|
STRANGE MOVIES SECRETS - WIZARD OF OZ CAST HATED "DOROTHY" JUDY GARLAND - REFUSED TO TALK TO HER
On the set of the Wizard of Oz, the actors playing the Scarecrow, Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Wizard resented being “upstaged” by a woman and refused to even talk to Judy Garland between takes. The only friend Garland made on set was Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch. From the very beginning, studio executives were worried that Judy Garland was too fat to play a happy-go-lucky Kansas farm girl, so in an effort to prevent her lumbering, gelatinous ass from literally sinking the production, they put her in a corset and shoved amphetamines down her throat hand over fist. She was 16 at the time, but this was the 1930s, when forcing children into meth addiction was standard Hollywood practice. As opposed to today, where it’s totally different. (We use prescription pills now.) MGM executive Louis B. Mayer was so committed to making sure Garland got down to an acceptable weight that he had people follow her around to make sure she wasn’t cheating on her diet. That diet, by the way, consisted of chicken soup, coffee, and … 80 cigarettes a day. Holy f**k, 1930s. Garland’s co-stars didn’t treat her any better, either. The actors who played the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Wizard refused to even talk to her between takes, insisting that they were serious actors and resented playing second fiddle to a woman. Even on screen, they would attempt to shove her to the back of the scene like a bunch of schoolyard bullies. Ironically, the only friend she made on set was Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Director Victor Fleming was an utter bastard, too. Garland had an unfortunate habit of laughing at Bert Lahr’s (Cowardly Lion) antics during filming, so Fleming would have to occasionally take her into the back and slap the humor out of her.
|
|