Truly Wicked! All the scandals of the 1939 Wizard of Oz: How Judy Garland was drugged and starved in an 'iron corset', actors DIED and one had an eyelid burned off... not to mention the drunken orgies

It has been 1 of the biggest selling campaigns successful Hollywood history, starting arsenic acold backmost arsenic the Super Bowl successful February.

And the 2 main stars of Wicked person surely played their part, gushing, sighing and crying connected cue to merchantability a movie that already looks definite to beryllium a holiday-season blockbuster.

Wicked – based connected the Broadway show, which itself spins disconnected the 1939 The Wizard of Oz movie – celebrates pistillate empowerment, naturally, and the value of not judging by appearances similar tegument color. Especially erstwhile it's green.

On the accompanying property tour, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo – who respectively play Glinda (the Good Witch of the South) and Elphaba (Wicked Witch of the West) – person seldom been seen apart, lovingly holding hands and parroting each other's sentences.

Just a shared glimpse successful interviews has sometimes been capable to nonstop the tears flowing.

Making the highly anticipated movie, they concur, has been a imagination travel true.

If lone the aforesaid could beryllium said of the iconic movie that spawned it all.

Celebrated for its pioneering usage of technicolor, The Wizard of Oz was the astir costly movie ever made connected its merchandise – and, according to the US Library of Congress, it is the most-seen movie of each time.

And yet, conscionable similar the wizard himself – yet exposed arsenic an mean antheral hiding down a curtain and madly moving levers – the making of the movie was thing but magical.

In fact, The Wizard of Oz was truthful notorious for accumulation disasters and controversies that immoderate person mirthlessly observed the green-hued Wicked Witch of the West indispensable person cursed it – before, that is, Dorothy doused her with a bucket of h2o and she melted.

Dorothy was memorably played by a teenaged Judy Garland, for whom making the movie progressive thing but intersexual empowerment.

Molested some by workplace bosses and the Munchkins – natives of Oz – and forced to judge an oppressive authorities to support her value down and look younger, her already shaky intelligence wellness ne'er recovered arsenic she descended into cause and intoxicant abuse.

Her tragically premature decease astatine lone 47 – from an seemingly accidental overdose of barbiturates portion she was successful London successful 1969 – is wide blamed connected the film's toxic legacy.

Garland had signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) accumulation institution astatine the tender property of 13, though her pushy parent had started giving her pills for energy, and to assistance her sleep, erstwhile Garland was conscionable ten.

That insidious inclination accelerated erstwhile she got into the clutches of a ruthless, slave-driving Hollywood studio.

MGM chiefs fretted continually astir her value and would deprive her of food, leaving her perpetually hungry.

One workplace enforcement told her: 'You look similar a hunchback. We emotion you but you're truthful abdominous you look similar a monster.'

Another called her a 'fat small pig with pigtails'.

MGM's callous behaviour near Garland with a life-long insecurity astir her figure. She was seeing psychiatrists by the property of 18.

The workplace adjacent pushed drugs connected the teen (the destiny of galore different young stars) encouraging her to instrumentality amphetamines, known successful the concern arsenic 'pep pills', to support her slim and energetic done a relentless filming schedule. MGM besides gave Garland sleeping pills to calm her down astatine night.

'Speed her up, dilatory her down,' said a workplace insider who boasted Garland was 'run similar a clock'.

The studio's interest implicit her quality accrued erstwhile she was fixed the relation of Dorothy, who is meant to beryllium 12. Garland, who was 16 erstwhile she got the portion and a twelvemonth older by the clip filming was over, was told she needed to suffer 12 pounds.

Quite speech from a strict fare of chickenhearted soup, achromatic coffee, 80 (appetite-suppressing) cigarettes per day, fare pills and much amphetamines, Garland had to deterioration a bizarre corset on-set which not lone pulled successful her tummy but held down her breasts.

Garland claimed – surely not earnestly – that the contraption was made of iron.

Around the clip she started making the movie, workplace execs began molesting the actress, groping and endlessly propositioning her for sex.

MGM main Louis Mayer liked to amusement that helium thought she sang from the bosom by putting his manus connected the teenager's near breast.

'I often thought I was fortunate that I didn't sing with different portion of my anatomy,' Garland aboriginal recalled.

'Having enactment with the pistillate assistance was regarded arsenic a perk of powerfulness and fewer women escaped the demands of Mayer and his underlings,' Garland's biographer Gerald Clarke observed.

Victor Fleming, 1 of 5 directors brought successful to marque the movie implicit 5 months of shooting, erstwhile bushed of Garland's nonaccomplishment to halt laughing portion shooting a country and slapped her successful the face. He, astatine least, was ashamed of his behaviour and told the unit to punch him successful the look successful return, lone for Garland to buss him instead.

The diminutive actors hired to play the munchkins could not person reached her look to slap it, but they could, and allegedly did, enactment their hands up her skirts.

According to Garland, the big thespians, who chiefly suffered from dwarfism, were hardly the saccharine and guiltless contention of 'Ozians' they portrayed connected camera.

'They would marque Judy's beingness miserable connected acceptable by putting their hands nether her dress,' wrote Sid Luft, her erstwhile husband, successful a 2017 posthumous memoir. 'The men were 40 oregon much years old. They thought they could get distant with thing due to the fact that they were truthful small.'

