The Wizard of Oz: The Official 75th Anniversary Companion

by William Stillman

  MARGARET HAMILTON

  is the villainous Miss Gulch in Kansas, the Wicked Witch of the East during the cyclone, and the Wicked Witch of the West in the Land of Oz.

  FRANK MORGAN

  is Professor Marvel, the Kansas charlatan, as well as the Emerald City gatekeeper, coachman, and throne room sentry. He is also the Wizard of Oz.

  BILLIE BURKE

  is Glinda the Good Witch of the North.

  and

  THE SINGER MIDGETS

  collectively portray the Munchkins, the diminutive inhabitants of Munchkinland.

  “I’VE ALWAYS TAKEN THE WIZARD OF OZ VERY SERIOUSLY, YOU KNOW. I BELIEVE IN THE IDEA OF THE RAINBOW. AND I’VE SPENT MY ENTIRE LIFE TRYING TO GET OVER IT.”

  – JUDY GARLAND

  MERVYN LeROY CONTENDED that Judy Garland was always his first choice for Dorothy, but Nicholas Schenck, president of M-G-M’s parent company, Loew’s Incorporated, pressed for Shirley Temple, who was the nation’s number-one film favorite in 1938. Schenck wanted a “star” name to fill theatre seats and help recoup his company’s substantial investment. In fact, Temple had been suggested for the role several years prior (in November 1935 it had been announced that she would star in a series of Wizard of Oz movies). But Temple was under contract to Twentieth Century–Fox; appearing in M-G-M’s production could only occur through an arranged loan.

  IN THE END, the scenario of Fox lending its most valuable player to Metro was not a consideration. Deanna Durbin had also been rumored for the role, but Universal had other plans for the teenage singing sensation; she was to be cast in a Technicolor version of Cinderella that was never realized.

  Concerned that any deviation from L. Frank Baum’s book would signal disaster, young fans were quick to point out that Judy Garland had dark hair and Dorothy had light-colored hair. “They do take [The Wizard of] Oz so seriously, bless their hearts,” commented author Ruth Plumly Thompson, L. Frank Baum’s successor in writing the series. However, M-G-M didn’t need to institute a nationwide search for a girl resembling the drawings in the Baum book. Instead, reported the Montreal Gazette, “They picked a little girl right from their home lot. Judy Garland . . . needs only years and poundage to become a successor to Sophie Tucker.” Though LeRoy was confident in Garland, the press expressed their concern, wondering if she would be accepted in the role. Columnist Paul Harrison wrote, “[Judy Garland] recently was announced for the role of Dorothy in . . . The Wizard of Oz. The selection drew a good deal of adverse comment, and as much from Judy Garland fans as from anyone else. She herself seems a little uneasy about it. The Dorothy of L. Frank Baum’s stories was a much younger, simpler girl. The assumption is that Judy will introduce swing music into the Emerald City, and will teach the Scarecrow and Tin Man how to do the Big Apple [dance]. Maybe they’ll change the title to The Wizard of Jazz.”

  Playing a “much younger, simpler girl” meant that Garland had to forgo the debutante parts she aspired to. Publicly, Garland had expressed her wish to be acknowledged as an ingenue, and privately, she mortified her mother with her desire to emulate the sensual sophistication of teenage contemporary Lana Turner. Months before The Wizard of Oz broke, Garland’s romantic crush on bandleader Artie Shaw made news. During filming she was absorbed with writing a screenplay, “Blame My Youth,” for herself and her two favorite actors, Robert Donat and Spencer Tracy, in which she plays an aspiring singer who falls for the fiancé of her lady employer (Garland hoped Metro would put it on their 1941 schedule, by which time it had morphed into a radio play, “Love’s New Sweet Song”); and she would confide to columnist May Mann, “Now, if I can just grow up faster—so I can get a real big grown-up part!”

  Before she was Dorothy, fifteen-year-old Judy Garland portrayed a scarecrow for Halloween 1937. By early 1938, Garland was a viable presence in M-G-M films, known for her sparkling personality, comedic timing, and ability to put over a song with whatever emotional impact was required, though jazzy “swing” was her preference. The Wizard of Oz was an important advancement in her career, and she busied herself researching the part.

