Judy Garland 'groped by Munchkins on Wizard of Oz set' when she was just 16 (2024)

Renee Zellweger plays the iconic star in the final months of her life in the new film, Judy

Judy Garland was just 16 when she shot to fame playing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

Adored by millions of children, the classic 1939 movie tells the story of a young girl blown to Kansas in a tornado and how she makes her way back to her family while meeting some firm friends on the way.

But there was a dark undercurrent behind the stunning sets, iconic songs and heartwarming story.

The Hollywood legend's former husband, Sid Luft, claims the then teenage Judy was groped and felt up by the actors playing the Munchkins in the hit film.

She was so traumatised by what was happening it made her life "miserable" while she filmed her most famous role.

In an unfinished book, Sid wrote: "They thought they could get away with anything because they were so small.

“They would make Judy’s life miserable on setby putting their hands under her dress. The men were 40 or more years old.”

Judy died in her rented London home when she was just 47-years-old.

In her final years she had battled drug and alcohol problems and had been married five times.

Judy was struggling financially and left just £32,000 in her will.

Just six months before she died she performed a six week run at the Talk of the Town nightclub in London, which is the subject of Renee Zellweger film, Judy.

Not long before her tragic Judy herself admitted that The Wizard of Oz Munchkins were "drunks".

She said: "They got smashed every night and the police used to scoop them up in butterfly nets.”

Earning between £200 and £500 a week, the actors playing the Munchkins spent their wages on an “unholy assembly of pimps, hookers and gamblers” as they stayed at Los Angeles’s Culver Hotel where they stayed during filming.

After the movie was finished, producer Mervyn LeRoy said: “They had orgies in the hotel and we had to have police on about every floor.”

The film’s make-up artist Jack Dawn added how one German dwarf who called himself The Count even had to been rescued from a toilet bowl.

He said: “You had to watch them all the time. Once when he was due on set, he went missing. Then we heard a whining from the men’s room.

“He had got plastered during lunch, fallen in the toilet and could not get out.”

And Judy's co-stars also witnessed their bad behaviour.

Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion, said: "“Many Munchkins made their living by panhandling, pimping and whoring.

"Midgets brandished knives and often had passions for larger personnel."

Judy Garland had worked as a professional actress and singer since she was just two.

Born Frances Ethel Gumm, as a toddler she joined her sisters Mary Jane and Dorothy Virginia on stage at her father's theatre.

They were known as the Gumm Sisters and performed regularly for several years.

By 1928 they were apeparing on screen and started touring as a vaudeville troupe and in 1934, they changed their name to the Garland Sisters and Frances adopted the first name, Judy.

The following year, Judy was invited to an audience with MGM and was given a contract.

But at just 13 Judy was brought through the ranks with Hollywood beauties including Ava Gardner, Lana Turner and Elizabeth Taylor and this had a devastating impact on her confidence.

Director Charles Walters said: "Judy was the big money-maker at the time, a big success, but she was the ugly duckling.

"I think it had a very damaging effect on her emotionally for a long time. I think it lasted forever, really."

And then in 1938, she got her big break - the starring role as Dorothy in The Wixard Of Oz.

The following year she was honoured with an Academy Juvenile Award, the only time she would win an Oscar.

While she continued to appear on the big screen as an adult, Judy's life was blighted by tragedy.

Her most successful films include Meet Me In St Louis and in 1950, she and MGM parted ways.

She embarked on a successful tour in the UK and Ireland the following year and in 1954 had the lead role in A Star Is Born, which earned her as Oscar nomination.

Her own TV show followed in the 1960s but this was cancelled after just one series.

Judy's final stage performance was in Copenhagen in March, 1969 and married her final husband, nichtclub manager, Mickey Deans, on March 15.

She was found dead in a mews house in Belgravia on June 22 of the same year.

At her inquest, Coroner Gavin Thurston said her cause of death was "an incautious self-overdosage of barbiturates".

Judy Garland's death certificate states that it was "accidental".

She is now buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.

• Judy is in cinemas from today.