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COSTUMES
The costumes make the film. Just ask any movie costume designer. Nowhere is that more obvious, and important, than in The Wizard of Oz. MGM’s premier designer Adrian rose to the challenge and designed what would become true film icons. This was no easy task. The Wizard of Oz is total fantasy without any historical base for the costumes, and the sets, and the props, and so on. Excepting the Kansas scenes, and even those were idealized. The Baum books provided a basic guide via the illustrations, which MGM brilliantly built upon to create a wondrous fantasy world unlike any other film. Allegedly, and for inspiration, Adrian sent word to his hometown for his copy of the book, in which as a child he sketched designs in the margins. Those designs allegedly informed his work. To make the challenge tougher, this was the studio’s first big assignment in Technicolor. The film’s cast and crew endured seemingly endless tests to get everything just right, all the way down to the right shade of yellow for The Yellow Brick Road. And even when a final version of something was decided upon, that wasn’t necessarily the final version we see on film. The fact that it all turned out so perfect is partly a miracle but mainly a reflection of the amazing talent and hard work of the folks at MGM. The best of the best in the business did their best.
For decades, the costumes and props were stashed away in the cavernous depths of the MGM wardrobe and prop buildings. Some items popped up in other films and later on television, as was standard practice at all the studios. But the individuality of most of the items meant that they were simply stored. And they stayed there, mostly forgotten.
In 1970 MGM held its now legendary and infamous auction of props, costumes and basically anything that wasn’t nailed down. The general attitude at the time was that anything that was seen as old Hollywood was automatically seen as out of date and useless. To this day the auction is seen more as a travesty than an auction. It was a tragic, sad end to the once great studio. Sure, MGM is still around, but it’s a shell of what it was – the special magic it once had is gone. The cavalier and disrespectful treatment of the treasures by the new studio heads and the auction house was shocking. That treatment extended beyond the props and costumes to include the music department records, scripts, various important papers and documents, and the glorious backlots. Movie fans and collectors at the time literally dumpster dived to retrieve discarded treasures. There was no nostalgia market like there is today. As noted, old Hollywood was passe, so most people viewed the costumes and props as oddities. However, there was a small groups of fans and collectors who saw the value in these items and they rescued as many as they could. Hollywood legend Debbie Reyonold was the most well known. She saw the value and wanted to create a museum to showcase this history of Hollywood through the costumes and props. She and those around her were ahead of their time.
The one item that garnered the most press, and anticipation, was the auction of one of the pairs of Ruby Slippers. At the time, everyone assumed it was the only pair made, not realizing that more than one pair would have been made in the first place. Duplicates of items like this were always made prior to filming. As we now know, there were several pairs. The other surviving pairs were secretly kept by the auction’s main curator, costumer Kent Warner. He then sold them on the down low to various collectors and kept the most pristine pair (now known as “The Witch’s Shoes”) for himself.
The pair that was auctioned in 1970 went for $15,000, and in just a few short years, the new nostalgia market began, then grew, then finally exploded into big business and even bigger business via the auction houses. Post-war children who grew up watching old films on “The Late Late Show” were becoming adults and wanted mementoes of their memories. By the time of the MGM auction The Wizard of Oz was already a TV institution and part of the American way of life, which is why the Ruby Slippers were the big ticket item. Four years later That’s Entertainment! became the surprise film hit of the summer, further fueling the nostalgia market. The 1980s saw the home media market happen, which brought even more respect and renewed interest in classic films as the market brought the films into every film fan’s homes, to own.
In recent years, quite a few rare costumes and props from The Wizard of Oz have been auctioned then re-auctioned – some were re-auctioned several times over. The collecting of movie costumes and props has become a kind of cottage industry of people buying the items at auction, holding onto them for a couple of years, then re-selling for a profit. The prices paid make that first $15,000 sale in 1970 look like peanuts.
It’s actually quite incredible that so many costumes and props from The Wizard of Oz survived long enough to end up in the nostalgia boom, including test costumes and some of the costumes from the early “Thorpe Era” weeks of filming.
The following are some highlights of various costumes from the film, used and unused. It’s my hope that this page gives readers an idea of the immense time and care that went into every design, from Dorothy’s hair down to the shoes of the Witch’s Winkie Guards.
Many of the images and videos here are from the various auction house catalogs and websites, thanks to the teams at Bonhams, Julien’s, Heritage Auctions, Profiles in History, and Christies; as well as the publishing house HarperCollins who shared many images with The Judy Room.