  But any misgivings Garland may have had about portraying a child were short-lived: she had the lead role in a multimillion-dollar Technicolor film with a cast of seasoned vaudevillians and songs written specially for her. From the outset, it was clear that The Wizard of Oz was Garland’s vehicle, and its production was carefully crafted to showcase her singing and acting talents as no movie previously had. The gravity of carrying the picture did not escape her, as she reflected in an August 1940 interview with Mann: “When I was first told that I was to play Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz with the picture’s budget set at three million dollars, I knew that my entire future rested on my ability to play Dorothy convincingly.”

  In 1939, Garland summarized The Wizard of Oz as the most thrilling production of her career, saying, “Firstly, because I am more or less on my own mettle for the first time, and secondly because the setting is so grotesque that I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.” Garland also compared her advancing adolescence with her new role: “It’s a lot like in The Wizard of Oz . . . The cabin I live in is just plain and drab, y’know, it’s all in black and white. Then one day it’s blown to the Land of Oz and when I open the door the lovely color of everything is like fairyland. You can’t imagine what a contrast it is. That’s about the way it feels to me now that I’m sixteen.” (Garland’s age was shaved by a year in all outgoing publicity to make her considerable talents appear even more prodigious.)

  In L. Frank Baum’s 1907 book Ozma of Oz (second of The Wizard of Oz sequels and Dorothy’s first return to the Land of Oz), Dorothy is made an honorary princess. In an attempt to stay true to this princess prototype, M-G-M’s initial conception of Dorothy’s on-screen character was blond, rouged, and much too precious. From the start of the film’s production, it had been LeRoy’s intention that life should imitate art, reportedly saying, “If Disney can reproduce humans with cartoons, we can reproduce cartoons with humans.” Judy Garland’s appearance was to suggest an animation come to life, in keeping with the original thought that everything—from the scenic backdrops to the Munchkins’ makeup—should be stylized. Even the famous Yellow Brick Road got the cartoon treatment in its earliest rendition: oval cobblestones painted directly on the M-G-M soundstage floor. (The Yellow Brick Road would later be redesigned to appear as if composed of actual bricks, not cobblestones, and was made of Masonite tiles.)

  Illustrator John R. Neill’s blond Dorothy appears as an honorary princess on the cover of The Lost Princess of Oz (1917) and as a paper cutout (1915).

  After Judy Garland was cast as Dorothy in February 1938, Max Factor’s blond wig was ready for her initial hair-and-makeup test for The Wizard of Oz on April 29, 1938. Of her newfound golden tresses, Judy was quoted in October 1938: “I begged Mr. Dawn, head of the makeup department, to let me wear my blond hair to school, but he thought it would be better to wait and spring it as a surprise when the picture starts. I suppose he’s right.”

  Garland’s transformation as Dorothy, with cascading blond tresses and lacquered cosmetics, was in startling contrast to her prior screen appearances. But several accounts quote her as being tickled with the glamorous look. On May 18, 1938, an M-G-M secretary for Judy Garland sent a prepared letter to newspaper editor Disa Chandler, slated for Chandler’s children’s-interests page. “Judy” opens the message by writing of her exciting new appearance for The Wizard of Oz: “I’ll bet when you were a girl, especially if you were brunette, you’d stand in front of a mirror . . . wishing so hard for long blond curls . . . . This morning they took a test of me all dressed up for my role as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. That was the only time in my whole life I ever looked the way I wanted to look.” In an interview with May Mann, Garland said, “[The Wizard of Oz] was always my favorite story, only I never dared even dream that someday I’d be playing Princess Dorothy on the screen. And to make things even better, I’m going to be a blond . .
. Well, I’ve tried [the wig] on, and I can’t even recognize myself in the mirror.”

  In the 1960s, however, Garland revealed a different perspective. “They wanted Shirley Temple for the role,” she explained to United Press International correspondent Vernon Scott. “But they had to settle for me and tried to make me look as much like Shirley as possible. I was fat, had crooked teeth, straight and black hair, and the wrong kind of nose. So they made me wear a corset and a wig, capped my teeth, and put horrible things in my nose to turn it up like Shirley’s. Making that picture was almost the end of me.”

  In a 1962 TV interview with Jack Paar, Garland recalled—with wry wit—this awkward phase of her adolescence, surmising that M-G-M “didn’t know, actually, what to do with [me] . . . you either had to be a Munchkin or you had to be eighteen.” It was reported in September 1938 that to prepare for the role, Garland was “reading every [Wizard of] Oz book she can get her hands on since she was cast as Dorothy.” In order to portray the beloved heroine in the way the public remembered her, Garland aspired to look just as John R. Neill had illustrated Dorothy. By her own accounting, Garland would drop twelve pounds while making The Wizard of Oz, though—in the same breath—she maintained that its production was “the most pleasant time I’ve ever spent.”

