The Wizard of Oz is an enduring cultural high water mark, with songs, characters, and and story that people of all generations know from memory. Unfortunately, like so many productions of its time, the story behind the making of The Wizard of Oz is filled with unfortunate examples of exploitation. Some of this abuse was directed at star Judy Garland, but the little people who played the Munchkins also bore the brunt of it. From extremely poor pay (the dog that played Toto was paid more) to lies and stereotypes being shared about their on-set conduct, these actors didn't receive much personal benefit for their important roles in the film. These are the Wizard of Oz actors who got paid less than the dog.
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00:00Judy Garland, future icon of the lavish golden era of Hollywood, took the role of evolving
00:05farm girl Dorothy Gale when she was just 17 years old. The role would just about define
00:09her career for the rest of her life, so was it worth it?
00:13According to the Los Angeles Times, Garland was paid $500 a week for playing the part
00:17over the course of 22 weeks. That's the equivalent to about $10,000 a week by today's standard,
00:22which isn't terrible. It's no Jennifer Aniston salary, but considering Technicolor Film had
00:27just been invented, not terrible.
00:29But the scene starts to take shape when we compare Garland's earnings to those of her
00:32co-stars. Dorothy's dog Toto, who is present alongside her for the entirety of the film,
00:37made an especially decent wage. Well, for a Cairn Terrier, at least. Terry the Terrier
00:42and her owner brought in $125 a week for the role, all that, and they never even asked
00:47her to speak.
00:49The Wizard of Oz employed more than 600 actors over six months of production, a total spectacle
00:54of scale. The ensemble of Munchkins, aka the citizens of vibrant Munchkinland in Oz's
00:59eastern region, made up about a sixth of the cast list. The actors who played these roles
01:04were all people with dwarfism, and unfortunately, this is where compensation on the Oz production
01:09takes a turn for the worse.
01:11Despite carrying singing and speaking roles in the film, the little people who played
01:15the Munchkins received less than half of Toto's salary, taking home only $50 a week. The saddest
01:20part is, that was as good as it got for actors with dwarfism in Hollywood at the time. Maybe
01:25it can be chalked up to a sign of the times. Really, really unfortunate times. Remember
01:30how Garland was doing all right with $500 a week? Well, while Garland was the main star
01:35of the film and is present for every scene, she still made significantly less than the
01:40men who played Dorothy's companions, Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion.
01:45Of course, we know Hollywood has progressed quite a bit since the so-called Golden Age,
01:49but it doesn't change the fact that, today, there is still work to do when it comes to
01:53equal pay and representation. Little people continue to be marginalized in the entertainment
01:57industry and still have to advocate for themselves constantly. In the 1930s, just as today, little
02:03people were extremely limited in the screen roles offered to them. They were cast most
02:07often in mystical and magical roles, typically in the fantasy or horror genre. The typecast
02:12is extremely offensive, barring representation of people with dwarfism in the real world.
02:17While Oz did employ over a hundred little people in the cast, the production only spurred
02:21offensive stereotypes. Some of the most well-circulated rumors about the filming of The Wizard of
02:26Oz involved the behavior of the little people on set. There was one even perpetuated by
02:30Garland herself, that the Munchkin actors were all, quote, "'little drunks.'"
02:34"...and they got smashed every night, and they'd pick them up in butterfly nets."
02:41Meanwhile, Jerry Maron, one of the singers of the Lollipop Guild, tells a much different
02:45story. In an interview with The Independent, he said of the Munchkinland ensemble,
02:49"...there were a couple of kids from Germany who liked to drink beer. They got in a little
02:53trouble and wanted to meet the girls, but they were the only ones."
02:57In 1996, author and journalist Stephen Cox released a book titled The Munchkins of Oz.
03:02The book was meant to highlight the lives of the actors who played the famous characters.
03:06Along with terrible pay, most Munchkins weren't even individually credited in the film. Cox
03:11also explored the lives of some of the actors who continued to work in Hollywood, and the
03:15ones that left after just one gig. The film production highlighted the issues of generally
03:19limited work opportunities for little people, with so many willing to completely switch
03:23career paths for a few weeks just to make a fraction of what other Oz ensemble actors
03:27made.
03:28Perhaps we can take small comfort in the fact that, while Toto got more pay, it was the
03:33Munchkins that earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, per the Los Angeles Times. The
03:38single star recognizes all 124 little people that made history in MGM's 1939 film.