The Wizard of Oz: The Official 75th Anniversary Companion

by William Stillman

  Buddy Ebsen was then slated to play the role of the straw-stuffed Scarecrow before he swapped parts one last time with Ray Bolger. One 1938 account describes an early Ebsen/Scarecrow test: “They gave [Buddy] some raggedy clothes and had tufts of straw sticking out here and there. He said he felt like he was going to a party. The suit has been remade, of quilting, and the straw seems to be falling out of it. Shaggy-haired Ebsen actually looks like a scarecrow (although an awfully well-fed one) now.”

  RAY BOLGER

  Once he was permanently assigned to the Scarecrow role, Bolger began wardrobe tests wearing the heavily padded outfit Buddy Ebsen had also test-worn for the same part. But Bolger was known for his limber “rubber legs,” and the quilted costume was not conducive to his style of dancing. Less restricting jackets and trousers were designed to accommodate Bolger’s eccentric movements. The dancer reportedly lost nine pounds during the course of filming—those loose-limbed movements required much exertion. “The looseness of the costume helped give the jointless effect which is further carried out by tricks in posture,” Bolger explained. The dancer’s pratfalls and collapses were equally calculated. “The falls,” he said, “are a matter of training as an acrobat trains. . . . I learned them early in my stage work. Every fall has its own method and, once learned, can be performed without injury.” Out of the three costumes of Dorothy’s traveling companions, Bolger’s was by far the most comfortable. “Except when I have to dance,” Bolger reported. “Then my face gets so hot it seems like it’s going to explode.” (Bolger’s makeup sealed off his facial pores and he couldn’t properly perspire.)

  Ray Bolger’s affinity for the Scarecrow was reflected in his personal inscriptions of the 1938–1939 era; he often signed his name accompanied by a stick-figure drawing of the straw man or his newly appointed title, “The Scarecrow.” Bolger was genuinely appreciative of his time spent on the set of The Wizard of Oz, and he held sincere affection for Judy Garland. In Garland’s copy of The Wizard of Oz inscribed by the cast and crew, Bolger wrote of his “very great admiration [of Garland] as an actress, a little lady, and a lot of fun to work [with]. Lots of love and success.”

  A portrait of Ray Bolger in his final-version Scarecrow makeup. Bolger’s chief complaint about wearing the burlap-textured rubber sheath was that he couldn’t hear. “As the Scarecrow, I had no ears,” Bolger told a New York Post reporter in 1939, “and there were bunches of straw in place of them . . . I couldn’t hear a single thing, words or music, and my own voice sounded like somebody talking in a huge empty hall. An assistant director signaled the cues to me.” Bolger also said that the makeup had to be modified with each of the lighting adjustments that were necessary for the Technicolor photography.

  “WE DIDN’T EAT IN THE COMMISSARY, BUT IN A LITTLE ROOM BY OURSELVES… BECAUSE [OUR MAKEUPS] WERE TOO MUCH OF A SIGHT.”

  –RAY BOLGER

  “IT IS ALWAYS A GREAT PLEASURE TO KNOW THAT MY WORK HAS BROUGHT PLEASURE AND SATISFACTION TO PEOPLE. THE PART OF THE TIN WOODMAN WAS ONE THAT I ENJOYED AND FELT A SYMPATHY FOR, AND IF THIS FEELING WAS CONVEYED TO MY FANS, I AM MORE THAN GRATEFUL.”

  –JACK HALEY

  AS WAS TRUE for the wardrobe and makeup of each of the outlandish characters, Buddy Ebsen’s Tin Man costume underwent extensive experimentation. Journalist Paul Harrison wrote, “Would it be better to have the Tin Man a completely impersonal robot billed as an unseen Buddy Ebsen, or would it be better to have the face of Ebsen, proving the existence of a dancing star inside the shell of L. Frank Baum’s woodchopper?” Meanwhile, Ebsen made the best of his assignment. Assuming that he was made of tin and put together by a plumber, he worked out a step in imitation of the movements of a plumber’s pipe wrench in action.

  As seen in Jack Dawn’s concept painting (right) and a test still of Buddy Ebsen (left), the Tin Man’s initial makeup reflected a simplistic approach that emulated W. W. Denslow’s original ink sketches (below).

