Rumor additionally had it—because of the celebrities of the film, no much less—that the little folks solid because the residents of Munchkinland ran amok of their free time.
“They had been little drunks,” Garland mentioned in a 1967 interview with Jack Paar. “They received smashed each night time and the police used to scoop them up in butterfly nets.”
Jerry Maren, who performed the inexperienced plaid-wearing member of the Lollipop Guild and was the final surviving Wizard of Oz Munchkin when he died at 98 in 2018, pushed again on the characterization of him and his costars.
“Judy was telling it in keeping with her drugs and booze that day,” Maren wrote in his 2006 memoir (with Stephen Cox) Quick and Candy: The Life and Occasions of the Lollipop Munchkin. “She left behind a legacy of untruths about us.”
And among the many 120 or so little folks within the movie, “There have been a few youngsters from Germany who favored to drink beer,” he wrote. “They drank beer morning, midday and night time, and received in a bit of bother. They wished to fulfill the women, however they had been the one ones.”
Margaret Pellegrini, who performed a Munchkin villager, had fond reminiscences of the expertise. “My father labored in a resort and earned about $5 per week. I received paid $50 per week,” she recalled. “It took eight weeks to make the Munchkinland scenes, after which I stayed in Hollywood for a month to sightsee.”
