Miss India Is Gone, Darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                       "I Do hate you. You've done everything you can
                                                          to lower the prestige of decent people."
                                                       --Alicia Rhett to Vivien Leigh in "Gone With
                                                           The Wind" (1939)

                                                Could I be guilty of murder, girls??????????  Not even a month after Joan Fontaine's passing, mentioning her sister, Olivia De Havilland, not to mention using "Gone With The Wind:" to end my 2013 posts, and then writing about its 75th Anniversary this year, Alicia Rhett, who played India Wilkes in the Civil War classic, has up and died!

                                                   At 98, she was the film's oldest surviving cast member, one year older than the still surviving Olivia De Havilland!!!!!!!!!!

                                                  Her performance in the film is perfect.  It is all the remarkable, once I discovered, years later, she was an acting novice, who had never appeared in front of a film camera before, in her life.  And never did, again!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                    She was Georgia born, a true Southerner, from Savannah.  After losing her father at an early age, during the World War I years, she and her mother moved to Charleston, South Carolina, which was to be her home, for the rest of her life!

                                                       As a young girl, she did some local theater, and with talent scouts for GWTW on the prowl all through the South, she was snapped up, and was one of the thousands to try out for Scarlett.  She did not have it for that role, but Selznick and others must have seen something in her, so she was cast in the small, but important, role of India Wilkes, Ashley's brother, and Scarlett's arch enemy!!!!!!!  She did such an outstanding job she was offered a contract to do more films.  But the gracious Southern gal just smiled, said she had enjoyed her "delightful Hollywood adventure," then packed up and returned to Charleston, where Miss Alicia became an artist, and cultural patron, remaining unmarried, but loved by all!

                                                        She died, Friday,  of apparent natural causes!  Hell, she WAS 98!!!!!!!!  Too bad she did not make it to the Century mark!  I was hoping she would!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                         I mourn the passing of Alicia Rhett with all the respect I can muster.
But, I have to wonder.

                                                        Is Olivia killing everyone off?????????????