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 Klan in the film by referring to it only as a "political meeting". Thomas Cripps reasons that the film in some respects undercuts racial stereotypes; in particular, the film created greater engagement between Hollywood and black audiences, with dozens of movies making small gestures in recognition of the emerging trend. Only a few weeks after its initial run, a story editor at Warner wrote a memorandum to Walter Wanger about "Mississippi Belle", a script that contained the worst excesses of plantation films, suggesting that "Gone with the Wind" had made the film "unproducible". More than any film since "The