VIVIEN LEIGH – GONE WITH THE WIND STUNTWOMAN DEAD AT 93

The woman who was VIVIEN LEIGH‘s stunt double in 1939 epic GONE WITH THE WIND has died. Hazel Warp stood in for Leigh in all the horseback-riding scenes in the classic and helped to train the horses used in the film. She also tumbled down the stairs of Scarlett O’Hara’s home in a pivotal role in the film. The 93 year old also featured in beloved movies like Wuthering Heights and Ben-Hur. It’s the second Gone With The Wind-related death in as many weeks – actor Fred Crane, who played one of Scarlett O’Hara’s suitors in the movie, passed away on 21 August (08).

Hazel Warp

By KARIN RONNOW Chronicle Staff Writer

Petite and daring Hazel Warp earned her place in cinematic history nearly 70 years ago, when she served as actress Vivien Leigh’s stunt double as Scarlet O’Hara in the epic film, “Gone With the Wind.”

Warp died Tuesday at Evergreen Healthcare nursing home in Livingston. She was 93.

A Sweet Grass County native who became a rodeo trick rider in her teens, Warp stood in for Leigh in all the horseback-riding scenes in the 1939 Civil War movie. She even took a fall for Leigh, tumbling down the stairs of Tara in the famous scene toward the end of the film when Scarlett reaches out to slap Rhett Butler, loses her balance and falls.

“I never will forget it,” Warp said of her Hollywood work in a 2005 interview with the Chronicle. “I liked it, everything about it. I just liked my work.”

Born in Harlowton in 1914, Hazel Hash grew up on a small farm near Melville, attended a one-room schoolhouse and rode horses whenever she could, always bareback. She quit school after ninth grade, started training horses and wound up on the rodeo circuit.

“There was nothing she wouldn’t do and nothing she couldn’t ride,” her brother Bob Hash said in 2005.

In her 20s, she followed her older sister to California, “on a whim,” she said. She took the Greyhound bus all the way.

Her sister and brother-in-law ran Rancho Rio Stables in Culver City, where they bred and trained champion horses and gave riding lessons to the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly and Gary Cooper, Bob Hash said.

Cowboy-actor Montie Montana helped Hazel get into the film business, where her equine expertise and thrill-seeking determination were sought after by directors. She appeared in “Gone With the Wind,” “Wuthering Heights,” “Ben Hur” and “National Velvet,” among others.

“We thought it was tops,” her brother said of her film work.

Her work was recognized in 2001 with a star in front of the Rialto Theatre in Bozeman.

She remained in California until 1965, when she moved to Virginia to be with another sister. She returned to Bozeman four years later, in 1969, to marry Lars Warp, a family friend from Big Timber.

A spokesman for Evergreen said Thursday that, due to federal privacy laws, he could not reveal how Warp had died. Her brother could not be reached for comment.

Funeral services will be held Saturday morning at Sunset Hills Cemetery in Bozeman.

Karin Ronnow can be reached at kronnow@dailychronicle.com or 582.2659.

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Fred Crane, 90; actor who wooed Scarlett in ‘Gone With the Wind’

He played Brent Tarleton in the 1939 film. Crane later became an announcer on L.A. classical music station KFAC.

By Dennis McLellan, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 23, 2008

Fred Crane, a former longtime Los Angeles classical music radio announcer who achieved a slice of film immortality when he played one of the handsome Tarleton twins in the 1939 movie classic “Gone With the Wind,” has died. He was 90.

Crane, who had been hospitalized for a few weeks with complications related to diabetes, died of a blood clot in his lung Thursday in a hospital near Atlanta, said his wife, Terry.

Crane was said to be the oldest surviving adult male cast member of “Gone With the Wind,” producer David O. Selznick’s epic production of the Margaret Mitchell novel starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.

“I’m just a small shard in a grand mosaic,” he told the Atlanta Journal Constitution in 2007.

As Brent Tarleton, one of Scarlett O’Hara’s young suitors, Crane spoke the opening lines in the film in a scene on the front porch of Tara with Leigh as Scarlett and George Reeves as his twin, Stuart.

“What do we care if we were expelled from college, Scarlett?” he says. “The war is gonna start any day now, so we would have left school anyhow.”

After Brent and Stuart express their excitement over the prospect of a fight with the Yankees, Scarlett replies: “Fiddle-dee-dee. War, war, war. This war talk’s spoiling all the fun at every party this spring. I get so bored I could scream.”

When he was cast in “Gone With the Wind,” the 20-year-old Crane hadn’t read Mitchell’s bestselling novel and wasn’t even looking for a role in the film.

“It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time,” Crane later said.

A New Orleans native, Crane attended Tulane University and Loyola University in New Orleans and acted in local theater productions.

In 1938, his mother decided that he should give Hollywood a try, and she gave him $50 and a one-way train ticket.

After arriving in Hollywood, Crane contacted his cousin, former silent film actress Leatrice Joy, who took him along with her to the Selznick studio, where her daughter was auditioning for the role of Scarlett’s sister Suellen.

