Today marks the 73rd anniversary of the publishing of Margaret Mitchell’s epic Civil War novel, Gone With The Wind. I’ve read the book 20 times (that’s 20,960 pages in total, y’all!), watched the movie at least a dozen times, and have gleaned numerous lessons, particularly about relationships, with the turn of every page. I’ll share, after the jump…

Jennifer Hudson will sing the “Star Spangled Banner” at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday. [Pop Eater]

Rumor has it, Cher is in talks to play Catwoman. Check out our list of who should don the leather and claws. [Popbytes]

A British hemophiliac, who contracted HIV in the 1980s, was not told by doctors of his disease, even though those doctors published his medical data in journals. [AOL News]

Three patients have died and a 14-year-old was raped in recent months at the California psychiatric center associated with Dr. Drew Pinsky. [AOL News]

There are signs support for the ban on women drivers in Saudi Arabia is eroding. [AP via AOL Autos]

Fred Crane, the actor that delivered the opening line in “Gone With the Wind,” died of diabetes complications last Thursday. [Pop Eater]

Playboy Bunnies DO go to college, actually. [Boinkology]

 

One of the things my paternal grandmother gave me, besides an addiction to soap operas and a moderate talent for knitting, is a huge appreciation for the genius of Gone With The Wind. I’ve read the book—all 1037 pages of it—20 times and have seen the movie—all 238 minutes of it—double that many times. Put aside the la-di-da approach to slavery, the romanticizing of the Civil War, and the few boring chapters in the middle—it is the best book ever. For those of you who just don’t think you can handle such an in-depth read, or the bed sores that come from sitting through the movie, there’s good news! Gone With The Wind is opening as a friggin’ MUSICAL in London this week and we can only pray that it does so well there, that it comes to Broadway. The producers have managed to cut the script down to a mere 3.5 hours (whatever, that’s like a mini-marathon of Keeping Up With The Kardashians) and the musical’s writer says she stuck more to Margaret Mitchell’s original story than the movie. “The film reflected Depression-era values and completely ignored many things in the novel,” Martin said. “[Scarlett O’Hara] is madly heroic in all she does. Her experience, I think, will resonate with any woman.” We certainly give a damn about it! [CNN]

Not like we have a shot now, but a new biography claims Clark Gable, aka Rhett Butler from Gone With The Wind was gay.  Although The New York Times and a lot of other publications think it’s a load of bull, at the very least it’s karma.  The handsome Hollywood hunk was a notorious homophobe. In fact, that’s one of the reasons they cast queeny Charles Laughton, who regularly brought his boyfriend to the set, to star opposite Gable in Mutiny on the Bounty. The studio thought they could create on screen tension from the behind the scenes brawls. The new novel, Clark Gable: Tormented Star, by celebrity-obsessed author David Bret, now claims the oversexed Gable was publicly overreacting to cover up his prostitution and private predilection for men.  It even asserts that comedienne Carole Lombard, his fourth wife, didn’t mind that he was doing it with her personal designer, William Haines. Scandalous! [After Elton]