This is a work of fiction, with invented details and characters, and I have taken liberties with some facts and time sequences—although the central structure, many anecdotes, and key dates are accurate. Also, descriptions and dialogue from the actual filming of scenes from Gone with the Wind have been compressed. As for quotes, Carole was a wonderfully colorful talker, and much of what she actually said has made its way into my book. Thank you, Carole.
I also owe thanks to Catherine Wyler for lending me her mother’s unpublished memoir. Margaret Tallichet was befriended by Carole Lombard and given a screen test for the part of Scarlett O’Hara, and her remembrances of that time were a delight to read. She later married producer and director William Wyler.
My grateful thanks to Judy Silber, the daughter of Sam Jaffe, a legendary agent and producer in Hollywood, who lent me her father’s delightfully juicy memoir, an oral history now in the archives of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
And once again, a salute to my treasured manuscript readers, who keep me from falling on my face: Mary Dillon, Ellen Goodman, Irene Wurtzel, Judy Viorst, Margaret Power, Lynn Sherr, and Linda Cashdan.
Esther Newberg, you have been behind me every step of the way for a long time. Nobody could ask for a better agent.
Melissa Danaczko, as my editor, you wield your red pencil with intelligence and care—always tuned in to what I am trying to do and finding ways to help me say it better.
And always, my thanks to my husband, Frank Mankiewicz, who grew up in that house on Tower Road in Beverly Hills. With both a pencil—drawing the layout of his family home for me—and his memories, he helped bring me back into that time between the wars when Hollywood shone so brightly and brilliantly.
It’s been a privilege and a pleasure to visit there.