  Publicity shots such as this gave some Hollywood journalists the impression that Mickey Rooney was a The Wizard of Oz cast member. Here, Rooney visits the set during Richard Thorpe’s time as director. By one account, Mickey infiltrated a recording session, putting his own energetic spin on the movie tunes in a close-harmony duet with Judy Garland. The Wizard of Oz was still within Rooney’s consciousness during the making of Andy Hardy’s Private Secretary (1941), when, for a high school play sequence, he was made up as Apollo in a Greek tunic and skirt with a blond wig and beard. Quoted columnist Harrison Carroll, “Mickey himself thinks he looks like the head Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz.”

  “Princess Dorothy.” On the first day of filming, Judy Garland, in her blond wig and lacquered cosmetics, holds her mark as Technicolor cameraman Allen Davey takes a light meter reading just prior to shooting close-ups for the scene when Dorothy first encounters the Scarecrow. This is the only color photograph known to have survived from Richard Thorpe’s tenure as director.

  A vigorous exercise regime of swimming, tennis, hiking, and badminton was imposed upon Garland by her studio-appointed “athletic conditioner,” or personal trainer, Barbara “Bobbie” Koshay. Koshay was on the 1928 Olympic swim team, but she also served as Garland’s camera double on The Wizard of Oz and, later, Babes in Arms. (Caren Marsh was Garland’s stand-in for blocking scenes and lighting tests.) Koshay’s qualifications were unique but not coincidental: she was in close proximity to Judy by day and monitored her after hours. Via workouts, boating and diving on Balboa Bay, couture shopping at Bernie Newman’s, or taking in the amusement concessions at Ocean Park, Koshay kept Garland under careful watch. (These were not typical “girlfriend” activities; at nearly twice Garland’s age, Koshay was not a peer.) Once Garland’s ideal weight was achieved—and Koshay’s work on Babes in Arms completed in July 1939—Koshay’s “duties” were retired and she was said to be opening a Hollywood swim school. The job of keeping tabs on Garland’s extracurricular activities then fell to M-G-M publicist Betty Asher, who was just five years Garland’s senior.

  A 1938 advertisement for forthcoming Technicolor productions included The Wizard of Oz, accompanied by an illustration of Judy Garland’s and Margaret Hamilton’s characters as they appeared during tests and preliminary filming that October.

  Thankfully, Garland’s unnatural princess look was restored to a more realistic style. In November 1939, American Girl magazine reported: “Before the picture started, Judy was thrilled because she was going to be very beautiful in a wig of long, golden curls. The wig was made, and the first scenes of The Wizard of Oz were shot with Judy proudly wearing it; but after a look at the first preview shots in the projection room, it was decided to scrap all of Judy’s scenes and have her do them over again—minus the wig. It made her look beautiful enough, yes—but she didn’t look at all like Judy.” Nor did she look like Dorothy, who was, as interim director George Cukor said, “just a little girl from Kansas.”

  At interim director George Cukor’s advisement, Garland’s appearance was simplified, though her hair, makeup, and wardrobe as Dorothy still seem the subject of indecision in no less than ten trials on October 26, 1938. Cukor also coached Garland into simplifying her delivery by reminding her to play it straight; she was to be awed by the Ozites—not be akin to them—as though she was truly an average Midwestern juvenile displaced into the Land of Oz.

  Once the blond curls were discarded, Garland was able to abandon the pretentious airs that had affected her performance as Dorothy. As mentored by Cukor, her delivery—like her appearance itself—became more authentic, and members of the The Wizard of Oz crew, observing every take from behind the camera, were impressed. Electrician Raymond Griffith recalled Garland’s tear-jerking performance, saying, “I remember her . . . locked up in the castle by the old witch, singing ‘Over the Rainbow’ [in reprise]. Boy, it really got you.” Web Overlander, Garland’s makeup artist, inscribed Garland’s own copy of The Wizard of Oz with a drawing of a miniature Oscar® engraved “Judy Garland,” accompanied with the notation, “1939 for you, I hope.” Garland would, in fact, win a juvenile Academy Award® .

