Vivien Leigh friendship developed after he congratulated her on her performance. Olivier and Leigh began an affair while acting as lovers in "Fire Over England" (1937), but Olivier was still married to actress Jill Esmond. During this period, Leigh read the Margaret Mitchell novel "Gone with the Wind" and instructed her American agent to recommend her to David O. Selznick, who was planning a film version. She remarked to a journalist, "I've cast myself as Scarlett O'Hara", and "The Observer" film critic C. A. Lejeune recalled a conversation of the same period in which Leigh "stunned us all" with the assertion that
The Wind Done Gone builders, "Twelve Slaves Strong as Trees". The estate of Margaret Mitchell sued Randall and her publishing company, Houghton Mifflin, on the grounds that "The Wind Done Gone" was too similar to "Gone with the Wind", thus infringing its copyright. The case attracted numerous comments from leading scholars, authors, and activists, regarding what Mitchell's attitudes would have been and how much "The Wind Done Gone" copies from its predecessor. After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated an injunction against publishing the book in "Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin" (2001), the case was settled in 2002 when Houghton Mifflin