■ artnotes From ‘Reel to Real’ HAM exhibit contrasts Tara, true life. BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK
n The celluloid South, in the form of priceless movie artifacts, will meet the truth of life in antebellum Arkansas headon when the Historic Arkansas Museum opens its “Reel to Real: ‘Gone with the Wind’ and the Civil War in Arkansas” exhibition on Sunday, May 1. Vivien Leigh’s Best Actress Oscar — worth more than $2 million — and costumes from the classic 1939 film, including a suit Clark Gable wore as Rhett Butler, are among the 123 objects from the ShawTumblin Gone with the Wind Collection that will make up the “Reel” part of the exhibit, HAM’s contribution to events marking the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. There will be a projection room as well, featuring screen tests of, among others, Leigh, Butterfly McQueen and the unsuccessful Lana Turner, who lost the role of Scarlett O’Hara to Leigh. Representing the “Real” are treasures from the HAM’s own vaults: Women’s diaries that record the events of the war, letters from soldiers, photographs, weapons, and a Confederate uniform are among the 142 museum objects on display. The South of “Gone with the Wind” was a far cry, the exhibition will show, from pre-Civil War Arkansas, a poor state lacking roads and dependable river transport. But growing cotton wealth and the number of enslaved workers, which numbered 110,000 in 1860, pushed REEL VIVIEN TO REAL ARKANSAN: Contrasting Arkansas into secession on photos in the HAM exhibit tell different stories of the Civil May 5, 1861, nearly 150 War. years ago to the day of the exhibit’s opening. James Tumblin, owner of the collection, offered $20 for it. A card that fell out of the will be in Little Rock for the sold-out screendress indicated it had been created for “Gone ing Wednesday night of the documentary with the Wind.” Fifty years later, Tumblin has “Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind” more then 300,000 GWTW artifacts, which at the Argenta Community Theater. He and he assembled with the help of Dennis Shaw. filmmakers Brent and Craig Renaud will (He said the collection is not named Tumblinhold a question and answer session after Shaw because it sounded like someone fallthe event. Tumblin started the collection in ing down.) 1961 when he picked a costume up off the “Reel to Real” will stay at the museum floor at Western Costumes in Hollywood and until the end of April 2012.
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