Closer USA – August 12, 2019

Ringo Kid’s affection. The 32-year-old Duke

was paid $3,700, less than half what was giv-

en to standout supporting cast members

Andy Devine and Thomas Mitchell (who

won a best supporting actor Oscar as a boozy

philosopher). Stagecoach was nominated for

seven Oscars in all, including best picture,

but its only other victory came for the film’s

stirring orchestral score.

OVER THE RAINBOW

As spring turned to summer, audiences pre-

pared themselves for a lavish, surreal mu-

sical based on a beloved children’s novel:

L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of

Oz. Judy Garland, a musical sensation who’d

struck up chemistry with Mickey Rooney

in 1938’s Love Finds Andy Hardy, wasn’t the

first choice to play Dorothy Gale, the Kansas

farm girl swept up in a twister and deposited

in an alternately magical and terrifying land

of adorable Munchkins and f lying monkeys.

Producer Mervyn LeRoy wanted Shirley

Temple, the 10-year-old star who was Hol-

lywood’s top box-office draw from 1935 to

1938. Shirley was much closer in age to Dor-

othy, who’s around 10 in the book, but 20th

Century Fox, which had the child mega-

star under contract, refused to loan her out

to MGM. Enter Judy, then 16. Dorothy had to

be aged up — and Judy’s burgeoning breasts

needed to be bound down. “It was the be-

ginning of the studio’s inf luence on mak-

ing Judy uncomfortable with her body,”

Aljean Harmetz, author of The Making of The

Wizard of Oz, tells Closer. The studio also

prescribed Judy diet pills, possibly kicking

off her lifelong struggles with addiction.

Then there were the Munchkins. “They

were drunk and crabby all the time,” Joan

Kenmore, who was 7 and played one of the

little people with f lower pots on their heads,

tells Closer. Explains Harmetz, “The peo-

ple in the hotel bar were eager to buy them

drinks, and a little liquor is more debilitat-

ing to someone who weighs 80 pounds than it

would be to a person of a normal weight.”

Everything wasn’t wicked on the Wizard

of Oz set, though. “Toto! Judy fell in love with

that little dog,” William Stillman, author

of The Wizard of Oz: The Official 75th Anni-

versary Companion, tells Closer. “She told a

COVER STORY

“Westerns

are an

American

art form.

They

represent

what this

country is

about.”

— John Wayne

10 More

Great ’39

Films

NINOTCHKA Ernst

Lubitsch’s cosmopolitan

rom-com starred glam-

orous Greta Garbo and

dapper Melvyn Douglas.

THEWOMEN“I loveto play
bi tches,”saidJoanCrawford(with
RosalindRussell,right),whodrew
onherdistasteforNormaShearer
(l eft)forthisbitingsatire.

THE HOUND

OF THE

BASKERVILLES

Basil Rathbone

and Nigel Bruce’s

first Sherlock

Holmes-Watson

vehicle launched a

14-film series that

is still considered

the definitive take

on the sleuths.

YOUNG MR. LINCOLN Henry

Fonda initially turned down the

biopic’s title role, saying Abe

was “too great a man” to play.

He was also cast as Frank James

in Jesse James and co-starred in

Drums Along the Mohawk in ’39.

22 August 12, 2019 CLOSER