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 (novel) because it is thought to contain some degree of pornography. Slavery in "Gone with the Wind" is a backdrop to a story that is essentially about other things. Southern plantation fiction (also known as Anti-Tom literature, in reference to reactions to Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" of 1852) from the mid-19th century, culminating in "Gone With the Wind", is written from the perspective and values of the slaveholder and tends to present slaves as docile and happy. The characters in the novel are organized into two basic groups along class lines: the white planter class, such as