A special thanks to the many collectors who have shared their images with The Judy Room over the years.
Late 1938: An MGM costume department staffer takes care of the Munchkin costumes. The photo was most likely taken during the days of filming the sequence in December 1938.
Auction staff member Judy Carroll readies a Dorothy dress and Thorpe Era blouse for the 1970 MGM auction.
Dorothy’s Hair, Makeup, & Dresses
Logically, the most important costume of the film was also the simplest, or so it seemed: Dorothy’s look. Judy Garland’s hair, makeup, and dress went through many changes before the final version was settled on. Twice. The first “final look” was Dorothy’s look in the Thorpe Era of filming, when she was a blonde. When filming was halted and director George Cukor changed the looks of all the main characters, a new “final look” was created. That’s what we see in the finished film and its perfect in its simplicity (various hair lengths and all).
April 29, 1938: Garland’s first work on The Wizard of Oz was posing for these Max Factor hair and makeup tests, as detailed in the wonderful 2013 book (still available) The Wizard of Oz: The Official 75th Anniversary Companion by William Stillman and Jay Scarfone. Published by Harper Design, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers; © 2013 by Author. Authors’ credit: Scarfone/Stillman Collection © 2013 by Author. Authors’ credit: Scarfone/Stillman Collection – images provided to The Judy Room by Harper Collins.
August 27, 1938: Judy Garland posed for these costume, hair, and makeup tests. In the last pic, it looks as though her wig is darker than the strawberry blonde wig she’s wearing in the other test pics.
October 13, 1938: Garland posed for this final costume, hair, and makeup test. This is how she looked during the initial weeks of filming under the direction of Richard Thorpe. Included is a pic of the surviving costume as it looked when it was put up for auction.
October 26, 1938: After several weeks of filming, the production was put on hold. The original Tin Man, Buddy Ebsen, had been poisoned by the “silver” makeup he had been wearing. During the break, director Richard Thorpe was fired and the production wet into an overhaul phase. The biggest change was to Dorothy’s look. Here are some tests of Garland in variations of dark light and dark hair styles and a more natural looking makeup. In most of the tests she’s wearing the original dress and blouse that she wore during those early weeks of filming.
Collage as detailed in the wonderful 2013 book (still available) The Wizard of Oz: The Official 75th Anniversary Companion by William Stillman and Jay Scarfone. Published by Harper Design, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers; © 2013 by Author. Authors’ credit: Scarfone/Stillman Collection © 2013 by Author. Authors’ credit: Scarfone/Stillman Collection – images provided to The Judy Room by Harper Collins.
October 31, 1938: More tests. Garland is beginning to look closer to the Dorothy we see in the final film. First she’s seen in the “original dress” with her own hair with a fall added. One her right foot is the one shoe of the unused “Arabian pair” of Ruby Slippers. On her left foot is one of the shoes she had been wearing during the previous weeks’ filming, the “bugle bead” Ruby Slippers. To date those slippers remain lost.
Included are images of the dress and blouse, and an unused blue blouse, as seen in auctions from (in order) 2011 (Debbie Reynolds auction), 2016 (Bonhams and Butterfields), 2019 (Profiles in History – auctioned again in 2021), and 2013 (Profiles in History).
More from October 31, 1938: Garland is seen in a “new dress” with “hair parted on side.” She also tested an apron over the new dress. The blouse is the same as what she wears in the final film. Her shoes are the normal shoes she wears in the Kansas scenes and right before Glinda gives her the Ruby Slippers.
Included are images of the dress, blouse, and apron as seen in auctions from (in order) 2011 & 2013 (Profiles in History), 2014 (Bonhams and Butterfields), 2011 (Profiles in History), 2016 (Bohams and Butterfields), and 2019 (Profiles in History).
The last pic is a close-up with Garland sporting a slightly different hair style.
A page from the Judy Room’s 2011 Year in Review
November 3, 1938: At long last! The Dorothy we see in the final film.
This is the pristine Dorothy dress (#4461) that costumer that Kent Warner kept for himself after the 1970 MGM auction. It was originally sold in the auction to Debbie Reynolds, but when she went to collect it along with her many other items, she was given the Thorpe Era costume instead. Because things were unorganized and allegedly people took things off of the racks of items sold to other bidders, when Reynolds inquired about the mixup she didn’t get a straight answer. She auctioned off her Thorpe Era costume during her two-day auction in 2011. Warner had this one auctioned in 1981. It has since been auctioned a few more times.