  Even before The Wizard of Oz was released, buzz about Garland’s performance motivated M-G-M to proclaim in its campaign literature, “Judy Garland gives one of the screen’s greatest child performances of all time as Dorothy.” Such plaudits were a mixed blessing for the child star, who desired the acting caliber of Bette Davis. Though she played the role of a simple country girl, her performance forecast adult-sized talent. Reporter Paul Harrison wrote, “Metro kept her in pigtails and short skirts as long as possible, but the cleverest movie magicians on The Wizard of Oz couldn’t make her look little-girlish in the role of Dorothy. She’ll have only ingenue parts from now on.” Journalist Lucie Neville reported, “There’ll be no more pigtailed little girl parts such as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz—just starring roles as near her own age and type as Metro can find.” And indeed, with the exception of portraying Meet Me in St. Louis’s teenage Esther Smith (who at least had a love interest), Garland would never again be expected to act a part considerably younger than her own age.

  It is inconceivable today to imagine anyone other than Judy Garland as Dorothy. Her performance has endeared her to millions worldwide; children seem to love her most of all, both then and now. (In December 1939, actor Spencer Tracy’s six-year-old daughter, Susie, had seen The Wizard of Oz three times. When Tracy asked, “Won’t you see my picture three times?” Susie replied, “I will if you’ll make one with Judy Garland.”) As Garland herself noted, “[The Wizard of Oz] covers all ages—little children, people my own age, and older people. It pleases them. I think Dorothy is a darling character. Just darling.”

  Hairdressing reference stills show right, rear, and left views of Judy Garland’s finished coif on November 3, 1938. “I had a cinch so far as makeup was concerned,” Garland related in a 1939 New York Post interview. “The makeup wasn’t very different from the way it is in other pictures . . . But everything else was difficult. On account of the color there were so many retakes. The picture took half a year to make.”

  ...AND OTHER DOUBLE TAKES

  “THE RUBY SHOES APPEAR ON DOROTHY’S FEET, GLITTERING AND SPARKLING IN THE SUN.”

  –NOTATION IN THE MAY 14, 1938, SCRIPT DRAFT FOR THE WIZARD OF OZ

  IN BAUM’S BOOK, Dorothy’s magical shoes are silver and make a tinkling sound as she walks. But to take full advantage of the movie’s Technicolor photography, the silver shoes became the Ruby Slippers—as the color red was the most effective contrast against the bright Yellow Brick Road.

  Contrary to modern mythologies, it is not Judy Garland wearing the fabled red slippers in cl
ose-up frames of the shoes—including those of Dorothy tapping her heels together. Rather, it is Garland’s double who dons the famous footwear in such scenes. Because she was a juvenile, Garland’s on-set time was rigidly restricted to accommodate four hours of work, three hours of school, and one hour of recreation, as required by California law; even her press interviews usually occurred at luncheon. There was simply no pragmatic rationale to consume Garland’s time for insert shots of indistinguishable body parts.

  Judy Garland’s double was also used for rear and long shots, and other insert shots where the star’s face wasn’t visible, such as Toto at Dorothy’s feet and in her arms. Garland’s double also performed the physical stunts required for the part of Dorothy. These include the scenes of her tumbling into the pigpen, being borne aloft by the Winged Monkeys, and climbing out of the Wizard of Oz’s balloon and leaping to the platform below.

  “LONG AFTER I’M GONE, I WILL BE REMEMBERED AS THE SCARECROW.”

  –RAY BOLGER

  THOUGH OTHER HISTORIES of the film say Ray Bolger was cast as the Tin Man at first, he was in fact originally selected to play the Scarecrow. One version of the announcement was headlined in Edwin Schallert’s March 7, 1938, column, “Bolger Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz”—published long before the Tin Man role was formally filled. (In fact, the only two actors Schallert cites as officially set for The Wizard of Oz are Garland and Bolger.) But at some undetermined point, Bolger was recast as the Tin Man.

  The Wizard of Oz presented M-G-M’s makeup chieftain Jack Dawn with his greatest challenge: how to transform actors into fictional creatures without masks or head coverings that would conceal their identities and facial expressions. Light makeup was first considered for the Scarecrow, in keeping with the concept that the character was just a human dullard capable only of monitoring cornfields. Once this idea was abolished, Dawn next determined how Ray Bolger could inhabit a burlap sack but still resemble Ray Bolger. His watercolors, inspired by W. W. Denslow’s illustrations, provide a rare glimpse of the artist’s creative evolution from drawing board to reality. Additional early makeup and wardrobe tests for the Scarecrow appear below.