  “I called in the studio plumber as technical adviser, and he okayed it as authentic,” added Ebsen. After the notions of a mask and a suit made of aluminum were rejected—the suit was too noisy—Ebsen’s face was augmented with foam-rubber appliances and silvered with a healthy dose of aluminum powder. The powder, however, was anything but healthy, and Ebsen’s near-fatal poisoning in reaction to inhaling it caused him to forfeit the role.

  When it was reported that Ebsen was felled by “pneumonia” and forced to relinquish the Tin Man role, Metro hastily contracted Jack Haley, who had comparable song-and-dance talents.

  His son Jack Haley, Jr., a sometime visitor to The Wizard of Oz movie set, told Lefthander magazine in 1989, “My father . . . said it was the toughest job he ever did in his life.” Oblivious to his father’s angst at the time, Haley, Jr., was five years old when he saw his father attired in full Tin Man regalia for the first time. He recalled, “When I first saw my father dressed in the Tin Man outfit, he had his [tin] pants off. I remember it so vividly . . . When they were shooting close-ups of him, they didn’t have to put the whole bottom on. He couldn’t sit down in that costume.”

  JACK HALEY

  In addition to the uncomfortable suit, Haley endured taxing makeup and elaborate head appliances: a bald cap formed the top of his head and went down his neck; Haley’s nose was extended to a funnel shape; and his jaw was outfitted with a hinge-like piece of “tin.” Upon reviewing Technicolor takes, the makeup department realized Haley’s Tin Man looked polished, not rusted. Further makeup was added to effect “rust accents,” in addition to eye shadow and dark lipstick. A series of rubber rivets adhered around his ears and down the back of his head completed the look.

  Buddy Ebsen’s participation in The Wizard of Oz lasted only through rehearsals and two weeks of filming, after which he succumbed to an allergic reaction brought on by the silver makeup, which caused him to bow out altogether. Ebsen is here shown in his near-final wardrobe, October 8, 1938. (Note the oilcan, hung like a flask, at his right hip, as indicated in a version of the script.)

  Buddy Ebsen’s double endured uncomfortable wardrobe tests for prototypes of the Tin Man’s armor, August 27, 1938. This version of the tin suit appears robotic as well as confining. Note the rudimentary “line-drawing”–style makeup.

  Two views of Jack Haley’s Tin Man makeup and costume, revised to appear rusty, mid-November 1938. Because the aluminum used to tint Haley’s makeup was potentially toxic, makeup men were assigned to shadow the actor and daub away with cotton any sign of perspiration to prevent the aluminum from running into his eyes.

  “AFTER THE WIZARD OF OZ, I WAS TYPECAST AS A LION, AND THERE AREN’T ALL THAT MANY PARTS FOR LIONS.”

  –BERT LAHR

  IT IS BERT Lahr’s picture,” declared critic Wood Soanes of the actor’s performance as that most timid king of beasts, the Cowardly Lion. That Lahr’s role was singled out is significant in that the Cowardly Lion was absent, minor, or secondary to the Scarecrow and Tin Man in previous productions of The Wizard of Oz. Though more than one critic thought Lahr deserved the lion’s share of all the plaudits, Lahr himself was preoccupied with his fur getup: “I felt just like a stevedore [dock laborer] carrying the boat on my back.” Lahr further lamented the part’s challenges to journalist Duncan Underhill:

  Adhering to W. W. Denslow’s pictures of the Cowardly Lion (below), Jack Dawn drafted a watercolor of his version (top) before translating his literal interpretation of pen-and-ink strokes directly to Bert Lahr’s face.

  “A line in the script will give you a rough idea of what a cinch I had. ‘The Cowardly Lion,’ he quoted, ‘seems to walk on all fours standing up.’ Trim that. Also, I have to register a silly expression through a makeup that would make Leo the Lion tear up his union card. When a little girl slaps my face I have to shriek and shudder and cry hysterically. After a couple weeks of that I’m qualified to do a sister act with Ferdinand the Bull.”

  Lahr’s ongoing grousing drew the sympathy of assistant dance director Dona Massin, who repor
ted, “I can remember one thing—Bert Lahr . . . The only one I really had to work with was Bert—he wasn’t a dancer. Even in rehearsing he had two left feet! He’d go to practice his song . . . and he’d ask if it was all right. When I’d tell him it was, he’d ask, ‘Really?’” Despite his anxieties, the role’s comedic factor—as Lahr put it—was ready-made. “People know the saying ‘brave as a lion’ by heart,” he said in 1939, “hence, a lion running away from anything at once strikes the risibilities.”