Video promoting the Julien’s auction of a screen worn Dorothy dress and blouse on November 9th & 10th, 2012.
Video promoting the Bonhams auction of that same Dorothy dress on November 23, 2015. Silent video with music added.
Oddly enough, Garland’s blonde wig survived and was a part of her daughter Liza Minnelli’s collection that was auctioned in 2018.
Included here are auction pics of a screen used blouse, the ochre “transition dress” as worn by Garland’s double Bobbie Koshay paired with a “Thorpe Era” blouse, an unused red version of the “Thorpe Era” outfit, and an unused ornate test blouse allegedly tested by Koshay. It’s unknown if Garland ever wore it.
In 2021 it was announced that a long lost screen-used Dorothy dress and blouse had been rediscovered. The Smithsonian verified that the costume was worn by Garland during the scenes in the castle of the Wicked Witch of the West.
In the 1970s, actress Mercedes McCambridge gifted the costume to Reverend Gilbert Hartke of the Catholic University in Washington, D.C. McCambridge was the university’s artist in residence. The costume had been misplaced over the years (Hartke died in 1986) but was found when an employee was cleaning out some clutter in preparation for a renovation.
The costume was scheduled to be auctioned by Bonhams on May 24, 2022, with the proceeds going to the university. However, on May 23rd a federal judge halted the sale. Hartke’s now 81-year-old niece filed an injunction claiming the costume is hers as Hartke’s oldest surviving relative. The university claims that they own the costume since Hartke took a vow of poverty as a Dominican priest, meaning that he could not and did not claim it for himself. It’s the property of the university. To date the issue has not been settled.
Some of the images seen here were provided by Mark Milano. Thanks, Mark!
The first three pics show Hartke with McCambridge and the costume, with a university employee, and with Stephanie Mills who played Dorothy in the original Broadway production of “The Wiz.”
Costume designer Donna Granata created many great costumes for the 2001 Emmy-winning miniseries Life With Judy Garland. Several scenes from Garland’s films were recreated and the production team went to great lengths to accurately portray them. The attention to detail in all of the recreations is phenenal. Granata deservedly won the Emmy for “Outstanding Costumes for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special.”
Tammy Blanchard played the young Garland, winning an Emmy for her performance. Judy Davis took over as the adult Garland, winning an Emmy as well. A scene in the film shows Blanchard as Garland modeling different looks as Dorothy before the right one is finally chosen.
The Ruby Slippers
The Ruby Slippers that Garland wore in the film have taken on a mythology of their own. The word “iconic” is thrown around too many times these days, but the slippers are icons in the true sense of the word. They are one of the most recognizable movie costume items in history. Only Marilyn Monroe’s white “subway grate” dress from The Seven Year Itch is comparable in both its iconic status and the mythology surrounding it.
Prior to the big nostalgia boom in the 1970s, no one thought much about the slippers used in the film. The imagery was already iconic, but most people assumed only one pair was made and used, and that it was either discarded after filming or tucked away somewhere in the cavernous costume department at the MGM studios.
The slippers were designed by MGM’s famous costumer Adrian, who created all of the fabulous costumes for the film. The original design featured bugle beads, not sequins, and were used in the early weeks of the “Thorpe Era” filming. They’re seen in just a few photos. There are no surviving pairs of this design.
Because the bugle bead version was too heavy, and probably because everything was being revamped when filming was halted in late October 1938, a newer design was used that was made with sequins and an added beaded bow. At least six or seven pairs of this new design were made. The exact number is unknown. Only four pairs survive, as does an early and unused pair featuring an ornate curl toed design nicknamed the “Arabian” pair.
Pair #1 – “The People’s Pair”
The “People’s Pair” of slippers (also known as the “People’s Shoes”) are the pair owned by Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. The pair is the pair that was sold on May 17, 1970, for $15,000 at the famous MGM auction. At the time, the pair was presented as, and assumed to be, the only pair in existence. In 1979 the anonymous buyer donated them to the Smithsonian, where they have been ever since.
When the auction was being prepared, costumer Kent Warner was tasked with curating the costumes and various props. He found four pairs of Ruby Slippers (including the “Arabian” test pair), but kept three (including the most pristine pair) for himself while just this one pair was auctioned. Most people believe it was Warner being a bit devious, but actually it was David Wiesz, head of the auction house, who told Warner that they would auction off just one pair and to get rid of the others. He wanted the one pair to be valuable at auction. Warner didn’t destroy the other pairs he found, he sold them on his own.
