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Who really said it

Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn

Not quite — the actual line is “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” Margaret Mitchell 1900–1949 · Atlanta journalist & novelist
Disputed In copyright

Rhett Butler never says her name. On screen in Gone with the Wind (1939) the line is “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” — and the sentence is not the film’s invention: Margaret Mitchell wrote it in her 1936 novel, where the final chapter reads simply “My dear, I don’t give a damn.” The popular version drifts twice over: the adaptation added “Frankly,” and public memory swapped “my dear” for “Scarlett.”

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed wording — copy with the correction

“Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn” Rhett Butler, Gone with the Wind (1939), screenplay credited to Sidney Howard. Adapted from Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel, whose final chapter reads: "My dear, I don't give a damn." The popular "Frankly, Scarlett" is a misquote — Rhett never says her name.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The Stephens Mitchell Trusts (Margaret Mitchell estate) and Macmillan for the 1936 novel; Turner Entertainment Co. (Warner Bros. Discovery) for the 1939 film). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Margaret Mitchell — Atlanta journalist & novelist. Theme: "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where the line actually comes from

Work
Gone with the Wind
First published
30 June 1936 — novel by Margaret Mitchell (New York: Macmillan); Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1937
Spoken by
Rhett Butler (Clark Gable in the 1939 film) — a fictional character, not the author
Screen adaptation
Gone with the Wind (1939), screenplay credited solely to Sidney Howard — with uncredited work by Ben Hecht, Jo Swerling, John Van Druten and David O. Selznick; who added “Frankly” is undocumented

“I wish I could care what you do or where you go, but I can’t.”

He drew a short breath and said lightly but softly:

“My dear, I don’t give a damn.” Chapter LXIII — the novel’s final chapter

This is the sentence as Margaret Mitchell wrote it in 1936 — the last words Rhett speaks to Scarlett in the book. The 1939 film keeps it almost intact and adds one word: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Neither version contains “Scarlett.” Verified directly against the novel’s full text: the phrase “Frankly, my dear” appears nowhere in the book.

Gone with the Wind, full text — chapter LXIII (Project Gutenberg Australia)

How we verified this

  • The film, transcribed. Wikiquote’s Gone with the Wind (film) page ↗ renders the exchange in full — Scarlett: “Rhett, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?” / Rhett: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” No “Scarlett” anywhere in it.
  • The novel, checked directly. Searching the complete text of the 1936 novel ↗ finds the line in chapter LXIII as “My dear, I don’t give a damn.” The string “Frankly, my dear” does not occur in the book at all — an observation from reading the text, not a claim any cited source makes.
  • The correct wording is the celebrated one. AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes ↗ lists “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” — Gone with the Wind (1939) — at #1. Even the canonical list of the line’s fame doesn’t say “Scarlett.”
  • Authorship, honestly. Wikipedia’s production history ↗ records Sidney Howard’s sole screenplay credit and first-ever posthumous Oscar, alongside uncredited passes by Hecht, Swerling and Van Druten and Selznick’s memo claiming most non-book material. Because the sentence itself is Mitchell’s, the author credit here is hers.
In copyright

The novel was first published in 1936 — well after the 1930 US public-domain cutoff — and its copyright was renewed in 1964 by Mitchell’s estate; Penn’s Online Books Page notes it “most likely remains copyrighted under United States law” ↗, where works from 1931 on can run 95 years from publication. The 1939 film is separately in copyright as a work-for-hire of Selznick International / MGM, now held by Turner Entertainment Co.; the text linked above is hosted lawfully by Project Gutenberg Australia, where the novel has been public domain since 1999, and is quoted here only in short extract for identification and commentary.

Fact-check

Two drifts, pulling opposite ways

This line is misremembered in one direction and mis-credited in the other. The public adds a name the character never says; the culture hands a novelist’s sentence to a film.

“Frankly, Scarlett…” Never said

Rhett does not use her name in the line. Wikiquote’s transcription of the film ↗ gives the exchange as Scarlett’s “Rhett, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?” answered with “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” The AFI ranks that wording #1 of all time ↗. “Scarlett” is memory filling in the addressee the line withholds.

