Munchkins who served as lovable allies of Judy Garland’s Dorothy in the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz” were monsters offscreen, according to a new tell-all by an ex-husband of the actress.
Some of the actors who played the little people in the film molested the teenaged Garland, Sid Luft claims in Judy and I: My Life With Judy Garland, posthumously published after an editor compiled the final section from interviews with the author.
“They would make Judy’s life miserable on set by putting their hands under her dress … The men were 40 or more years old,” Luft wrote in an excerpt featured in People on Tuesday.
“They thought they could get away with anything because they were so small.”
The book doesn’t name any actors who were allegedly involved, People noted.
Luft’s marriage to Garland lasted from 1952 to 1965. He died in 2005 at age 89 and his memoir was completed by editor Randy L. Schmidt, who pieced together the final section, according to Amazon.
Garland died in 1969 at the age of 47.
While the actress had spoken of the Munchkin actors’ alleged drunken behavior, once telling Jack Paar “they got smashed every night,” there seems to be no public record of Garland making any of the serious accusations recounted in Luft’s book.
Judy And I: My Life With Judy Garland will be released in March, according to its publisher, Chicago Review Press. The book details how “her drug dependencies and suicidal tendencies put a tremendous strain on the relationship,” the Amazon description reads.
Here’s Garland’s interview with Paar. Many of her Munchkin comments begin around the 6:50 mark.
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