DVD Celebrates Gone with the Wind, Actress Search

Gina Wilhelm Actress - DVD Celebrates Gone with the Wind, Actress Search

Gone With The Wind was first released 70 years ago. A new Ultimate Collector's Edition has been released on DVD and Blu-Ray, and it's a celebration and penance at the same time.

Even when the movie was released, there was some criticism of the movie's stereotyping of black characters, such as Prissy, played by Butterfly McQueen, and the way the movie seemed to glorify slavery.

The movie won the Oscar for best picture, and Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel both won Oscars for their performances.

Hattie McDaniel's Oscar was the first to be awarded to an African American.

The new DVD/Blu-Ray set includes three featurettes. One is "Movieola: The Scarlett O'Hara War," featuring Tony Curtis playing producer David O. Selznick searching for an actress to play Scarlett.

Other featurettes are "Gone With the Wind: The Legend Lives On," which praises the movie, but does present some of the criticisms of the film.

Finally, there is a featurette called "1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year," highlighting the year that brought us "Gone with the Wind," "The Wizard of Oz," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," and many, many more.

Gina Wilhelm Actress

Sandra Bullock Back in Romantic Comedies

Gina Wilhelm Actress - Sandra Bullock Back in Romantic Comedies

After finishing 2002's "Two Week's Notice," Sandra Bullock decided she was done with romantic comedies.

Her explanation was that, "they're not funny, they're not romantic, they're not written well for women anymore...I did the last good one. I'm done."

This, of course, after she'd made several films in the genre, including "While You Were Sleeping," "Practical Magic," and "Forces of Nature."

Then she got the script for "The Proposal."

Bullock turned down the script several times before someone finally convinced her to actually read it.

In the film, she plays a hard-edged Canadian book editor who blackmails her assistant into marrying her so she can stay in the country.

She loved that her character isn't just another girl next door. Instead, she had the sort of mean and politically incorrect lines that sent test audiences gasping.

"Being nice and adorable isn't funny. I enjoyed being a bitch. Everyone does. They are always better written and it's a relief," Bullock explained.

As someone who often gets cast in the "bitch" role and whose favorite part is STILL the Wicked Witch in "The Wizard of Oz," Gina Wilhelm Actress wholeheartedly concurs!

Gina Wilhelm Actress

Marlee Matlin Gives Keynote Speech

Gina Wilhelm Actress - Marlee Matlin Gives Keynote Speech

Academy Award winner Marlee Matlin gave the keynote address at the Council for Exceptional Children Convention and Expo in Seattle Wednesday night.

The deaf actress told the audience of educators that she got where she was because "people like you listened to me."

She said that growing up, her parents taught her to do what she loved, and be accepted doing it.

She told about her start in acting, playing Dorothy in a community theater production of "The Wizard of Oz" at age 13.

Henry Winkler, near the height of his popularity, came to see the show. Matlin insisted on meeting him so she could tell him she wanted to act as well.

Her mother took Winkler aside. She wanted him to speak carefully. She didn't want Marlee to go to Hollywood and be disappointed.

Instead, he told her "Marlee, sweetheart, you can be whatever you want to be." Winkler himself had struggled with undiagnosed dyslexia as a child.

Years later, she has found success, appearing on "Dancing with the Stars," "The West Wing," and of course, winning the Oscar for "Children of a Lesser God."

Gina Wilhelm Actress