This Rainbow Ends in Pot of Profits : Memorabilia: Fifty years after its release, “The Wizard of Oz” is still generating all kinds of “Oz” ware. The newest collectible: replicas of Dorothy’s ruby slippers, which will sell for $5,000 a pair.
On the golden anniversary of the release of the 1939 film, “The Wizard of Oz,” Ozmania marketers are following the yellow brick road all the way to the bank:
Pairs of $200 ruby slipper costume earrings are so popular that department stores are having a tough time keeping them in stock.
Rhys Thomas’ new book, “The Ruby Slippers of Oz,” went into a second printing two weeks after it came out in late August.
Several hundred people are on a waiting list for artist Melanie Taylor Kent’s official “Oz” serigraphs, which began selling at $1,000 and are now going for $2,500.
MGM/UA Home Video Inc. has sold more than 2 million “Wizard” anniversary videocassettes.
Forty-nine firms nationwide have been licensed to produce official “Oz” ware--from Franklin Mint heirloom dolls ($135-$245) to children’s lunch boxes, greeting cards, clothing, board games, watches, beach towels, banks, playing cards, dishes and Christmas ornaments.
The latest to join the national “Oz” craze is Western Costume Co. in Hollywood. It plans to produce a limited edition of 500 pairs of red shoes, replicas of Dorothy’s ruby slippers made from the original molds.
Their price: more than $5,000 a pair.
“We’ve had a tremendous amount of calls from people who are interested in the slippers and heard we still had the molds,” said Western Costume President Paul Abramowitz. “We figured while the old shop is still available--we’re currently looking for another building--we should create the replicas. We’re offering a work of art, a handmade collectible from one of the 25 treasured movies of the U.S.”
He said he is considering setting up an auction for the first pair of replica slippers produced by Western Costume, hoping to raise enough money to buy a print of the film and donate it to the Library of Congress, which does not have one.
In September, Library of Congress officials designated “The Wizard of Oz” among the nation’s top 25 movie treasures of all time.
The costume company’s president intends to discuss the auction project with Ted Turner, who acquired the rights to the movie when he bought the MGM film library in 1986 and took over the licensing venues in 1988.
Western Costume, like all other licensees of “Wizard” products, has a contract with Turner Entertainment Co. to produce the replicas, with Turner’s firm receiving a royalty.
Last year, Western Costume reproduced a pair of ruby slippers for the Turner company to display in its store at CNN Center in Atlanta.
All official “Oz” paraphernalia, as well as that of “Gone With the Wind,” another national treasure film that is celebrating its 50th anniversary in December, is licensed through Turner’s Atlanta-based corporation.
For movie memorabilia buffs, the price of Western Costume’s ruby slipper replicas may not seem too steep, considering what original “Wizard” collectibles go for:
A pair of the original ruby slippers sold for $165,000 last year.
The Wicked Witch’s hat brought $33,000.
Dorothy’s gingham dress went for $22,000.
In June, Christie’s East auction house in New York City collected $20,000 for the Cowardly Lion’s “Witch Remover,” a 28-inch spray can that Bert Lahr carried while hunting for Margaret Hamilton in the Haunted Forest.
At the Broadway, which has offered a collection of “Oz” costume jewelry by New York designer Wendy Gell for 1 1/2 months, the $200 ruby-pave slipper earrings have outsold all the various “Oz” character pins.
But recently, sales of “Oz” witch pins have picked up.
“Currently, the good and bad witch pins are selling very well,” said Jeff Sinfield, fashion jewelry buyer for the Broadway.
Mystery of Slippers
Dick Weaver of Tale Weaver Publishing, the Los Angeles company that is publishing “The Ruby Slippers of Oz,” believes that “being the anniversary year helped (book sales), but it’s more than that. There’s a mystery surrounding the slippers, and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love the film. It makes you wonder if Hollywood will ever produce anything like that again. I think ‘Oz’ even eclipses ‘E. T.’ ”
The mystery, as Thomas points out in his book, is that no one is sure how many pairs of shoes there were or how many were made specifically for Judy Garland or bought from a Hollywood shoe company.
