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

Image by Getty Images
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.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
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.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
- 2
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 3
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 4
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
-
Music After over decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
-
Art How a Lower East Side Jew conquered the multiverse
-
Fast Forward Right-wing activists riot outside Israeli-Palestinian memorial event at Reform synagogue in Israel
-
Fast Forward Trump fires Doug Emhoff from Holocaust Memorial Council
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.