“My God, Scarlett O’Hara!” said Tony peevishly. “When I start out to cut somebody up, you don’t think I’d be satisfied with scratching him with the blunt side of my knife, do you? No, by God, I cut him to ribbons.”
Anthony "Tony" Fontaine is the youngest son of Dr Fontaine and the younger brother of Joe and Alex Fontaine of Mimosa. He is a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Appearance[]
Like his brothers, Tony is dark-haired and swarthy. He has a long beard after returning from the war on a mule.
Biography[]
Tony Fontaine was raised at Mimosa plantation with his parents, brothers and grandmother Mrs Fontaine. When he was a child, it was joked that he and his two older brothers should one day marry Scarlett O'Hara and her two younger sisters, Suellen and Carreen.
As they grew up, however, the O'Hara's preferred the company of the Tarleton brothers, while the Fontaine brothers got acquainted with the Munroe girls (Alice, Sally, Dimity and Letty Munroe). At one point, Tony Fontaine shot Brent Tarleton in the leg, possibly because Carreen O'Hara and he had fallen in love.
In 1861, the Civil War started and at The Battle of Gettysburg, Tony's brother Joe died, leaving a widow Sally and a young son Joe Fontaine Jr. After returning from the war with his brother Alex, Tony tried to work the fields at Mimosa though he had little talent for agriculture. Scarlett O'Hara lied to Frank Kennedy that his love Suellen (Scarlett's sister) was marrying Tony Fontaine. Doing this, she herself secured Frank Kennedy's hand in marriage. Tony told Frank of Scarlett's deceit when they both joined the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1866, Mimosa was visited by its former foreman Eustis who allegedly startled and insulted Sally Munroe in the kitchen. As a response, Tony chased Eustis and killed him, then riding on to murder Jonas Wilkerson, a Yankee sympathiser.
Fellow Klan member Frank Kennedy helped him escape to Texas with a horse and ten dollars. After this, he was never seen in Georgia again. It is unknown if he kept in touch with his remaining brother Alex.
Trivia[]
- Tony Fontaine is argueably the most violent of Scarlett O'Hara's former neighbours. He shot Brent Tarleton in the leg, shot Eustis to death and stabbed Jonas Wilkerson to death in addition to various crimes committed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
- In the film version of Gone With the Wind, Scarlett still lies to Frank that Suellen is betrothed to another, but she doesn't name Tony specifically.