The 1939 film / Sidney Howard’s screenplay Borrowed, not coined

The sentence is Margaret Mitchell’s, three years older than the movie. The full text of the 1936 novel ↗ ends chapter LXIII with “My dear, I don’t give a damn.” The adaptation’s contribution is one word. Sidney Howard holds the sole screenplay credit, but Selznick’s October 1939 memo ↗ claimed most non-book material for himself — no source ties “Frankly” to any one writer.

Clark Gable / Rhett Butler Speaker, not author

Gable performed the line and Rhett Butler is a fictional character — neither wrote it. Attributing a line to the actor or the character is the commonest category error in screen quotation; the author is whoever put the words on the page, here Mitchell.

The $5,000 Hays Office fine Myth

Selznick is often said to have been fined $5,000 for the word “damn.” Wikipedia records that although the legend persists ↗, the MPPDA board in fact amended the Production Code on 1 November 1939 — before release — to permit the word in proper historical context or as a literary quotation.

Rhett says “Frankly, my dear” — never “Scarlett.” And he said most of it first in Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel ↗, which reads “My dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Context

The word that nearly didn’t make it

The reason this line is famous is not the phrasing — it is the last word. Hollywood’s Production Code barred “damn,” and the ending of the most anticipated film of 1939 depended on it. The resolution was not, as legend has it, a fine paid for saying it anyway. On 1 November 1939, six weeks before the premiere, the MPPDA board amended the Code to permit “hell” or “damn” where the use “shall be essential and required for portrayal, in proper historical context” — or as a quotation from a literary work. The line went out legally.

That amendment is also the quiet proof of origination. The exemption exists precisely because the words were already in a book. Rhett’s sign-off was not written for the screen; it was lifted from the final chapter of a novel three years old, and sharpened by exactly one adverb.

The film did not write the line. It added a word to it.

Read the full story

Who added “Frankly” is genuinely unknown. Sidney Howard holds the sole screenplay credit and became the first posthumous Academy Award winner after dying in a tractor accident months before release — but the script passed through Ben Hecht, Jo Swerling, John Van Druten and producer David O. Selznick himself. In an October 1939 memo Selznick claimed most of the non-book material as his own, allowing only “a few” lines to Howard, Hecht and Van Druten. No source attributes the specific word to a specific writer, and this page does not either.

In the novel the surrounding beat is quieter than the film’s. Scarlett asks what she will do; Mitchell gives Rhett a paragraph of refusal first, then a short breath, then the sentence — delivered, in her stage direction, “lightly but softly.” The film compresses the exchange and hands the moment to Clark Gable on a staircase.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Freedom Character

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Gone with the Wind (film) — dialogueen.wikiquote.org

Transcribed dialogue. Gives the exchange verbatim: Scarlett’s “if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?” and Rhett’s “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”en.wikipedia.org

The line’s own article: states the novel’s wording as “My dear, I don’t give a damn,” the 1 November 1939 Production Code amendment, and debunks the $5,000 Hays Office fine legend.
Gone with the Wind — full textgutenberg.net.au

The primary text, public domain in Australia. Chapter LXIII contains the originating sentence — “My dear, I don’t give a damn” — with no “Frankly.”
AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movie Quoteswww.afi.com

Ranks “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” from Gone with the Wind (1939) as the #1 movie quotation of all time — in the correct wording.
Gone with the Wind (film) — productionen.wikipedia.org

Documents Sidney Howard’s sole screenplay credit and posthumous Oscar, the uncredited writers, and Selznick’s October 1939 memo claiming most non-book material.
Gone with the Wind — copyright statusonlinebooks.library.upenn.edu

Penn’s catalog record: the novel “most likely remains copyrighted under United States law,” while post-1930 works by authors dead 50+ years are public domain in many countries outside the US.

The author of the real line

Margaret Mitchell

Margaret Mitchell

1900–1949 · Atlanta journalist & novelist

Margaret Mitchell was an Atlanta journalist who wrote a single novel, Gone with the Wind, published by Macmillan on 30 June 1936. It won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and became one of the best-selling novels in American history. She was struck by a car on Atlanta’s Peachtree Street in August 1949 and died five days later, aged 48 — never having written another book. The sentence the world now quotes as a movie line was hers first.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind (New York: Macmillan, 1936), chap. LXIII. Screen adaptation: Gone with the Wind, directed by Victor Fleming, screenplay credited to Sidney Howard (Selznick International Pictures / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, premiered Atlanta, 15 December 1939).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/frankly-scarlett-i-dont-give-a-damn

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