Although immoderate person insisted they assaulted Garland, the munchkin actors person go mired successful different notoriety implicit the years for their chaotic behavior.

After shooting finished, for instance, shaper Mervyn LeRoy recalled how, 'they had orgies successful the edifice and we had to person constabulary connected astir each floor'.

Speaking successful 1967, Garland recalled: 'They were small drunks. They got smashed each nighttime and the constabulary utilized to scoop them up successful butterfly nets.'

She said she besides erstwhile agreed to spell connected a day with 1 of them but brought her parent arsenic a chaperone.

'Fair enough, 2 broads for the terms of one,' quipped the munchkin.

Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion, corroborated the grim tales, claimed: 'Many munchkins made their surviving by panhandling, pimping and whoring. Midgets brandished knives and often had passions for larger personnel.'

It was said that a German munchkin who called himself The Count erstwhile had to been rescued from a toilet bowl.

'We were each looking for him,' said Ray Bolger, who played the Scarecrow. 'Apparently, helium drank his lunch, sat connected the stool, fell into it and couldn't get out. There helium was with his caput and legs stuck up.'

Garland was not the lone pistillate performer to beryllium damaged by the movie – and for immoderate the scars were literal.

The Wicked Witch of the West, for example, makes a memorable on-screen entranceway amid billowing reddish fume and flames. But successful reality, the country went horribly incorrect for some Margaret Hamilton, the histrion playing the witch, and her stunt double, Betty Danko.

One day, a subordinate of the movie unit fell done a trap doorway connected to Danko, waiting to marque her entranceway below, and injured her shoulder.

Consequently, Hamilton had to decorativeness the stunt herself, leaving the aforesaid mode Danko had arrived – successful an detonation of occurrence and smoke.

However, the flames came excessively soon and Hamilton, who was wearing flammable copper-based greenish make-up, caught fire, giving her 2nd and third-degree burns.

The country astir her close oculus was peculiarly severely deed with the eyelid and eyebrow wholly burned off.

Even erstwhile she returned to enactment six weeks later, Hamilton had to deterioration greenish gloves alternatively than make-up arsenic the nerves successful 1 charred manus had been near truthful exposed.

Hapless stuntwoman Danko aboriginal had to sprout different celebrated country successful which the broomstick-riding Wicked Witch writes 'Surrender Dorothy' successful fume successful the sky.

For the smoke, a peculiar tube was attached beneath the broom – but it exploded nether Danko, who sustained terrible burns connected her interior thighs and damaged her reproductive organs truthful severely that she had to person a hysterectomy.

They weren't the lone ones injured.

Two of the actors playing the evil winged monkeys ended up successful infirmary aft flying accidents of their ain successful which the wires holding them broke, sending them crashing to the workplace floor.

Today's wellness and information manufacture would person a corporate bosom onslaught astatine the primitive moving conditions and exertion connected the set.

Just 9 days into filming, Buddy Ebsen, who played the Tin Man, became highly sick and had to beryllium hospitalized.

To execute his shiny tegument effect, unit were coating his look achromatic earlier powdering implicit it with existent aluminum dust. Each clip the make-up was applied oregon touched up, Ebsen was inhaling toxic good grains of the metallic which coated the wrong of his lungs and stopped oxygen reaching his blood.

The histrion was truthful sick helium had to beryllium replaced by comedian Jack Haley and lone appears a fistful of times successful the finished movie.

The movie makers responded by mixing the aluminum particulate with achromatic paint, creating a paste that Haley wouldn't inhale. But successful the extremity helium was taken to infirmary himself aft the paste got successful his eye.

Asbestos, present known astatine the clip to beryllium carcinogenic, was utilized to make the snowfall that falls connected to Dorothy and her friends aft they autumn dormant successful a poppy field.

While determination was nary proven nexus with the filming, some Bert Lahr (the lion) and Ray Bolger (the Scarecrow), aboriginal died of cancer.

The wardrobe section lone added to the misery connected set.

Many formed members, particularly the Wicked Witch's guards and her flying monkeys, had to deterioration dense constitution and hugely cumbersome outfits.

Given the almighty lights that the aboriginal Technicolor process required, temperatures connected the Hollywood acceptable soared to much than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, causing immoderate actors to faint. They were carried out.

The Cowardly Lion's outfit was made of existent lion tegument and caused Lahr to sweat truthful heavy wrong it that the costume had to beryllium enactment into an concern dryer each night.

For his part, Bolger claimed the rubber scarecrow disguise helium had to deterioration near him with facial scarring.

But fewer formed members escaped unscathed. Even Dorothy's dog, Toto, played by a Cairn terrier named Terry, suffered a sprained ft aft 1 of the witch's guards stepped connected it. He was temporarily replaced by a doggy double.

It would person been small consolation for Terry, but helium was reportedly paid much for his relation successful the movie than the Munchkins.

Skies mightiness good beryllium bluish determination implicit the rainbow, arsenic Dorothy truthful beautifully sings, and there's surely nary motion of our emotion matter with The Wizard of Oz ending immoderate clip soon. But to get the catchline of today's movie spin-off, Wicked: 'You're not being told the full story!'