  Lahr’s physical attributes contributed to his humorous delivery as the Cowardly Lion, particularly his facial features, which were singled out by M-G-M as already leonine in appearance before makeup. The resemblance even became the punch line of a barb when Lahr guested on Fred Allen’s radio show in 1939. When fellow comedian Allen commented on Lahr’s performance, he said, “You still look like a lion to me,” to which Lahr retorted, “That’s the trouble. I got too far into character. Why, I was even startin’ to molt!”

  As makeup experimentation continued (top), Lahr’s appearance grew closer to the final look (below). Lahr was an imported Broadway comedian who infused his brand of physicality into the role, and walked off with the majority of critics’ praise.

  When principal photography concluded, Jack Haley, who offset his chagrin during the shoot with one-liners about being vacuum-sealed, couldn’t shed his Tin Man suit fast enough. Ray Bolger kept a copy of his Scarecrow ensemble as a memento, and made the most of his connection to the film for his musical-variety national tour in 1940; all the ads pictured and mentioned his Scarecrow character. And the long-suffering Lahr may have had a change of heart come July 14, 1939, when Daily Variety commented on his “fascination with the lion skin he wore in The Wizard of Oz . . . he’s trying to buy it from Metro for stuffing purposes.” While each actor would move on to other projects and enjoy professional success beyond the film, their roles in The Wizard of Oz would cement their places in the canon of cinematic history forever.

  BERT LAHR

  In this previously unpublished scene still, Jack Haley, Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, and Toto (to the left of Haley in the photo) rehearse on the vast Lion Forest set, November 1938. Omission of L. Frank Baum’s Kalidahs, menacing half-tiger, half-bear chimeras, was compensated for by the characters’ chant, “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”

  RESPITE

  ALONG THE

  YELLOW BRICK ROAD

  JUDY GARLAND KNEW most of her coworkers prior to The Wizard of Oz, so that there was a playful camaraderie among them between scenes. Several contemporary reports from the set of The Wizard of Oz make reference to the levity of the cast during the strenuous shooting schedule. For example, when Buddy Ebsen was still among the cast members, he and Judy were practicing an eccentric dance routine that called for an exchange of slaps on the back. When Ebsen, encased in his sweltering Tin Man costume, enviously appraised Judy’s thin gingham frock, Judy was quick to retort, “You big softie, you ought to try getting your back slapped—when you’ve got a sunburn like mine.”

  During breaks, Lahr, Bolger, and Haley instructed Garland in what they termed “balladry of Broadway,” while she in turn gave them pointers on “swing” singing. When she wasn’t being tutored, Garland purportedly occupied her time sketching Toto’s portrait in pastels, reading the Baum books, knitting (a pink wool sweater for a crew member’s newborn), and deciphering the rebus charm bracelet given to her by Artie Shaw, which, when decoded, spelled out, “You are my lucky star.”

  Bolger “played the ponies,” placing racehorse bets with his bookie, and Haley napped whenever possible, since preparations for The Wonder Show Starring Jack Haley, his weekly radio series, kept him busy after hours. Haley, Lahr, and Bolger otherwise maintained morale with practical jokes: Haley bribed the hairdresser touching up Lahr’s mane to short-circuit the curling iron, giving Lahr a shock. Lahr retaliated when Haley snoozed on a reclining board in his Tin Man suit; Haley awoke to discover his outfit papered with tomato-can labels.

  “WISE MEN TELL US WE CAN’T GO HOME. BUT DOROTHY DID. AND SHE DID IT FOR ALL OF US. THAT’S WHY THE WIZARD OF OZ IS SO SPECIAL . . . AND WILL REMAIN SO.”

