We all know the story: Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Lion, the Witch and so on. Perhaps the original Wizard of Oz comes to mind – 1939, Judy Garland as Dorothy, etcetera. And yet, this film that is iconic and creative at surface level has, in fact, multiple sinister layers…
Judy Garland might have played Dorothy to perfection, but her experience on set was far from that. Garland was placed on many diets, the first being to consume only chicken soup, black coffee, and cigarettes in order to maintain her weight, along with ‘pep pills’ to reduce her appetite. Although she had taken these pills in her initial films, she increased her dosage of amphetamines and barbiturates to stay as slim as possible for the role of Dorothy. Many say this led Judy Garland to become a drug addict and later take her own life at the age of 47.
Judy Garland’s ex-husband, Sid Luft, had a memoir published that mentioned that Garland was allegedly continually groped by the actors playing the munchkins. Luft wrote: “They thought they could get away with anything because they were so small. They would make Judy’s life miserable on set by putting their hands under her dress. The men were forty or more years old.” In an interview when Garland was asked about the munchkins, she joked about being asked to dinner by a forty-year-old and says that “they got up to a lot”.
As this was before the days of synthetic fur, there was only one option for making an authentic-looking lion costume for the Cowardly Lion, to be worn by actor Bert Lahr: using the hair of a real lion. As it would be impossible to find duplicate lion hides with identical colorations and patterns, Lahr wore one costume primarily through filming. Given the costume’s weight and the fact Lahr was filming under intensely hot Technicolor lights, cinematographer Harold Rosson says the actor thoroughly sweated through his costume each day, so much so that the costume had to be put into an industrial drying bin each night to dry the perspiration.
One night during the rehearsal period, Buddy Ebsen, playing the Tin Man, woke up in bed “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 aluminium that he had ingested into his lungs, from the number of days in makeup as the Tin Man – not to mention that his skin had turned blue. When the studio was told that Ebsen could not immediately return, production replaced him with Jack Haley. Although the aluminium makeup was changed, it still caused Haley a serious eye infection.
Actor Ray Bolger, who played the Scarecrow, on the last day of filming when removing the rubber prosthetics mask from his face, discovered he had burlap scars around his mouth and chin. However, Bolger was relieved to know he was finally free from the mask, which “wasn’t porous, so you couldn’t sweat. You couldn’t breathe through your skin. We felt like we were suffocating.”
Nevertheless, Bolger isn’t the only victim, and is joined by Margaret Hamilton (The Wicked Witch of the West). About a month and a half before filming ended, her friend told her that she looked “so odd”. When Hamilton looked in the mirror, she realised her friend was right, and that her green makeup had sunk into her skin; she said, “It must have been months before my face was really normal again.”
Additionally, while filming the scene in which the Witch disappears in a flash of smoke, the effects crew started their fire before actor Margaret Hamilton had enough time to safely exit the stage. The flames caught on her broom and hat, “scalding her chin, the bridge of her nose, her right cheek, and the right side of her forehead. The eyelashes and eyebrow on her right eye had been burned off; her upper lip and eyelid were badly burned” as well as the skin being burned off her hand. It took her six weeks to recover – but even then, the nerves in her hand were still so exposed that she had to wear green gloves rather than makeup.
So, now you know the unspoken realities of the production of this iconic film. Will your childhood ever be the same?
