Peter Kline
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'Gone with the Wind' Actor Brooks Dies in Calif.
By REUTERS
Filed at 3:22 p.m. ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rand Brooks, the actor who played Scarlett O'Hara's ill-fated first husband in ``Gone with the Wind'' and who gave Marilyn Monroe her first screen kiss, has died at the age of 84, friends and family said on Thursday.
Brooks also appeared as a sidekick in a string of Hopalong Cassidy westerns and played Cpl. Randy Boone in the 1950s TV series ``The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin'' before quitting acting in the 1960s to start up an ambulance business in suburban Los Angeles.
Brooks was one of the few surviving actors with major parts in the 1939 screen classic ``Gone with the Wind.'' But in recent years he revealed his distaste for his role as Charles Hamilton, the Confederate Army officer who marries Vivien Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara on the rebound but dies of measles before ever going into battle.
``It didn't help my career. It hurt it at the time,'' Brooks told journalists in 50th anniversary interviews of the ``Gone with the Wind'' premiere. ``It was such an asinine role. He was so in love it was sickening. I got typecast that way.''
Brooks said he hated his part so much that he voted for ``Of Mice and Men'' for best film in the Academy Awards race that year.
Brooks went on to become a successful leading man, giving Monroe her first screen kiss in the 1948 movie ``Ladies in the Chorus'' -- her first feature film.
Brooks gave up his acting career and in 1966 founded a private paramedic firm that contracted with the city of Los Angeles for emergency services. He sold the company in 1995 and went to live with his second wife, Hermine, on a ranch near Santa Barbara, raising championship horses.
``I love acting, but I hated being an actor. There are demands the public makes on you, and I'm more of a private person,'' Brooks told journalists in 1989.
Brooks died of cancer on Monday at his home. He is survived by his wife, two children and five grandchildren.