Evelyn Keyes wound up playing Suellen, but Crane’s Southern accent caught the attention of the casting director, who called director George Cukor, and together they took Crane to meet Selznick.

“I read the opening scene right then and there with Vivien Leigh, and I got the job,” Crane told the Memphis Commercial Appeal in 1999. He was put under a 13-week contract for $50 a week, which was “more money than I thought there was in the world.”

Although he played Brent Tarleton in the film, the screen credits mistakenly list Crane as playing Stuart Tarleton, said Crane’s son David.

The film’s first scene was remade three times, the first time after the Tarleton twins’ dyed red hair was deemed too curly.

The second time came when the film’s Southern technical advisor objected to Scarlett’s low-cut dress in the scene, saying that a girl her age would not be showing so much “bosom” that early in the day.

Crane also appeared in four other scenes in the movie, including the smoking-room scene where Rhett Butler (Gable) lectures the men about the South’s poor odds in fighting a war with the North. To which Crane’s character responds, “What difference does that make, sir, to a gentleman?”

In making the film, Crane and Reeves became good friends, and Reeves served as Crane’s best man at his first wedding in 1940. Years after Reeves, who gained fame as TV’s “Superman,” died in 1959 from a gunshot wound that was ruled a suicide, Crane said he believed “someone shot him to death.”

Ann Rutherford, who played Scarlett’s sister Carreen, told The Times on Friday that Crane and Reeves “did not look exactly alike, but they were both gorgeous as young men. They were extremely attractive.”

Crane was born in New Orleans on March 22, 1918, and became a part-time announcer at Los Angeles classical radio station KFAC in 1946. He continued to act, mostly in television, until the mid-1960s, when he began working full time at KFAC.

Crane, who also became program director of the AM side of the station in the ’70s in addition to hosting his own shows, was among the station’s Old Guard who were fired in 1987 by the station’s new owners. He and the others later won an age-discrimination suit, said Crane’s son.

In 2000, Crane and his fifth wife, Terry, bought an antebellum mansion in Barnesville, a town south of Atlanta. After making renovations, they turned it into a bed-and-breakfast, complete with a “Gone With the Wind” museum with artifacts from the film.

In 2007, primarily due to Crane’s medical problems, the couple auctioned off the home and its memorabilia.

In addition to his wife and his son David, he is survived by children Haydee Crane, Terry Lynn Smith, Shelley Bruehl and Jason Crane; eight grandchildren; and one great grandchild.

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Celebrate with one of the Tarleton Twins!

Previous post deleted, new details are below. If you’d like the official Party Invite to be sent to your email address, please email me at webmistress@vivien-leigh.com. The new details are below. Thanks, Patrisha.

Fred Crane, who was Brent Tarleton in GONE WITH THE WIND, is turning 90!This March you can join in celebrating Fred’s Special Day.  THIS IS A SURPRISE PARTY!  FRED KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT THESE PLANS. 

LOCATION:  Atlanta, Georgia area  

Stone Mountain Marina, Stone Mountain Park

 DATE:  Saturday, March 15

Fred’s Birthday is actually March 22 but that is the day before Easter, so we the party will be a week earlier.

 TIME: Early Evening 

FOOD: Cake, Appetizers

We’ll be celebrating Fred’s 90^th birthday at the Stone Mountain Marina with a live Dixieland Band. As part of the celebration, we’ll be riding the Scarlett O’Hara Riverboat.  There will be a silent auction during the party in order to help offset costs of location venue, food, etc. Autographed items will be available in the auction.  Other surprises are in store!As a keepsake for celebrating with Fred, a photo of yourself with Fred will be taken in front of the Scarlett O’Hara Riverboat for Fred’s 90^th Birthday Bash.  The photos will be printed on site and you’ll be able to take them home with you.

RSVP NEEDED: WE NEED A COUNT FOR THE VENUE SALES DEPARTMENT.  PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO CONFIRM THAT YOU ARE INTERESTED IN ATTENDING TO TERRY CRANE AT: brenttarleton@aim.com  PLEASE INCLUDE “SURPRISE!” IN THE SUBJECT OF THE EMAIL. 

For those who can not or will not be attending, please remember to send a card or well wishes to:

Surprise !

Terry Crane

P.O. Box 937

Barnesville, GA 30204 

Terry is preparing a special birthday scrapbook to include all of the attendees:The scrapbook will be a standard 12” x 12” size.  If you send a photo for the scrapbook, etc. be sure to include all information on the back of the photo.  Please send a GOOD COPY, NOT AN ORIGINAL.PLEASE INCLUDE:

·         Location photo was taken at

·         Date or Approximate Date of photo

·         Names of everyone in photo

·         Anything else significant to photo Terry really needs to hear from anyone that has an interest in attending or this may not get off the ground, but remember it is a SURPRISE for Fred.Thanks so much.

Patrisha,  e-mail: patrisha_henson@yahoo.com
Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have

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