I Genuinely Cannot Watch “The Wizard Of Oz” The Same Way After Learning These 19 Facts
Several cast members ended up hospitalized due to on-set explosions or toxic makeup.
This post mentions topics like sexual assault, drug abuse, disordered eating, and depression.
1. First, Dorothy’s ruby slippers were actually silver, just like they are in the book. At the time, the MGM studio execs were so excited about the new film technology, Technicolor, that they ended up changing the shoes to bright red.
MGM / Courtesy Everett Collection / Everett Collection / Everett Collection
The film’s screenwriter, Noel Langley, was the one who suggested the color red because it offered a more vibrant contrast with the yellow brick road.
2. And Dorothy’s iconic blue and white gingham dress is actually light blue and pink. The colors were easier to capture in Technicolor.
MGM / Courtesy Everett Collection / Everett Collection / Everett Col
3. Judy Garland was only 16 at the time of filming The Wizard of Oz, and she claimed that studio execs gave her stimulants and sleeping pills so that she could keep up with show business’s fast-paced environment.
MGM / Courtesy Everett Collection
Judy told biographer Paul Donnelly that she was given the pills “to keep us on our feet long after we were exhausted… then knock us out with sleeping pills… then after four hours they’d wake us up and give us the pep pills again so we could work 72 hours in a row. Half of the time we were hanging from the ceiling, but it was a way of life for us.”
4. Judy also struggled with her weight and disordered eating throughout her life. MGM execs reportedly called her “a fat little pig with pigtails.” She was put on a strict diet of chicken soup, black coffee, cigarettes, and diet pills to stay thin while filming The Wizard of Oz.
MGM / Courtesy Everett Collection / Everett Collection / Everett Collection
“Most of her teen and adult life, she had been on either Benzedrine or a diet or both,” Judy’s ex-husband Sid Luft wrote in his memoir, Judy and I: My Life with Judy Garland. “Unlike other actresses, she could not successfully camouflage extra weight, especially because she was dancing and singing in revealing costumes. Just 4 feet 11 ½ inches, she could be underweight and still appear heavy or out of proportion on screen.”
5. Margaret Hamilton — the Wicked Witch of the West — got second-degree burns on her face and third-degree burns on her hand after a stunt went wrong.
MGM / Courtesy Everett Collection
In the scene, she was supposed to make a fiery exit from Munchkinland, but when the trapdoor didn’t open, she was engulfed in flames and spent six weeks recovering. Later, she returned to production and said, “I know how this business works, and I would never work again. I will return to work on one condition — no more fireworks!”
6. And the green makeup used for the Wicked Witch of the West was toxic, so Margaret needed to be on a strict liquid diet.
MGM / Courtesy Everett Collection / Everett Collection / Everett Col
Jack Young, one of the movie’s makeup artists, confirmed that the paint was toxic because there was copper oxide in it. “Every night when I was taking off the Witch’s makeup, I would make sure that her face was thoroughly clean. Spotlessly clean. Because you don’t take chances with green,” he said. He added that he had to be extremely careful, too, because she was already covered in burns.
7. Betty Danko played the Wicked Witch’s stunt double, and she also landed in the hospital after a pipe in her character’s broomstick exploded.
MGM / Courtesy Everett Collection
At one point in the movie, smoke comes out of the witch’s broomstick. To make the effect happen, a pipe was attached to the broomstick’s saddle, but it exploded during a practice run. “I felt as though my scalp was coming off. The explosion blew me off the broomstick.” Among other injuries, there was a “two-inch-deep wound that nearly circled Danko’s leg, which was full of bits of her costume,” Betty explained. She spent 11 days in the hospital recovering from the incident.
8. Buddy Ebsen was originally cast as the Tin Man, but the aluminum dust from the silver makeup made him extremely sick and nearly killed him. He was hospitalized nine days after filming began and forced to be replaced by Jack Haley. Years later, he claimed to have breathing problems for the rest of his life because of “that damned movie.”
Ted Allan / Getty Images
According to the Sun-Sentinel, he woke up one night “screaming from violent cramping in his hands, arms, and legs. When he had difficulty breathing, his wife called an ambulance and rushed him to the hospital. He remained in an oxygen tent for two weeks, recovering from the pure aluminum he had ingested into his lungs.”
After he was replaced, the makeup team switched to aluminum paste makeup, which was less toxic.
10. Ray Bolger, who played the Scarecrow, had burlap scars around his mouth and chin from the facial prosthetics he wore.
Courtesy Everett Collection / Everett Collection / Everett Collection
11. One day, an actor playing one of the Wicked Witch’s soldiers accidentally jumped on the dog who played Toto. They had to get a canine double because the dog, whose name was actually Terry, sprained her foot.
MGM / Courtesy Everett Collection
However, she recovered quickly and ended up returning to set a few weeks later.
12. The MGM studio execs were against using real paint to color the Emerald City horses, so they ended up using Jell-O powder.
MGM
They originally tried painting the horses with food coloring but found “the colors were not subtle enough.” They got the right coloring with Jell-O powder but “the horses invariably managed to lick off most of the Jell-O between shots.”
13. Judy Garland, who is now considered one of the most famous entertainers of the 20th century, reportedly earned $9,600 for The Wizard of Oz. Due to inflation, that amount would be around $218,000 today.
MGM / Courtesy Everett Collection
14. Though she had less screen time, Margaret Hamilton reportedly earned $21,000 for her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West. That would be an estimated $476,000 today.
MGM / Courtesy Everett Collection
After getting burned on set, Margaret was out recovering for six weeks and she still got paid.
15. Terry, the dog who played Toto, was reportedly paid $125 a week. That’d be about $2,800 adjusted for inflation. Margaret Pellegrini, who played a munchkin in the movie, said she’d only gotten paid $50 a week for her work on the movie. Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $1,100 per week.
MGM / Courtesy Everett Collection, Dan Tuffs / Getty Images
16. Because of an incident where an actor got stuck in a toilet for 45 minutes, MGM hired attendants to help the Munchkin actors use the restrooms.
MGM / Courtesy Everett Collection / Everett Collection / Everett Collection
Billy Curtis, one of the Munchkin actors, remembered the event, saying, “They had to clean him off like he was a baby.” Margaret Pellegrini, one of the last surviving Munchkin actors, said, “It was the first time I’d ever had anybody help me go to the bathroom. But the costumes were so unhandy.”
17. The male Munchkin actors would often harass Judy on set. Sid Luft alleged that some of the actors sexually assaulted her by putting their hands under her dress.
MGM / Everett Collection
In his memoir, he wrote that the older male Munchkin actors were “naughty.” He also revealed that many of them spent their downtime at bars “were disorderly as hell, yelling and screaming.” He explained one instance in particular, “The next day, on the set, hungover, they would make Judy’s life miserable by putting their hands under her dress.”
18. Sid Luft also revealed that some of the Munchkin actors were arrested in between and needed to be bailed out so they could appear on set. The studio hired a lieutenant to watch over them.
MGM / Courtesy Everett Collection / Everett Collection / Everett Col
“[They] thought they could get away with anything because they were so small,” he wrote, and “many of them would wind up in jail and have to be bailed out.” He added, “you couldn’t lock them up for long because they were needed on the set.”
19. Finally, the “snow” from the movie’s poppy field scene was actually asbestos.
MGM
