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The first time I saw a Scarlett impersonator was when Melly Meadows graced opening night of JapanFest at Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta.
I am nearly 6 feet tall and Meadows' 'Scarlett' was a couple of feet shorter with a wider skirt. My strongest memory of the experience was being sandwiched between the belle's hoops and the backside of then-Mayor Maynard Jackson.
Tony Brown, director of the commercial broadcast division of The Houghton Agency Inc. in Atlanta, says that to qualify for the part of a "Gone With the Wind" impersonator, "it helps to look like Vivien Leigh or Clark Gable first and then to be able to do the person.
"It's a total illusion thing," he adds. "Let's face it. These are the kind of people we would all love to be if we could get away with it.
Every man has a little bit of the rogue in him somewhere just dying to get out, and every woman has a little bit of that independent spirit and that desire to be the most lovely one at the barbecue... It's fun to experience, even if it's just vicariously."
The money's not bad, either. Good Rhett and Scarlett impersonators make between $125 and $150 an hour, with a two-hour minimum. They hire out for corporate parties, receptions or even trips abroad to the Orient, though it is not typically a full-time job.
"As long as the makeup holds up," says Brown, an impersonator can have a long life span as an ersatz Rhett or Scarlett. "But mostly the impersonators grow weary before they move out of the look."
Melly Meadows grew up in Clayton County and started impersonating Scarlett in high school when her family entered her in a Scarlett look- alike contest. From there she went on to do charity work and make appearances in schools and nursing homes. Eventually a phone call came from someone who wanted to hire her for the part that she'd been doing for free.
"My mother took the phone away from me and said, 'Hi, this is Melly's mother, how much?' " she recalls.
"She's [Scarlett] not an impossible character to look like," Meadows points out. "When they went to do the casting for the movie, 20,000 girls came for the part."
Meadows' success in rising to the top as an impersonator may be because she doesn't just look sort of like Scarlett; she's a dead ringer. She's now a full-time Scarlett and even acts as an agent for others.
Meadows still must battle the perception that anyone who would build such a career must be little more than a post-antebellum bimbo.
"I was passing out Sherman matches for the History Center at Underground Atlanta as a promotion just after I'd gotten back from a trip to Japan," Meadows recalls, "and I'd been learning some of the language.
A man in the crowd looked at me funny and then started talking in Japanese. I guess he thought I'd lose my composure. I answered his question back in Japanese and the woman next to him said, 'Oh, my gosh.
The Japanese have bought Scarlett, too.' " If the Japanese indeed bought Scarlett, that's okay, we have plenty more where she came from. Most talent agencies have lots of Scarletts from which to choose.
Rhett Butler impersonators, on the other hand, are not so plentiful. There are only a handful in Atlanta, the capital city of Gone With the Wind.
Mike Johnson was the first Rhett I saw, standing by a bar at a party wearing a cowboy hat and a pencil mustache. He offered to get me a drink. It was a relief when Johnson introduced himself by his real name.
Other impersonators take the part to the limit. David Spawn, a 10- year veteran, does Clark Gable and Rhett Butler and boasts about the parallels between his real life and those of his characters'.
"Clark Gable and I have 126 things in common down to our blood type," he says. "In fact I look at photographs of me when I was a child and I've seen photographs of Clark when he was a child and it's scary. We both have ears that stuck out like a taxi cab going down the street with the back doors open."
Not only does Spawn look like Clark Gable, he has the late actor's mannerisms down pat and owns eight costumes. He also can prove his identity on paper and plastic. "I have an American Express card that says Captain Rhett Butler and it's a good one. I never leave Charleston without it," he says.
While most Rhetts and Scarletts don't go so far as to match the history of their characters, one of the latest Scarletts on the scene, Elizabeth Talmadge, is getting close.
The 19-year-old student at the University of Mississippi has an 18-inch waist, a "barbecue dress" like the white one Vivien Leigh wore in the movie and a promotional picture in front of her grandmother Betty Talmadge's Clayton County home, Lovejoy Plantation. It is thought by many to have been the model for Tara.
Says Elizabeth: "I've always felt an entrepreneurial kinship with Scarlett, and, besides, I needed to make the money to pay my mother back for the dress." | 