In 2016, the Smithsonian began a restoration project, partly funded by the public via a Kickstarter “Save the Slippers” campaign (including some swag as seen below), to properly clean and restore their pair. The newly restored pair were unveiled in 2018.
The videos here are provided by the Smithsonian YouTube Channel.
November 2016:
Campaign To Save The Slippers
November 2016:
Inside The Conservation Lab
Conservation Promo
The Slippers Are Ready!
Pair #2 – “The Contest Pair”
Roberta Bauman of Tennessee saw the news reports about the auction in 1970 and thought, “Wait a minute, that’s not the only pair. I have a pair!” In 1939, she won the pair as part of a Nation Four Star Club contest “Name the Best Movies of 1939.” The revelation about her pair of sippers raised the question “Just how many were there?” We soon found the answer. It wasn’t too long before it was revealed how crafty (and smart) Kent Warner had been when he discovered more than one pair back in 1970.
Bauman put her pair up for auction in 1988. When she was told they sold for $165k she exclaimed, “My God, it’s astounding.” They sold to collector Anthony Landini who leased them to the Disney for display at “The Great Movie Ride” in their Florida Disney/MGM Studios theme park. In 2000, Landini put the pair up for action again at which time they were bought by David Elkouby, owner of some Hollywood memorabilia shops. To date he has not displayed the shoes and they have been out of the public arena ever since.
The photos below show Ms. Bauman with her slippers. The video is courtesy of Disney Dave. Check out his fantastic YouTube Channel here. Thanks, Dave!
Pair #3 – “The Dramatic Pair”
In 1970, Kent Warner sold one of the pairs he kept secret to collector Michael Shaw for a mere $2,500..
This pair could be dubbed the “Dramatic Pair” due to the dramatic turn of events that plagued them. Shaw was generous in displaying the shoes, traveling with them and other Hollywood costumes he owned (including one of the screen-used Dorothy dresses).
In 2005 the pair were famously stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, where they were on display.
As the years passed, it seemed as though this pair was never to be seen again. Various well known Oz and Garland collectors were accused of being the perpetrators, but no one knew what happened to them nor did it seem there were any decent clues. Various detectives tried to find out and a group even searched the flooded Tioga Mine Pit outside of Grand Rapids, going on a tip that the shoes had been stolen by some teens who allegedly threw them into the pit. Nothing was found.
Then out of the blue in 2018, the FBI announced that they had recovered the stolen pair. They had the pair verified by the Smithsonian (who were finishing up the restoration of their own pair) that they were indeed the slippers stolen from the museum back in 2005.
As it happens the stolen pair are mismatched, their real mates are the Smithsonian pair that had been purchased at that 1970 auction. Over the decades either no one noticed or no one cared to make a swap. When the stolen pair were given to the Smithsonian for verification, it was too late to properly match the two pairs. The two Smithsonian slippers had just been painstakingly restored. To match them up would mean one slipper in each pair would look brand new while the other non-restored mate would look very poor indeed. It would have been nice if the Smithsonian could have restored the stolen pair and then properly matched the slippers, but that would have been even more expensive, they wouldn’t meet their restoration due date, and the stolen pair were in FBI custody for the foreseeable future.
The slippers had been found, but no one knew who was caught with them, or any other details. The FBI and everyone else connected with the case were tight lipped.
Finally, on May 17, 2023, the FBI put out a press release noting that a grand jury had indicted Terry Jon Martin, a 76-year-old man who lives just a few miles from the Grand Rapid, Minnesota, museum where the slippers were stolen from. There has been no explanation as to how they found Martin, and what his motivation was to steal the slippers.
Just a few days later, on May 19, 2023, CBS News Minnesota reported that Minnesota legislators had introduced a bill to allocate money to the Minnesota Historical Society to purchase the slippers. The bill, chiefly written by Minnesota Representative Ben Davis, stipulates that the slippers would have to be publicly displayed by the Minnesota Historical Society, which can then lease or loan them to the Judy Garland Museum. Considering that the slippers are valued up to 3.5 million dollars, it’s doubtful that if the bill passes the Minnesota legislature would be able to purchase them. The most likely scenario is that the insurance company would put them up for auction, once they are no longer part of any legal case pertaining to the alleged thief, Mr. Martin.
To be continued as news develops…
Pair #4 – “The Witch’s Pair”
The one pair that Kent Warner kept to himself were the pair in the best condition, commonly called the “Witch’s Shoes” as they are assumed to be the pair seen on the dead feet of the Wicked Witch of the East under Dorothy’s house in Munchkinland. They are also known as the “close-up pair” and the “clicking pair” as it’s assumed that due to their pristine shape they were used only for the filming of close-ups and when Dorothy clicks her heels together. The other shoes had some wear and tear due to being used for the bulk of the filming including dancing.
