Alicia Rhett - obituary - Telegraph While Alicia later insisted that she "enjoyed the experience immensely," she was unsuited to the life of a Hollywood star. An intensely private individual, she lacked the drive and ambition of contemporaries like Joan Crawford or Bette Davis, and went on to reject all subsequent roles from agents and producers as being unsuitable. Though fans continued to hound her with requests for signed photographs seven decades later, letters went unanswered and requests for interviews were seldom granted, earning her the unofficial title of "South Carolina's Greta Garbo." Instead Alicia concentrated her energies on a long-standing talent for painting and soon acquired a considerable local reputation with her portraits of debutantes, society presidents and other members of Charleston's aristocracy . Alicia Rhett was born on February 1 1915 in Savannah, Georgia, and moved with her family to Charleston after the death of her father in the First World War. Her great-grandfather, Robert Barnwell Rhett, was a prominent secessionist politician and owner of the Charleston Mercury newspaper. As a teenager Alicia acted in local productions, but her main ambition was to be an illustrator, and it was while visiting a local newspaper with her portfolio that she first attracted the attention of Kay Brown. During filming of Gone With the Wind Alicia would sketch her fellow cast members between takes. When the film opened in December 1939, many of its principal performers attended the world premiere at Loew's Grand Theatre in Atlanta. However, none of the African-American cast, notably Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen, had been invited in the still-segregated state of Georgia. Hours before the launch, city officials called on MGM to reprint the official programmes, removing the photograph of Hattie McDaniel as "Mammy" from the inside cover and replacing it with a photograph of Alicia Rhett. "I was sad for Hattie," Alicia said during a rare interview in the 1970s. But somehow she managed to rise above it all. She was one of the most generous human beings I ever met. In 2009 there was a 70th anniversary showing of Gone With the Wind in the cinema which had held the original screening, and the organisers asked Olivia de Havilland and Ann Rutherford (Scarlett's sister Carreen in the film) to invite Alicia Rhett. She never replied to their letters. Alicia Rhett was unmarried. Surviving cast members from Gone With the Wind today include 93-year-old Mary Anderson, who played Maybelle Merriwether, and Oliva de Havilland, now 96, who played Melanie Hamilton. Alicia Rhett, born February 1 1915, died January 3 2014