One of last surviving Munchkins from 'Wizard of Oz' dies at 89 (2024)

FAQs

Who was the last surviving Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz? ›

Jerry Maren, the last surviving munchkin from 'The Wizard of Oz,' dies at 98. in 2013, Jerry Maren placed his handprints in cement outside Hollywood's Chinese Theatre.

The last Munchkin has died. Actor Jerry Maren was the last survivor of the group of little people known as Munchkins who greeted Judy Garland's Dorothy when she landed in Munchkinland in the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz.

To analyse the effects of untreated pituitary dwarfism on human lifespan, the longevity of a diverse group of widely known little people, the 124 adults who played “Munchkins” in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz was investigated.

How did they get so many munchkins for the Wizard of Oz? Most of the performers hired were acquired for MGM by Leo Singer, the proprietor of Singer's Midgets. A Daily Variety news story from August 17, 1938, stated 124 midgets had been signed to play Munchkins; modern sources place the number either at 122 or 124.

Jerry Maren, the last surviving Munchkin from the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz” and the one who memorably welcomed Dorothy to Munchkinland, died May 24 at a San Diego nursing home. He was 98.

The last surviving adult member of the film's cast, she played the sister-in-law to James Stewart's George Bailey. Three years later, she quit Hollywood.

Actors and actresses

A Daily Variety news story from 17 August 1938, stated 124 dwarves had been signed to play Munchkins; modern sources place the number either at 122 or 124. An additional dozen or so child actors were hired to make up for the shortage of dwarves.

The actress Judy Garland was just 16 when she starred as the sparkly shoe-wearing Dorothy in the award-winning film, and she crash-landed into a new life of fame with as much force as the iconic character she played on screen. Like Dorothy, Garland's black-and-white world had turned into vibrant, blinding color.

Of the film's 10 main cast members, 16-year-old star Judy Garland got the second-lowest salary—making more than only her canine companion, Terry, who played Toto. And myriad injuries and miseries were suffered on set that sound, frankly, horrifying in light of modern technology and H.R.

Stephen Cox, author of The Munchkins of Oz, wrote in his 1989 book that in 1938, the Munchkins were paid US$50 per week, about US$900 in 2016. Meanwhile, Toto and her trainer earned US$125 per week, which would now equate to about US$2,100 per week. The Munchkin cast never even saw their names in the credits.

Did Toto get paid more than Dorothy? ›

Terry the dog, who played Toto in The Wizard of Oz, was paid $125 a week, more than some human actors on set. While Terry's earnings surpassed some actors, Judy Garland, who played Dorothy, made more at $500 a week. The Munchkin actors, despite singing, dancing, and taking on multiple roles, earned less than Toto.

Baum never states Dorothy's age, but he does write in The Lost Princess of Oz that she is a year younger than Betsy Bobbin and a year older than Trot, whose age was specified as 10 in Ruth Plumly Thompson's The Giant Horse of Oz, putting her at age 11 by the time she comes to live in Oz.

Some location filming occurred at the Culver Hotel, where the actors playing Munchkins had actually stayed during the production of The Wizard of Oz.

The Wizard of Oz was filmed entirely on stages at MGM's Culver City studio at 10202 Washington Boulevard. The studio still stands today and offers visitors a look behind the curtains to see where the magic happened, as part of the Sony Pictures Studio Tour.

In casting the Munchkins, MGM specified that they be proportionately correct little people, or midgets (in the terminology of the time). The troupe of 122 Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz ranged in height from 2 ft 3 in to 4 ft 8 in.

Donna Stewart-Hardway, Child Munchkin. When Donna Stewart-Hardway was merely six years old, she spent eight weeks of her career playing a tiny Munchkin for MGM's classic 1939 extravaganza, The Wizard of OZ. Donna Hardway (at the time Donna Jean Johnson) was the youngest Munchkin on the Hollywood set.

In 1938, when Garland was sixteen, she was cast as the young Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939), a film based on the 1900 children's book by L. Frank Baum. In the film, she sang the song with which she would be constantly identified afterward, "Over the Rainbow".