Hospital raids, explosions and poison – the real curse of the Wizard of Oz

FANS of the musical Wicked have waited more than a decade for it to be made into a movie for the big screen, and now it’s finally out.

The musical, which is closely based on the 1939 film Wizard of Oz, is all we’ve talked about all month, and while we may have fond memories of the original film, some believe it’s cursed.

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Watching the film you are transported to a magical land where good triumphs over evil, but behind the scenes it was a completely different story.

From cast members being set on fire to being poisoned by makeup and starving on set, here’s the real story of the Wizard of Oz and why he was cursed from the start.

Shine bright

The original Tin Man from the film was played by Buddy Ebsen, but we don’t see him on screen.

Media company MGM tested several ways to make it appear silvery, including white face paint covered in aluminum dust, but there was one small problem: it was extremely toxic.

Nine days after filming, Buddy was hospitalized with shortness of breath and cramps.

The aluminum dust had gotten into his lungs, causing them to stop working, and he was treated for it for two weeks.

While he was undergoing treatment, the film producer hired actor Jack Haley to replace him.

Jack didn’t know what happened to the previous actor, but MGM thought it would work out because they switched the powder for a paste.

But again, it caused problems when it accidentally got into Jack’s eye, forcing him to undergo emergency surgery to address the infection from the toxic solution.

Fortunately, he also survived and was able to continue filming the movie.

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Green with envy

Margaret Hamilton was cast as the Wicked Witch of the East (aka Elphaba in Wicked), but things didn’t go well for her.

For starters, the green paint she was covered with was made of copper, and you guessed it, it was also poisonous.

The actress was forced not to eat for hours because ingesting the paint could have poisoned her, and her luck did not seem to improve.

During the filming of the iconic Munchkinland scene, she jumped into a trap door to disappear.

But she was left with severe third-degree burns to her body and face as a result of the stunt when the fire and smoke were let out before she was safely under the set.

To top it all off, she had to have her body washed down with acetone because of the copper paint.

She once said of the incident: “I will never, as long as I live, have anything like that [takes] My breath goes away like that pain.”

After the ordeal, she refused to film any more scenes involving fire, leaving that to her stunt double, Betty Danko, who also didn’t have much luck staying safely on set.

While filling in, Betty’s broomstick had a smoking pipe attached to the bottom of the seat when it exploded and she was thrown off the broom. She then spent 11 days in the hospital.

She recalled: “I felt like my scalp was peeling off. I think that’s because my hat and black wig were torn off.

“They found them days later at the top of the stage. The explosion blew me off the broomstick. I managed to grab it with both hands and throw my leg over it.

“I hung upside down while the men handling the wires lowered the broomstick to the floor and laid me face down on the stage… As I lay there on the floor waiting for the ambulance, the wardrobe lady came in running and she said, ‘What did you do with the hat? I have to hand it in, you know.’

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Let it snow

One of the most beautiful scenes in The Wizard of Oz is when Dorothy and her trio of men (the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion) all make their way through the poppy fields to Emerald City to meet the great Wizard himself.

They eventually fall asleep due to a spell cast by the evil witch, but of course Glinda, the good witch, comes to the rescue just in time.

She sprinkles snow on the poppies to lift the spell and wake them up, but the snow used in the scene is actually made of 100% asbestos.

In the scene you see how the asbestos falls on the actors and in their mouths.

Although there is no confirmed link, Bert Lahr, who played the Lion, and Ray Bolger who played the Scarecrow, ultimately died of cancer, something that asbestos can cause.

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Starved and drugged

Judy Garland was only 16 when she landed the lead role of Dorothy in the film and while she didn’t have any mishaps on set, she certainly got the worst of it.

The producers of the first feature film she starred in for MGM media tormented her when she was fourteen: ‘MGM told her she looked like a ‘fat little pig with pigtails’ on screen and she was put on her first of many diets . b

“Because her calories were so restricted — executives went so far as to take away a plate of food as she was about to eat it — she was permanently hungry.”

She was forced to wear a corset under her plaid dress to make her appear smaller and was given tobacco to chew to suppress her appetite.

It has also been reported that she was given a cocktail of medications. Biographer Lauren Becall says: “From childhood, Judy was put on drugs – to lose weight, to go to sleep or to wake up. And once you become addicted to pills…it clearly affected her.”

Garland told biographer Pail Donnelley, “They gave us pills to keep us going long after we were exhausted.

Then they took us to the studio hospital and hit us with sleeping pills.

“After four hours they woke us up and gave us the pep pills again so we could work for 72 hours straight. We were hanging from the ceiling half the time, but it was a way of life for us.”

According to her third husband Sidney Luft, she was also harassed by actors and executives on set.

He recalled, “They thought they could get away with anything because they were so small.

“They would make Judy’s life miserable on set by putting their hands up her dress.

“The men were forty years or older.”

In a biography, it was revealed that the teen starlet was repeatedly propositioned for sex by executives from the film studio MGM.

Studio boss Louis B. Mayer complimented Garland’s voice by placing his hand on her left breast and pretending to touch her heart, where he said she was singing from.

She eventually told him to stop his creepy advances and, according to the biography, Mayer cried and said he loved her.

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Monkey around

The flying monkey soldiers who follow the wicked witch in the film were actually played by actors of small stature.

They were hoisted on wires to make it look like they were flying in the movies, but many of the wires broke causing them to fall at least six feet from the sky.

Although many suffered injuries, fortunately none of them died.

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