A Star Is Born (1937)

 Fredric March and Janet Gaynor in A Star Is Born (1937)

Oscar winner for Best Writing, Original Story, A Star is Born tells the story of a young woman who comes to Hollywood with dreams of stardom. She achieves them only with the help of an alcoholic leading man whose best days are behind him.

During Esther's screen test, she is dressed in an antebellum costume and surrounded by other actors in Civil War uniforms. Producer David O. Selznick had recently bought the rights to adapt Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone With the Wind and was undergoing a highly publicized national search for an actress to play Scarlett O'Hara. In a February 1973 article in The Atlantic, Gavin Lambert wrote that Selznick actually offered the role to Janet Gaynor, but she refused it because she had decided to retire from acting. Indeed, Gaynor made only two more movies after the release of A Star Is Born (The Young in Heart (1938) and Three Loves Has Nancy (1938)) and then did not appear onscreen again until 1953, 15 years later.