To celebrate the upcoming release of “Wicked” in cinemas, read about the horror tales of risk and injury from the film set of the original “The Wizard of Oz”
Groundbreaking at the time, “The Wizard of Oz” has been an enduring whimsical favorite, entertaining families since 1939. While the story contains some dark themes and innovative special effects for the era, the reality of the dangers faced by the cast and crew on the film set is even darker.
Here are some horrifying health and safety scenarios:
– Buddy Ebsen, originally cast as the Tin Man, had to leave the film due to severe lung damage caused by aluminum dust in his makeup.
– During the Munchkinland sequence, a faulty trap door caused Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West, to sustain serious burns. She missed six weeks of filming and insisted that her stand-in handle any scenes involving fire.
– The stand-in, Betty Danko, was then asked to sit on a makeshift pipe that spewed smoke during the “Surrender Dorothy” scene. The pipe, resembling a broomstick, exploded during filming, sending Danko to the hospital for 11 days and leaving her with permanent leg scars.
– Margaret Hamilton’s copper-based makeup was highly toxic, and her green complexion took months to fade.
