“I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!”
That line belongs to the Wicked Witch of the West, not to Dorothy — but it’s hard to picture The Wizard of Oz without also picturing the girl and the little dog the Witch was so determined to get her hands on. That’s Judy Garland’s Dorothy, and Toto, immortalized together on a stamp the way they were immortalized on screen: inseparable.
Here’s a piece of Oz trivia that never quite gets old — Toto, played by a female cairn terrier named Terry, was reportedly paid $125 a week for the role. The actors playing the Munchkins, by most accounts, made about $50. It’s the kind of detail that sounds like a joke until you check it, and then it’s just a good story about how strange and specific old Hollywood accounting could get — even on the way to Oz.
Anecdote confidence: Well-documented — the Toto/Munchkin pay disparity is well sourced in production histories of the film, including Aljean Harmetz’s widely cited account of the making of The Wizard of Oz.
Like a good Hollywood story? There’s a lot more about Judy Garland, and 49 others and the stamps that honor them all, in my upcoming book. Enter your email and I’ll let you know the minute Hollywood’s Legendary Stars hits the shelves. [Notify Me]
