Garland earned concerning $500 a week for your role, nevertheless it produced your ex a huge star.W....

1. Look Back at Making of 'Wizard of Oz'
Garland earned concerning $500 a week for your role, nevertheless it produced your ex a huge star.
W.C. Consequently MGM looked to their own "little hunchback," the actual nickname your studio
had given to Garland, whom they'd been grooming. Yet the flames erupted also soon, catching the
woman's hat along with broom about fire. Right After delivering the girl line, "I'll allow you to
become able to get my pretty, as well as your little dog, too," Hamilton had been supposed to end up
being able to disappear in to end up being able to a concealed elevator below happens just as flames
shot up. MGM acquired the actual screen rights for the e-book within 1937.
It would consider more than a dozen screenwriters -- many of them uncredited, such as the
particular Cowardly Lion's Bert Lahr along with poet Ogden Nash -- to always be able to arrive up
with almost all the finished screenplay pertaining to "Wizard of Oz." The first in order to have a
crack in it, former newspaper reporter Herman Mankiewicz, knocked out a treatment throughout
four days. Fields ended up being the very first option to try out your Wizard, however Harmetz said,
"the studio wouldn't meet his price." Instead, MGM looked to contract player Frank Morgan. I take it
simply because it is."
Before heading off to start to see the latest Wizard throughout "Oz the Great and also Powerful,"
which in turn opens today, continue reading to learn more about the original "Oz" and the film that
almost wasn't.
After several failed careers, such as actor and also salesman, and also declaring bankruptcy, author
L. The Lady has been so thoughtful and considerate. I didn't even know there have been some other
small people," mentioned Duccini, that played any Munchkin villager. Your book took more than as
bestselling children's e-book with regard to a couple of years as well as triggered stage shows along
with a group of Oz books. "They mentioned give me each f***ing midget you are usually able to find,"
recalled Maren, the initial for you to welcome Dorothy to Munchkinland. "That was obviously a large
quantity of fun. "Her face has been terribly burned and he or even she had been out for 6 weeks,"
Harmetz said. Frank Baum hit a goldmine when he printed "The Fantastic Wizard of Oz" throughout
1900. Yet even the particular double expended per week inside the hospital following she ended up
being blown off the witch's broomstick when it exploded.
Buddy Ebsen, that later on became famous as Jed Clampett throughout TV's "The Beverly Hillbillies,"

2. has been originally cast because the Tin Man. Although launched in order to significantly fanfare, it
lost funds until 1956, when MGM leased it for you to CBS, which usually began showing it on
television every year and also turned it right directly into a cultural phenomenon.
Even much more surprising: Judy Garland, that played Dorothy and continued to be a huge star,
wasn't the actual studio's very first choice. Thus Toto got the stand-in whilst the girl paw healed.
The star canine whose real name had been Terry however ended up being later changed for you to
Toto simply because with the film's popularity earned $150 any week, less than his human co-stars
nevertheless a lot a lot more than the actual little individuals who played Munchkins.
"Over Your Rainbow," the particular movie's nearly all iconic song, nearly didn't ensure it is in. They
Will were creating characters that had in zero way been on the screen before. Though he would get
an Oscar regarding "Citizen Kane" a year later, his "Oz" was a mess. "There had been the number of
compromises all the means through, and yet your compromises sometimes produced the film better.
As yet yet another spinoff involving "The Wizard of Oz" arrives within theaters, it's nearly hard to
think that the original film, which in turn premiered 74 years ago, was, in many ways, a new near
disaster.
The 1939 classic took greater than a dozen screenwriters, 3 directors, 6 soundstages, 23 weeks for
you to shoot and value nearly $3 million -- MGM's priciest film that will year. Shirley Temple, then a
big star, was. Today 93, he even sang a couple of bars in the "Lollipop Song."
Maren, who was 16 at the time, mentioned Garland had been "an angel. The first lasted per week
and also half prior to he has been fired. she has been thus wonderful in order to us. "But a little got
in his eye, and your man got an infection."
Even Toto did not escape injury. "Cukor said, 'Take that will blonde locks off her along with scrub
her face clean. As Well As that will comes by means of inside the scene."
"I realize they're able to by no means make yet another movie similar to that," mentioned Duccini,
who played among your Munchkin villagers when the girl has been 20. Although Ebsen had been
hospitalized, actor Jack Haley ended up being swiftly hired to exchange him.
"When Haley took over, that they used an aluminum paste instead," Harmetz said. "It would have
been a significantly distinct wizard with W.C. "What amazes me may be the fascination with it. they
were doing fresh things. "It was a strange treatment -- about Kansas -- and discarded immediately,"
Harmetz said.
The film went via three directors. In 16, your woman was believed to be too huge and also too old.
Nevertheless he designed a near-fatal reaction to the aluminum powder in his silver makeup. As
Well As "Over your Rainbow," which took more than as film's iconic song, nearly didn't allow it for
you to be in.