It is believed there are at least seven pairs. One is in the Smithsonian; the others are privately owned.
They weren’t even red to start with, according to Al DiPardo, who retired from his job as shoe cutter and fitter at Western Costume in 1976.
DiPardo said that he cut the original pairs of shoes for Garland, “no more than three or four pair.”
His deceased brother-in-law, Joe Napoli, Western Costume’s shoemaker at the time, fashioned the original shoes, DiPardo insisted. “And they weren’t covered with red sequins. They were white satin. And they had 1 1/2-inch heels. They were doctored with the sequins by the studio (MGM).”
DiPardo, who lives in Sherman Oaks, recalled that “after she (Garland) worked in them (the shoes) they were ugly. The sequins popped off--they were just glued on. One pair came back to Western for repair, and went back to the studio. I never saw them again.”
Some of the pairs have numbers inside, which indicates they were bought rather than custom-made, DiPardo explained: “The shoes Western Costume made had no number and no size in them. My sister, Carmella, worked there, too, and she printed JUDY GARLAND inside the shoes. No size and no number. Judy wore a 5B. I made the shoes she wore in ‘A Star Is Born.’ ”
For its part in Ozmania, MGM/UA Home Video, which introduced “The Wizard of Oz” as its first home videocassette on Oct. 8, 1980, has issued an “Oz” anniversary edition, a brilliant Technicolor print in which the prologue and epilogue of the movie have been restored to the original sepia color instead of black and white.
MGM/UA also has added almost 17 minutes of extra footage to the cassette at the movie’s end, including a song by Buddy Ebsen, who originally played the Tin Man but was replaced by Jack Haley after suffering an allergic reaction to the Tin Man makeup and being hospitalized.
The cassettes cost $24.95, but there’s a $5 rebate available.
Baum Book Auction
Another group to join in Ozmania is San Francisco-based California Book Auction Galleries, which will sponsor a Los Angeles auction of “Oz” author L. Frank Baum books and what it calls other “Oziana,” including original movie cards, ads, posters and sheet music. It will be Nov. 30 at 7:30 p.m. at the Hyatt Hotel on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood.
Not to be overlooked, Turner Entertainment released a 16-page catalogue last week featuring all of the “Oz” products offered at the Turner Store in CNN Center, along with those from “Gone With the Wind.” They can be purchased through the company’s toll-free number, (800) 423-3200.
Turner executives are expecting “millions and millions” to be generated from the “Oz” and “GWTW” product sales, a spokesman said.
Included among Turner’s more unusual “GWTW” products are “Scarlett’s Chocolates,” a one-half-pound box of chocolates with Scarlett O’Hara’s portrait on the lid. It was created by Atlanta chocolatier Maggie Lyon, and sells for $14.95. For $8.95, there’s also a limited edition replica of the original “Gone With the Wind” paper doll book done in 1940.
“We’ve been getting orders from all over the country,” said Shelly Charles, general manager of the Turner Store and director of tours for CNN Studios. “There are a lot of ‘Oz’ collectors, but people are getting fanatical about ‘Gone With the Wind.’ I think it will be bigger than ‘Oz’ because this is the territory here. We’re gearing up for Dec. 15 (the date the original film premiered in Atlanta). We have a huge celebration coming up--a re-premiere of the film, tours to historic places, a ball, Scarlett and Rhett look-alike contests.”
To date, Turner Entertainment has licensed 25 firms to produce “GWTW” products, among them a restored print videocassette ($89.95); expensive ($175-$495) and inexpensive ($25.95) Scarlett, Rhett and Mammy dolls; books; T-shirts; musical pocket watches; cookie tins; puzzles; and “GWTW” perfume. Turner officials also commissioned artist LeRoy Neiman to create an official painting commemorating “GWTW’s” anniversary. It will be used for the ad campaign promoting the new “GWTW” fragrance, “Miss Scarlett’s Gone With the Wind.”
Can Scarlett bonnets be far behind?
Probably not. Western Costume has five different models on a shelf in an upstairs millinery section.
