We all know the iconic story of The Wizard of Oz. But, just beyond the yellow brick road, there
is a much darker tale. Not Wicked dark. Like, systemic discrimination behind-the-scenes dark.
Judy Garland, future icon of the lavish Golden Era of Hollywood, took up the role of evolving
farmgirl Dorothy Gale when she was just seventeen years old. The role would just about define her
career for the rest of her life — so, was it worth it? According to the Los Angeles Times,
Garland was paid $500 a week for playing the part over the course of 22 weeks. That’s equivalent to
about $10,000 dollars a week by today’s standards. Which… isn’t terrible. It’s no Jennifer Aniston
salary, but considering technicolor film had just been invented — not terrible.
But the scene starts to take shape when we compare Garland’s earnings to those of her costars.
Dorothy's dog, Toto, who is present alongside her for the entirety of the film, made an especially
decent wage. Well, for a cairn terrier at least. Terry the terrier and her owner brought in $125
a week for the role. All that, and they never even asked her to speak.
The Wizard of Oz employed more than six hundred actors over six months of production,
a total spectacle of scale. The ensemble of "Munchkins" — aka,
the citizens of vibrant Munchkinland in Oz’s Eastern region — made up about a
sixth of the cast list. The actors who played these roles were all people with dwarfism.
And… unfortunately, this is where compensation on the Oz production takes a turn for the worse.
Despite carrying singing and speaking roles in the film, the little people who played the Munchkins
received less than half of Toto’s salary, taking home only $50 a week. The saddest part is:
that was as good as it got for actors with dwarfism in Hollywood at the time.
Maybe it can be chalked up to a sign of the times. Really, really unfortunate times.
Remember how Garland was doing alright with $500 a week? Well, while Garland was the
main star of the film, and is present for every scene, she still made significantly less than
the men who played Dorothy’s companions — Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion.
Of course, we know Hollywood has progressed quite a bit since the so-called ‘Golden Age’.
But it doesn’t change the fact that, today, there is still work to do when
it comes to equal pay and representation. Little people continue to be marginalized
in the entertainment industry, and still have to advocate for themselves constantly.
In the 1930s, just as today, little people were extremely limited in the screen roles
offered to them. They were cast most often in mystical and magical roles,
typically in the fantasy or horror genre. The type-cast is extremely offensive,
barring representation of people with dwarfism in "the real world".
While Oz did employ over a hundred little people in its cast, the production only
spurred offensive stereotypes. Some of the most well-circulated rumors about the filming of The
Wizard of Oz involved the behavior of the little people on set. There was even one perpetuated
by Garland herself: that the Munchkin actors were all, quote, "little drunks."
"They got smashed every night, and they’d pick them up in butterfly nets."
Meanwhile, Jerry Maren, one of the singers of "The Lollipop Guild," tells a much different story.
In an interview with The Independent, he said, of the Munchkinland ensemble:
"There were a couple of kids from Germany who liked to drink beer. They [...] got
in a little trouble. They wanted to meet the girls, but they were the only ones."
In 1996, author and journalist Stephen Cox released a book titled The Munchkins of Oz.
The book was meant to highlight the lives of the actors who played the famous characters.
Along with terrible pay, most Munchkins weren't even individually credited in the film.
Cox also explored the lives of some of the actors who continued to work in Hollywood,
and the ones that left after just one gig. The film production highlighted the issue of
generally limited work opportunities for little people, with so many willing to completely switch
career paths for a few weeks, just to make a fraction of what other Oz ensemble actors made.
Perhaps we can take small comfort in the fact that, while Toto got more pay,
it was the Munchkins that earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, per The Los Angeles Times.
The single star recognizes all 124 little people that made history in MGM’s 1939 film.
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