Heritage Auctions is to offer the original ruby slippers worn by Hollywood actress and singer Judy Garland (1922-1969) in the much-loved 1939 MGM film The Wizard of Oz…
Based on the 1900 children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, the film featured Dorothy, a young Kansas farm girl and her dog Toto, who are transported to the fantastical Land of Oz by a tornado, where she meets an array of characters, who join her on her mission to see the Wizard of OZ, so that he can magically get her home. Directed by Victor Fleming and produced by Mervyn Leroy, the film became a classic and is preserved in the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry in the U.S. as culturally, historical, aesthetically important.
The ruby red slippers were an integral part of the plot in the film.
When the tornado hits Dorothy’s family’s farmhouse and kills the Wicked Witch of the East, Glinda the Good Witch of the North descends via a magic bubble and points to the dead witch’s feet sticking out from under the house with the ruby slippers on them. Suddenly the Wicked Witch of the West descends to take her dead sister’s shoes, but before she can do this, the Good Witch magically transports them on to Dorothy’s feet.
Dorothy is warned to never to take them off, as they must have secret powers if the Wicked Witch has come to claim them. During the film we see the Wicked Witch plotting through various means to get the shoes back, until she realizes that the wearer must be dead for her to be able to release them, which is when she attempts to kill Dorothy. At this point Dorothy accidentally splashes the Wicked Witch with water, causing her to melt away. During the end part of the film, we see the Good Witch showing Dorothy that she can go home by closing her eyes and clicking the slippers’ heels together three times, while repeating the phrase “There’s no place like home.”
The red sequin slippers were designed by MGM’s chief costume designer, Gilbert Adrian (1903-1959), renowned for designing costumes for hundreds of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films between 1928 and 1941. Several prototypes were made and rejected, until the final ones were chosen. Out of between six to ten pairs that were made, four pairs that were worn in the movie are believed to have survived, with this particular pair, bearing Judy Garland’s name on the inside.
While one of the original surviving four pairs is on permanent exhibition in the Popular Culture wing of the National Museum of American History, at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, this pair comes from private collector, Michael Shaw, a former child actor with MGM, who acquired them from the Hollywood costume designer Kent Warner (1943-1984).
When MGM was sold in 1969 a huge auction was to take place the following year. Among the pieces on offer were props from the Wizard of Oz. While cataloguing, Warner found the slippers in one of the MGM warehouses and retained one pair, which are the ones being offered for sale. They were the shoes worn by Judy Garland for the majority of the film, including three iconic close-up shots, the shocking of the witch’s hands, the close-up at the Gates of Oz and the climactic heel tapping scene near the end of the film. They were also the ones in the best condition.
In 2005 he kindly loaned the shoes to the Judy Garland Museum for their annual Judy Garland Festival, for what should have been a ten-week visit. However, while on display they were stolen and thought lost, until an FBI investigation in 2018 was able to recover them. They were reunited earlier this year with their owner, who has now decided to sell them through Heritage Auctions.
The slippers will be offered in Heritage Auctions Hollywood/ Entertainment Signature® Auction on December 7, 2024. They carry an estimate of £2.3million-£3.8 million (US$3 million-US$5 million).
