I hadn’t watched The Wizard of Oz since I was a kid back in the 1970s. Back then, watching it was a big event because we didn’t have VCRs or the ability to stream movies whenever we wanted. We had to wait until it came on TV, and if you missed it, you’d have to wait until the next time it aired.
It’s all a bit hazy after so many years, but I distinctly remember being terrified of those flying monkeys.
I recently watched it again with my 12-year-old daughter, and I was surprised at how well the movie has stood the test of time. When Dorothy’s house lands in Oz and the movie switches from black and white to Technicolor, the colors really are incredibly vivid. I was also impressed by the craftsmanship and all the detail that went into building the sets, which today would probably just be created using CGI.
But as we were watching, my daughter started telling me about some things she had read online about the making of the film, like the asbestos they supposedly used for snow and the actress who played the Wicked Witch catching on fire.
I had never heard any of these stories before, and it got me curious. I started doing some reading online and listening to a few podcasts, and the more I learned, the more surprised I became. There were all kinds of accidents and some pretty disturbing things that happened during the making of the movie that I had never known about.
For starters, Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion, wore a costume made with real lion fur. The costume reportedly weighed around 90 pounds, and because they needed incredibly bright lights to shoot the movie in Technicolor, temperatures on the set could climb above 100 degrees. You can imagine how uncomfortable that must have been. Apparently, Lahr would sweat so much that the costume had to be dried out after filming, and it didn’t smell very good either.
Then there was Buddy Ebsen, who was originally cast as the Tin Man. The makeup artists used aluminum powder to give him that metallic appearance, but he ended up inhaling it and became so seriously ill that he had to be hospitalized. He never returned to the production and was replaced by Jack Haley, who played the Tin Man in the finished movie. They also changed the makeup to an aluminum paste rather than a loose powder.
And then there was Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West. During the scene where she disappears in a cloud of smoke and fire, the flames went off before she could safely descend through a trapdoor in the floor. Her face and hand were burned, and she had to spend several weeks recovering. To make matters worse, her green makeup contained copper compounds, and it had to be removed quickly because of concerns that it could make her burns worse.
After she recovered, Hamilton refused to do any more scenes involving fire. But that didn’t prevent another accident. Her stunt double, Betty Danko, was injured when a special-effects device attached to the Witch’s broomstick exploded. She ended up in the hospital too.
Remember those flying monkeys that scared me so much as a child? Well, apparently, the actors playing them were suspended by piano wire, and there are accounts of some of those wires snapping during filming, sending the performers crashing to the ground. It’s amazing that they were taking those kinds of risks just to make a movie.
Even Toto wasn’t spared. Toto was actually played by a female Cairn Terrier named Terry, and during filming, one of the actors accidentally stepped on her foot and injured her. She had to take a couple of weeks off to recover.
And then there’s Judy Garland, who was only 16 years old when they started filming. I had no idea how much pressure the studio put on her to keep her weight down and make her look younger.
They had her wear a corset to flatten her figure, and MGM had been controlling her diet for years. There are accounts of her being restricted to things like cottage cheese and chicken broth, and she was given amphetamine-based pills to help control her appetite and keep her going through the long filming days. Sleeping pills were also used to help her get some rest.
There are even stories about her being encouraged to smoke cigarettes to suppress her appetite, although that particular claim is disputed.
It’s pretty disturbing to think about how a 16-year-old girl was treated, especially knowing about the struggles she would go through later in her life.
And then there was the story about the asbestos snow that my daughter had mentioned. Remember the scene where Dorothy and her friends fall asleep in the poppy field and Glinda makes it snow to wake them up?
For years, people have claimed that the snow was made from asbestos, but apparently, there’s some disagreement about that. Some research suggests they actually used crushed gypsum, which is a mineral used to make plaster.
What isn’t disputed is that asbestos was used elsewhere in the film. When the Wicked Witch sets the Scarecrow on fire, Ray Bolger, who played the Scarecrow, wore protective clothing that contained asbestos.