3. "There had been problems most along, but mostly since this is uncharted ground," stated Aljean
Harmetz, author involving "The making with the Wizard regarding Oz," the particular definitive e-
book around the film. Fields," the lady said. "I'm unsure you'd have got believed him like a
frightened small man."
To produce Munchkin Land, MGM ended up hiring 124 small people. "That ended up being the
biggest factor for me personally -- had been meeting most of these various other little people."
These days, Duccini said, it's hard to watch your classic film "because everyone's going -- all my
buddies are no longer here."
Garland assisted spread your rumors of wild Munchkin events off the actual set, yet Harmetz said
these folks were component of the PR machine that will constructed nearly almost all of the behind-
the-scenes stories.
Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West, almost went up in flames. Though the
lady ended up being previously on the chicken-broth-only diet, the actual studio insisted the girl
wear any corset along with tied down your ex breasts in order to hide her figure, Harmetz said.
"They went as well as got em."
"I has been 20 years old at the time, raised in the small city in Minnesota. Once, a new wind machine
blew the small Cairn Terrier across the floor. The Newest Yorker said it had "no trace regarding
imagination, great taste or integrity" and also the New Republic stated it was filled with "freak
characters." Nonetheless, it was nominated for six Oscars, and won regarding greatest original score
and finest song for "Over the particular Rainbow."
Garland additionally received a unique "juvenile" Oscar, to which usually she joked that they wasn't
adequate to have an "adult" award.
. Nevertheless she had been under contract to acquire a competing studio, which in turn refused for
you to loan her out. There's nonetheless so much fascination with it. people enjoy in which movie."
"It provides stood test associated with time," said Harmetz, whose guide will be launched in the new
edition this fall -- with time for that movie's 75th anniversary. Though he didn't direct the particular
film, George Cukor does set happens with regard to Victor Fleming, who'd helm nearly all of the
actual movie. This is just any little girl.'"
Fleming followed in which course along with stayed upon as director up until the Kansas sequences,
when he got known as over to replace, ironically enough, Cukor as director regarding "Gone with all

4. the Wind." King Vidor completed the actual filming involving "Oz."
Garland had not really been MGM's initial choice for Dorothy. Studio chief Louis B. However lyricist
Yip Harburg lobbied heavily because involving it and was able to persuade Mayer to leave it in.
When it came out, "Oz" has been neither a commercial as well as critical success. Although Cukor
advised Harmetz which "this wasn't his type of thing," he did do costume exams regarding Garland,
who have been fitted using a blonde wig and hefty makeup. "They had been creating new techniques
to complete the particular special effects. That ended up being the early times of Technicolor, which
had only existed 3 years."
For a couple of of the three surviving diminutive actors that played Munchkins, it was certainly 1 of
the best experiences involving their particular life.
"It has been wonderful," Jerry Maren, your Munchkin in the center whom famously welcomes
Dorothy in order to Munchkinland through handing the woman's any lollipop, told ABCNews.com.
Your Woman has been lovely in order to everybody."
"The purpose that will scene is indeed good happens because we truly does enjoy it," Ruth Robinson
Duccini, now 95, told ABCNews.com. Mayer almost took it out as they believed "you can't get
certainly 1 of the actors performing in the barnyard," Harmetz said. An Additional time, among the
particular Wicked Witch's guards accidentally stepped on the dog's paw and also broke it. "Luckily
she wasn't replaced, however merely because they didn't require your ex during individuals 6
weeks."
When your woman returned, your ex stunt double took over your fire scenes