  –MARGARET HAMILTON

  IN L. FRANK Baum’s original tale, the Wicked Witch of the West is depicted as a crone, in the fairy-tale sense of the term, but graced with a few eccentricities: she wears a patch over one eye, clutches an umbrella to ward off rain showers, and is afraid of the dark. When sultry actress Gale Sondergaard was cast in the role of the Witch, M-G-M was following a cinematic trend of depicting screen villainesses that were as seductive as they were sinister. (These included the coldly cruel Hash-A-Mo-Tep, Queen of Kor, in She (1935), the icy beauty of Gloria Holden as Dracula’s Daughter (1936), and the Evil Queen in Snow White.) Dressed in head-to-toe black sequins, even to her peaked witch’s hat, Sondergaard’s wardrobe and makeup epitomized a beautiful but malevolent nemesis.

  The Wicked Witch of the West was originally conceived as a traditional, but comedic, harridan. But taking a cue from the vain and haughty Evil Queen in Snow White, Mervyn LeRoy next requested that the Witch receive the glamour treatment. In the end, it was decided that the Wicked Witch should match the crone of the L. Frank Baum story. Jack Dawn’s watercolor sketch of the latter (below) was designed with actress Gale Sondergaard in mind, replete with pointed nose, as seen in makeup and wardrobe tests. (Once Sondergaard abandoned her part, this look was adapted for Margaret Hamilton.) The press noted that Sondergaard, an Academy Award®–winning actress, forfeited the role because she was “too pretty.”

  But under protest from Baum fans, LeRoy recanted his witch “with class, and maybe sex appeal . . . a 1938 version” for a crone rather than a queen. Sondergaard was next photographed wearing less overt wardrobe—including a form-fitting velvet ensemble—before testing as a storybook hag. However, she and LeRoy agreed that it was not the image she wanted to project on film, so she resigned. In hindsight, one cannot imagine the indignity of Sondergaard’s witch liberally doused with water and vanquished in a slush of sequins.

  The role of the Wicked Witch of the West was, of course, recast with character actress Margaret Hamilton, who was selected by LeRoy after he screened scenes of her role as Beulah Flanders in Sam Wood’s Stablemates (1938). Hamilton’s appearance as the hideous witch, coupled with her terrifying performance, scared generations of impressionable young viewers. Hamilton didn’t exactly consider the role Shakespeare, saying, “It’s not a particularly difficult role, and there’s not much you can do to make it different . . . You just wring your hands and roll your eyes, and rant and rave and shriek a bit.” But the actress was far from oblivious to the effect of her shrieking. “I used to recommend that children under five years not be allowed to see [The Wizard of Oz],” she told Photoplay in 1974. “It gives them nightmares”—an understatement thoroughly comprehended by countless adults who, as youngsters, buried their faces or ran from the room during The Wizard of Oz telecasts.

  By October 10, 1938, thirty-five-year-old screen comedienne Margaret Hamilton had replaced Gale Sondergaard as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. As shown in these stills, Hamilton began filming her scenes in a page-boy wig like that previously worn by Sondergaard, but this look was scrapped after two weeks.

  The psychological reverberations from Hamilton’s ferocious delivery began almost immediately. Among others, one reviewer expressed concern for the realism of the Wicked Witch, and compared the character’s intensity to the witch from Snow White in affecting the psyches of both children and adults: “The usual explanation the wise parent makes to children before pictures containing such witches should be made before The Wizard of Oz.” Mrs. T. G. Winter, of the Community Service division of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, summed it up best in her September 1, 1939, review: “Perhaps the Wicked Witch is a bit scary for ultra-nervous children, but she is part of the stock-in-trade of fairyland, and her comeuppance is part of the joy.”

 
; MARGARET HAMILTON

  Margaret Hamilton accepted her horrific on-screen appearance—replete with gangrenous skin, a jutting jaw, and a sharply hooked nose—having long ago made peace with her lack of physical beauty. “I’m glad I’m homely . . . My face has given me lots of work,” she confessed twenty-two years after playing the film’s heavy. With good humor, Hamilton recalled one instance of on-set ribbing to Parade’s Karl Kohrs: “They put a sign on my chair, ‘Mag the Hag.’ Why, I just loved it. I’m not sensitive about my looks.” She had stubbornly defended her appearance from the time she was a little girl. Her father wanted to take her to a plastic surgeon to have her large nose altered, but she refused, saying, “It was mine, and I wanted to keep it.”

  Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch calculates her next evil scheme. November 9, 1938, was the actress’s first day of filming in revised hair and makeup. Her nose and chin were sharpened and her hair was styled in a chignon.