The more I learned about the making of The Wizard of Oz, the more surprised I became. I had watched this movie as a kid and never had the slightest idea what some of these actors had gone through.
And what’s really interesting is that despite all of these problems, the movie turned out to be such an incredible piece of filmmaking. Almost 90 years later, people are still watching it, and I think it looks pretty amazing even by today’s standards.
Anyway, after listening to all those podcasts and reading about the movie, I couldn’t get these stories out of my head. I kept thinking about how there was this whole other story behind a movie that practically everyone knows.
And as often happens when something gets stuck in my head, I started thinking about how I could turn it into a song.
I played around with a few lyrical ideas, and after letting everything percolate in my brain for a while, the song started coming together.
So that’s how my song about The Wizard of Oz came about. What started out as an afternoon watching an old movie with my daughter ended up sending me down a rabbit hole, and the next thing I knew, I had written a song about it.
Sources and Further Reading
While researching the making of The Wizard of Oz, I came across quite a few interesting stories about what happened behind the scenes. Some are well documented, while others have been exaggerated or disputed over the years.
For anyone interested in learning more, here are a few good sources:
- American Film Institute – The Wizard of Oz (1939) — Historical information about the film’s production, casting changes, and filming accidents.
- HISTORY – 7 Surprising Facts About The Wizard of Oz — Behind-the-scenes stories and some of the controversies surrounding the production.
- Smithsonian Magazine – Without This Camera, the Emerald City Would Have Been the Color of Mud — An interesting look at the Technicolor process and the challenges of filming in color.
- McGill University – The Dark Sciences Behind The Wizard of Oz — A look at hazardous materials used during filming and the facts behind several popular stories.
Listen
About the recording
I wrote the lyrics and melody, arranged and produced the song, sang the lead and backing vocals, and played the Taylor 114ce acoustic guitars. Some of my backing vocals were pitch-shifted an octave higher using Auto-Tune to create a soprano-like sound.
Additional fingerpicking guitar, bass, and fiddle came from PG Music Band-in-a-Box RealTracks. The recording also features Toontrack EZdrummer 3 and Native Instruments piano, organ, and keyboards. Piano MIDI arrangements began in EZkeys 2 and Scaler 2 and were edited to fit the song.
Recorded and mixed in Logic Pro with iZotope Neutron 5. Mastered with iZotope Ozone 12.
Read the lyrics
Somewhere over the rainbow
There’s a story that’s left untold
They say they used a real lion’s skin
To make his costume for The Wizard of Oz
They would never do that today
They gave her cigarettes and amphetamines
To keep her skinny for the film
It’s no wonder for the rest of her life
She was never okay
Some say sometimes you’ve got to suffer
To make a great piece of art
And those actors in that film
They all played their part
The powdered aluminum makeup
Got into the original Tin Man’s lungs
Sent him to the hospital
And he had to be replaced
The Wicked Witch caught on fire
Going through a trapdoor
She got burns on her hands and face
Some say sometimes you’ve got to suffer
To make a great piece of art
And those actors in that film
They all played their part
Sometimes you don’t want to know
How the sausage making’s done
‘Cause when you find out the truth
It takes away the fun
We stash away the ugly baggage
We sanitize
And hide the truth
Because we’d rather hear lies
Those flying monkeys scared so many
Generations of kids
But the actors in those furry costumes
Were terrified too
Because the cables that suspended them
Sometimes would break
But they just got up and kept going
Because that’s what they were supposed to do
Sometimes you don’t want to know
How the sausage making’s done
‘Cause when you find out the truth
It takes away the fun
There’s something about that movie
That’s stood the test of time
Even though the people who made it
Sometimes crossed the line
And while the Munchkins sang
“Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead”
Did those actors who suffered
Wish they’d done something else instead?
Some say sometimes you’ve got to suffer
To make a great piece of art
But I wonder if that suffering
Really had to be a part
We stash away the ugly baggage
We sanitize
And hide the truth
Because we’d rather hear lies
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