page_title: Scarlett O'Hara
section_title: Inspiration for the character
hierarchical_section_title: Scarlett O'Hara / Inspiration for the character
caption_attribution_description: Margaret Mitchell all set to launch cruiser after long training as Red Cross launchee / World Telegram &amp; Sun photo by Al Aumuller.
context_page_description: Katie Scarlett O'Hara is a fictional character and the protagonist in Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and in the 1939 film of the same name, where she is portrayed by Vivien Leigh. She also is the main character in the 1970 musical Scarlett and the 1991 book Scarlett, a sequel to Gone with the Wind that was written by Alexandra Ripley and adapted for a television mini-series in 1994. During early drafts of the original novel, Mitchell referred to her heroine as "Pansy," and did not decide on the name "Scarlett" until just before the novel went to print.
context_section_description: Margaret Mitchell used to say that her Gone with The Wind characters were not based on real people, although modern researchers have found similarities to some of the people in Mitchell's own life. Scarlett's upbringing resembled that of Mitchell's maternal grandmother, Annie Fitzgerald Stephens (1844–1934), who was raised predominantly Irish Catholic on a plantation near Jonesboro in Fayette, not unlike the O’Hara family. Mitchell was engaged thrice, although only married twice. Her first engagement was to Clifford Henry, a bayonet instructor at Camp Gordon in World War I. He was killed overseas in October 1918 while fighting in France, similar to O’Hara and her first husband, Charles Hamilton. Mitchell's mother contracted influenza and died shortly before Mitchell could reach home, similar to Ellen O’Hara dying before Scarlett fled Atlanta. Rhett Butler is thought to be based on Mitchell's first husband, Red Upshaw because Upshaw left Atlanta for the Midwest and never returned. Her second marriage was to John Robert Marsh, and they were married until her death in 1949.
caption: Margaret Mitchell
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