areas of the war, and soldiers wore what they had home. There's a lot of Confederate surplus that never really got to be surplus. For example in the early 1880's Francis Bannerman bought all of the stores the US Army had "Surrendered at Appomattox" in the form of guns and accoutrements, but after he payed for it all, the US Military, which really didn't like him, burnt it all before he could take delivery.

There was plenty of Union surplus, and a lot of stuff advertised as Confederate that really wasn't. But uniforms I think were non-existent as surplus. If CS made and imported accoutrements were non-existent, surely uniforms were as well.

Not having watched Birth of a Nation in a long time, and it being so early, I would bet that the wardrobe people bought UCV uniforms from companies that made them and used those.

On a related side note, the movie filmed afterwards with Pancho Villa supposedly starring as himself during the Mexican Revolution of 1910, which was funded by Griffith, was given all the Confederate uniforms from Birth of a Nation to make Villa's men look more like soldiers when filming the film. Which supposedly, (that film is apparently lost to history), had real battles filmed by the crew for more realism, so if the legends are true Mexican Revolutionaries under Villa went into battle in "Confederate" uniforms!
 
Those are fantastic- is that MacAurther I spy? I need to talk to you about some WWII things off the forum. :smile:
No, but the one standing on the left is the G.I. Joe version of Audie Murphy I picked up at a flea market, as I did with many of them; some of the others including Lee and Forrest were eBay purchases.
 
No, but the one standing on the left is the G.I. Joe version of Audie Murphy I picked up at a flea market, as I did with many of them; some of the others including Lee and Forrest were eBay purchases.
I was going to say I didn't spy any MacArthur in the figures or the books.
I have a 29 Division soldier from Dragon figures that came as a radio operator. And I don't suppose that Forrest figure is the nice detailed one that sales for close to $200.

I can't make out that belt buckle to the right of the Luftwaffe, hidden by the bayonet.
 
@Llewellyn Wasnt Leslie Howard engaged in some kind of spying against Nazi Germany at one time? Not sure how a famous actor becomes a spy but that's just me I guess.

James N. I was given a wonderful gift of a Napoleonic Old Guard Grenadier GI Joe doll twenty years ago. A few years later my daughter's dog got a hold of it then proceeded to demonstrate how the "Guard dies, it does not surrender!"
 
View attachment 382057

No doubt much like the fellows I have all over the place "guarding" my books; above, two Confederate infantrymen flank Forrest, Lee, and Stonewall Jackson.

View attachment 382056

Meanwhile, in the back former bedroom, now my library, a Band of Brothers waits beside the WWII bookshelf, and below, their opponents stand atop a glass-front bookcase containing older books and all sorts of other oddities!

View attachment 382058
Nice. Ashley is twice as tall as these guys.
 
I was going to say I didn't spy any MacArthur in the figures or the books.
I have a 29 Division soldier from Dragon figures that came as a radio operator. And I don't suppose that Forrest figure is the nice detailed one that sales for close to $200.

I can't make out that belt buckle to the right of the Luftwaffe, hidden by the bayonet.
(The figure holding binoculars looked like McAuthur to me-)
 
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