Guest Author - Vance Rowe
There are a lot of Urban Legends not only enveloping Hollywood itself but there are probably many more surrounding the movies that it produces.
The Wizard of Oz
Is anyone else sick of hearing about the munchkin that apparently hung himself during a scene in the movie? I sure am so I set out to see if it was true or not. The many sources that I checked all agree that this event never happened. I have also heard that it was a crewman trying to get out of the scene as he didn't hear the director yell “Action” in time.
The resources that I checked with all say that in order for the scene with Dorothy, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man all came together to have a more outdoorsy feel to it, the producers of the film had borrowed exotic birds from the Los Angeles Zoo and it was either a crane, a stork or an emu spreading its wings. You can also see a peacock roaming around the grassy area when Dorothy and the Scarecrow were oiling up the Tin Man. Obviously, if a munchkin had committed suicide on the set, production would have stopped and the scene would have started over another day when things had settled plus there would have been news stories about it if it had actually happened. One other thing that is fact is that the forest scenes were all filmed before the munchkin scenes so there were no munchkins on the set that day
There is also an urban legend that the coat that the Wizard, Frank Morgan, wore in the movie once belonged to L. Frank Baum, the creator of the Wizard of Oz novels. This one is apparently true. The powers that be wanted Frank Morgan, the Wizard, to wear a tattered coat so a bunch were purchased out of a second hand store. On one particularly warm day, Morgan was fidgeting with his coat and turned one of the pockets out. In it was the name “L. Frank Baum”. Pictures of the coat were taken and sent to a tailor in Chicago who had made the coat and he confirmed that it was indeed Mr. Baum's old jacket. Baum's widow also identified it as belonging to Baum and she was given the coat when production was finished on the movie.
It's also true that Buddy Ebsen of "Beverly Hillbillies" fame was originally playing the role of the Tin Man but almost died during filming as the aluminum powder from the costume coated his lungs and he had trouble breathing.
W.C. Fields was asked to play the Wizard but he and the studios could not come to terms so Frank Morgan played the Wizard as well as four other parts in the movie.
Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch was severely burned during her fiery exit from Munchkin land and her stunt double injured her ankle during a flying broom sequence and the marching guards at the castle are not chanting "O WEE O O WEEEE O" or however you want to say it but in fact are saying, "OH WE LOVE THE OLD ONE!"
How many of you knew these urban legends about the movie? I knew them all except for the coat owned by L. Frank Baum. How uncanny is that?
