Did Munchkin Actors Grope Judy Garland On Set of ‘Wizard Of Oz’?

Image by Getty Images

By Dave Goldiner February 8, 2017

Skipping down the Yellow Brick Road on the set of “The Wizard of Oz” was more like a sexual ordeal than a carefree jaunt for Judy Garland, her Jewish ex-husband reveals in a new book.

Sid Luft writes in his forthcoming posthumous memoir that dwarf actors repeatedly fondled Garland, who was just 17 when she starred in the iconic 1939 Hollywood blockbuster, the Guardian reports.

“They would make Judy’s life miserable on set by putting their hands under her dress,” wrote Luft in Judy and I: My Life With Judy Garland.

The male actors were often given leeway because of their childlike size, claimed Luft, who died in 2005.

“The men were 40 or more years old,” Luft wrote. “They thought they could get away with anything because they were so small.”

Garland herself spoke derisively of the actors playing the Munkchins before her death.

“They were little drunks,” she said in 1967. “They got smashed every night and the police used to scoop them up in butterfly nets.”

Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion, said the Munchkins were prone to using violence and used their status to sleep with women.

“(They) brandished knives and often had passions for larger personnel,” Lahr said.

Dave Goldiner is the Forward’s director of digital media. Dave is a veteran journalist who has spent two decades working at newspapers in the United States and Africa. A native New Yorker, Goldiner wrote for the New York Daily News, where he covered some of the biggest stories of our time, including the attacks of September 11, along with thousands of stories of hope and heartbreak. He also studied and worked in Southern Africa and has written for publications in South Africa and Zimbabwe. He holds masters degrees in journalism and public administration from Columbia University. Dave can be reached at [email protected], or follow him on Twitter @davegoldiner

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO