Fred Crane (actor) Fred Crane (actor) Fred Crane, Herman Frederick Crane, (March 22, 1918 – August 21, 2008) was an American film and television actor and radio announcer. He is probably best known for his role as Brent Tarleton in the 1939 film, "Gone with the Wind", speaking the opening lines in the movie during the opening scene with Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) and Stuart Tarleton (George Reeves). Crane was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1918. Along with his brothers John and Harry, he grew up on General Pershing St. and went to the MacDonough #13 and Alsace Fortier schools. His father
Gone with the Wind (film) the South during the era of segregation, in which white Southerners are portrayed as defending traditional values and the issue of slavery is largely ignored. The film has been described as a "regression" that promotes the myth of the black rapist and the honourable and defensive role of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction, and as a "social propaganda" film offering a "white supremacist" view of the past. From 1972 to 1996, the Atlanta Historical Society held a number of "Gone with the Wind" exhibits, among them a 1994 exhibit titled, "Disputed Territories: "Gone with the Wind" and Southern Myths".