Dangerous sets and suffocating costumes: Inside the cursed production of The Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz is widely regarded as a cult classic and was one of the first films to be shot in technicolour. However, the actual production was a living nightmare for most people involved and it’s one of the biggest kept secrets in Hollywood. There were countless major medical emergencies and out-of-control munchkins to name a few disasters: Truly chaos at every turn. Here are some of the most harrowing production facts that will completely change how you view The Wizard of Oz from now on.

The snow that fell in the poppy fields was pure asbestos

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One of the most horrifying facts about The Wizard of Oz was the mass use of asbestos as snow in the production of this poppy field scene. For all of you who don’t know, asbestos is incredibly toxic, and nowadays an entire building has to be evacuated if there’s even a trace of it. But back in 1939, it was perfectly acceptable for Judy Garland and her co-stars to be covered with the dangerous substance while on set.

Judy Garland was forced onto a horrible diet so she’d stay looking younger

According to claims from Judy herself, she was put on a very strict diet of cigarettes and chicken soup to keep her weight down, as well as alleged pills. She has said that the studio did everything they could to maintain her girlish figure, like strapping down her chest with binders. Judy would apparently be so wired after set that she couldn’t sleep, so the studio had a doctor prescribe her sleeping pills, full of barbiturates. That scenario sounds like a living hell.

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The Tin Man suffered life-changing burns to his face after being painted with pure aluminium, and was recast

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Actor Buddy Ebsen was originally cast for the part of the Tin Man but had such a serious reaction to the pure aluminium silver paint that he ended up in hospital and ultimately had to leave the production after being out of action for too long.

Jack Haley, who played the second Tin Man, had to have his hair pulled back flat, and a rubber skin put over his head and behind his ears. They then covered his face with cold cream and coated it with a while chalk-like substance and painted it white.

“The idea of the white stuff was to close my pores so the silver paste that made me look like I was made of tin wouldn’t damage my skin. They painted my face silver and glued on a silver nose,” he remembered in an interview. “They glued a strip of rubber that was supposed to be tin under my chin and glued each individual black rubber rivet on my face, then they painted my lips black because painting my face silver made my mouth too red.” Sounds horrible and uncomfortable.

The Wicked Witch of the West was so scary to children that she had to film a video for TV to calm them down

Poor Margaret Hamilton had her fair share of nightmares on The Wizard of Oz set, but she left children so terrified by her performance that production asked her to make videos of her in her witch costume and appear on television to show them they had nothing to be afraid of. If anything I’d be asking for an Oscar after this.

Margaret Hamilton also had to convince the director not to set fire to the scarecrow??

In one scene, the Wicked Witch of the West attempts to set fire to the Scarecrow, and in response, Dorothy douses him with a bucket of water, which ends up melting and killing the Witch. However, Margaret wasn’t entirely comfortable setting fire to Bolger.

“After an earlier experience when my broom caught fire, it was almost too much for me,” she said in The Making of the Wizard of Oz, “but I was assured Bolger’s suit was asbestos and there was little danger of it catching fire.”

She suffered terrible injuries while filming

The earlier experience she brought up was a time in The Wizard of Oz production when she was filming the part where she tells Dorothy “I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog too,” and then jumps into a trapdoor which was supposed to take her under the set.

In the movie, it’s seamless, and the witch disappears behind a cloud of smoke, but this was actually an incredibly dangerous stunt. The platform was so narrow that Margaret had to tuck her arms in and hold the broom perfectly vertically to fit through it. You’d never guess by watching, but she ended up in the hospital because of the stunt.

The timing was all wrong, and you can see it when the smoke starts that the trap door opened too early, before Margaret was standing on it. She jumped on the platform, but it was way too late by then. When the platform brought her under the stage, the fireball had already gone off, catching Margaret in the middle of it.

Immediately, her face and hat caught fire. Why her face, you ask? Her green witch makeup was made from COPPER. Wow, it all sounds very safe!

According to Judy’s third husband, the Munchkin actors were a nightmare

One day, an actor playing one of the munchkins, Charles Kelley, brought two loaded guns to the set. According to him, he felt the actor playing the mayor of Munchkinland, Charley Becker, was eyeing up his wife and he wanted to warn him to back off. Charles Kelley disarmed by production and told to not bring guns to work ever again, but was allowed to keep working. As for his wife and the mayor, he was right – the two got married in the end.

Judy’s third ex-husband also claimed the munchkins “made her life miserable by putting their hands up her dress,” but this has never been proved or reported in any way, so it remains just a claim.

Actors were fainting on set because of how hot it was

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Because The Wizard of Oz was one of the first to be shot in Technicolor, the production needed large sets with cameras hidden in different corners and elaborate lighting that made the set suffocatingly hot.

“We had enormous banks of lights overhead,” said filmmaker Harold Rosson in The Making of the Wizard of Oz. “We borrowed every unused arc light in Hollywood. It was brutally hot. People were always fainting and being carried off the set.”

Reports say that temperatures got up over 38 degrees celsius and when it became unbearable on set, director Victor Fleming would turn the lights off and open the studio doors so the actors could step outside.

Unfortunately, the scarecrow actor had it the worst in the heat. Broadway star Ray Bolger played the scarecrow but his face mask was apparently awful to wear.

“The mask wasn’t porous, so you couldn’t sweat. You couldn’t breathe through your skin,” he said in an interview. “You don’t realize how much you breathe through your skin until you can’t do it.” Every night it took an hour for the makeup artists to peel his mask off, and by the end of filming, he had permanent lines near his mouth and chin.