Warner quietly sold them in 1981 to an unknown buyer via Christie’s East for $12,000. Just a couple of weeks after Landini bought his pair in 1988, this pair was taken by the anonymous owner to Christie’s for auction. Christie’s offered the pair to the under-bidder of the pair Landini bought (“Pair #2” above). The new owner was Philip Samuels of St. Louis, Missouri. Samuels was very generous with his pair, using them for fundraising for children’s charities and also loaning them to the Smithsonian while that pair was being cleaned or was on tour.
This pair was auctioned by Profiles in History in 2011. However, the highest bid did not meet the reserve price of two million dollars, so the pair stayed in a vault until 2012 when actor Leonardo DiCaprio, director Steven Spielberg, and allegedly other unknown donors, purchased the pair for an undisclosed price. They donated them to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as one of the main attractions in their new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures that opened in 2021.
It’s fitting that the most pristine pair of Ruby Slippers found their way back to Hollywood and are one of the highlights of the new museum that’s located at a spot (the original May Company department store) once frequented by Judy Garland.
A page from the Judy Room’s 2011 Year in Review
Pair #5 – “The Arabian Test Pair”
Kent Warner sold the last of the three pairs of Ruby Slippers that he had kept for himself, the “Arabian” test pair, to Debbie Reynolds for $300. The low amount was probably due to the fact that Warner felt bad that he sold a screen-used pair to Michael Shaw assuming that Shaw was buying them on Reynolds’ behalf. Shaw had been working with Reynolds so it’s not surprising that Warner made that assumption.
Reynolds also owned a replica pair specially made in 1989 for the 50th anniversary of the film, which complemented her original Arabian pair when she was able to display her extensive collection. For decades she had tried to get a museum put together to showcase the collection. Unfortunately, that never happened. Reynolds auctioned off her immense collection in 2011. Of all the stars of the Golden Age, she was the first to recognize the historical value of the costumes, props, and other ephemera from films at a time when everyone else just thought of it all as “old junk.” Now her one-of-a-kind collection is scattered around the world. It’s doubtful we will ever see a single collection such as hers ever again.
Replica Slippers
Over the years there have been fan created, officially licensed, specially made, and costume versions made of the Ruby Slippers. Some of the fan created slippers look as real as the real ones. They’re quite amazing. The following are some examples.
Garland’s daughter, Liza Minnelli, wore these “ruby slippers” (seen below) at her wedding to Jack Haley, Jr. (son of “Tin Man” Jack Haley) in 1974. The shoes were later auctioned in 2018, one of the many items Liza auctioned in the multi-day “Love Liza” auction event.
This Ruby Slipper trophy was created Ricky Sarkany and presented to Liza in 2007.
It was also auctioned in 2018.
This very realistic fan-made replica pair was used as a prop in the film Night At The Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009). In the film, Hank Azaria’s “Kahmunrah” inspects the slippers thinking their real rubies. When he realizes they’re not, he tosses them aside muttering, “Ruby slippers indeed!”
These replicas were auctioned in 2012 and again in 2015.
For the 75th anniversary of the film, Erik Decker created these replicas of the Arabian pair. He has also created replicas of the version used in the film. Check out his YouTube Channel to see his masterful work.
In 2019, Ikon Design Studio in Australia made a limited number of these official replicas that came beautifully packaged with a black base and a metal Oz logo. They were so popular that in 2020 they made another limited run, this time with a yellow base and a yellow Oz logo.
The company has since made replicas of other Oz items including the Wizard’s awards given to the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion; plus a fabulous recreation of the Witch’s hourglass.
In 2022, the Paragon FX Group unveiled their Ruby Slipper replicas which are similar to the Ikon replicas and are also officially licensed through Warner Bros., and part of the studio’s 100th anniversary in 2023. However, since The Wizard of Oz is an MGM-made film, Warner Bros. has raised more than a few eyebrows including it and other MGM-made films in their anniversary products simply because they bought the MGM film library. in the late 1990s. Make no mistake, The Wizard of Oz and al the other MGM-made films will always be MGM films regardless of who actually owns the catalog. They still open with the MGM Lion’s roar and always will. One wonders what Warner Bros. will do in a year when its the 100th anniversary of MGM.
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