Oz News

(I will update this page when there is news to tell. Any news older than a year is dropped at the next update. If you have news to report, please e-mail me.)

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(For more Oz news, check out The Daily Ozmopolitan. For the latest Oz not-quite-news, see the Rumor Control section of this page.)

(We're a little behind in reporting the news right now, and dealing with some technical issues, but we're working hard right now to fix things! If you see just a headline, an incomplete story, or a missing picture, don't worry, it should be fixed soon. Keep checking back for updates.)

March 18, 2024: Second Man Charged in Theft of the Ruby Slippers; Slippers Go On Tour Before Auction

March 14, 2024: The Baum Bugle Winter 2023

January 30, 2024: Hinton Battle 1956-2024

Hinton Battle, the actor who first played the Scarecrow in The Wiz on Broadway, passed away today at the age of 67 in Los Angeles after a long illness. Battle was only eighteen years old when he made his Broadway debut in The Wiz in 1974, after having taken over for a sick castmate during previews on the road. That early success gave him many years to play other roles in other shows, including Dancin', Sophisticated Ladies, Dreamgirls, The Tap Dance Kid, Miss Saigon, and Chicago on Broadway, and Ragtime on tour. His movie credits include the film adaptation of Dreamgirls and, on television, Quantum Leap (as the evil observer Thames in the Evil Leaper trilogy), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (as the demon Sweet in the musical episode "Once More With Feeling"), Touched By an Angel, the TV movie Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story as Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and the first pilot for the unproduced American version of the British comedy Red Dwarf as the Cat. Battle also directed and choreographed the Off-Broadway production Evil Dead: The Musical and released an album, Untapped, in 1986. He won Tony Awards for Sophisticated Ladies, The Tap Dance Kid, and Miss Saigon. He also won the NAACP Image Award and Fred Astaire Award for The Tap Dance Kid.

(UPDATE: To honor Battle and his career and influence on Broadway, all forty-one Broadway theaters dimmed their marquee lights on March 12.)

(Information courtesy of USA Today, Wikipedia, the Internet Broadway Database, the Internet Off-Broadway Database, the Internet Movie Database, and the New York Public Library. Image courtesy of the New York Public Library.)

January 29, 2024: Terry Jon Martin Sentenced for Theft of the Ruby Slippers

Terry Jon Martin, the man who pled guilty to stealing the Ruby Slippers in 2005, has been sentenced. Due to his advanced age and medical condition, he was sentenced to time served and will not go to jail. Martin is currently in hospice care and on oxygen therapy for chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, and is not expected to live more than a few months longer. He was also ordered to pay the Judy Garland Museum $23,500 in restitution, which he will pay in monthly installments of $300.

Not knowing about The Wizard of Oz or the Slippers' cultural significance, career criminal Martin was coerced into stealing the Ruby Slippers as "one last score" because he believed the shoes to be adorned with real rubies. He was disappointed to learn that they were artificial, and gave the slippers to an associate, never to hear from him again. After the FBI recovered the slippers in 2018, Martin quickly became a suspect and charged with the theft last year. Martin pleaded guilty in October 2023.

(Information courtesy WTOP News, Washington, DC.)

January 29, 2024: The Baum Bugle Autumn 2023

December 11, 2023: Judge Dismisses Dorothy Dress Ownership Lawsuit

A dress worn by Judy Garland during production of The Wizard of Oz may soon be up for auction now that a federal judge in New York has dismissed a lawsuit by the niece of a priest who once worked at the school where it was found. The Catholic University of America, where the dress was found in 2021, are now the legal owners of the dress. It had been given to Father Gilbert Hartke, chairman of the university's drama department, by actress Mercedes McCambridge, a friend of Garland. When the late Father Hartke's niece, Barbara Hartke, heard about the dress and the plan to auction it off, she sued to take ownership of the dress. In dismissing the suit, Judge Paul Gardephe noted that Barbara Hartke had not established that she was the executor of her uncle's estate or had any other standing in the case. Furthermore, as a Dominican, Father Hartke had taken a vow of poverty and renounced ownership of "temporal goods", and thus had not been the owner of the dress in the first place.

Barbara Hartke has ten days to amend her lawsuit and establish standing. Otherwise, the dress will belong to Catholic university, which can then go through with plans to auction off the dress. The auction has been on hold for over a year while the case worked its way through the system.

(Information courtesy CNBC.)

October 17, 2023: Dorothy House Miniature Auctioned Off

A miniature of the Gale farmhouse from the famous 1939 movie adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, used in the tornado scene, was auctioned off today by Studio Auctions. The final sale price was $537,000, well above the pre-auction estimate.

(Information courtesy of PR Newswire.)

October 14, 2023: Piper Laurie, 1932-2023

Piper Laurie, the Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning actress who was also nominated for three Academy Awards and a BAFTA, passed away today. She was 91. Born in Detroit in 1932, Rosetta Jacobs changed her name to Piper Laurie when she signed a contract with Universal Pictures in 1949. She made her screen debut in Louisa opposite Ronald Reagan, and also co-starred with actors such as Donald O'Connor, Tony Curtis, and Rory Calhoun. But she soon moved back to New York to appear on stage and in television. Hollywood beckoned again with a part in The Hustler opposite Paul Newman, which garnered her first Oscar nomination. The parts she was offered did not improve, however, so she went back to New York. Her next film was Carrie in 1976, where she played Margaret White, Carrie's mother, in another Oscar-nominated role. She continued to appear in movies (including Children of a Lesser God, for which she received her third Oscar nomination), on television, and on stage for the rest of her career. Other notable roles include the television movie Promise, for which she won a Emmy; Twin Peaks, which netted her a Golden Globe; and the 1978 television biopic about Judy Garland, Rainbow, in which she played Ethel Gumm, Judy's mother. She is best known to Oz fans, however, for playing Aunt Em in the 1985 Disney movie Return to Oz.

(Information courtesy of Wikipedia and Entertainment Weekly.)

October 13, 2023: Martin Changes Plea to Guilty in Theft of Ruby Slippers

Terry Jon Martin, the Minnesota resident charged with the 2005 theft of a pair of Ruby Slippers used during the production of The Wizard of Oz, has changed his plea to guilty. As part of a plea deal entered in federal court in Duluth, Minnesota, Martin, 78 years old and suffering from OCPD, will face no jail time.

(Information courtesy of the Associated Press via Yahoo! News. More information is also available from KARE11.com.)

July 30, 2023: Betty Ann Bruno, 1931-2023

Betty Ann Bruno, the long-time San Francisco news anchor whose show business career began as a Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz, passed away today at the age of 91. Born Betty Ann Ka'ihliani in Hawai'i on October 1, 1931, she grew up in Hollywood and had an uncredited part in 1937's The Hurricane before playing one of the female background Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz at the age of seven. Acting was not in her blood, however, and she went on to graduate from Stanford before becoming a news anchor at KTVU in San Francisco in 1971, a job she held for over twenty years. She won three news Emmys for her work there. After retiring, she went on to become a hula instructor and founder of the dance troupe Hula Mai. She was named Sonoma Treasure Artist in 2020, and appeared on To Tell the Truth in 2022 in a segment on her time as a Munchkin. During the COVID lockdown, she wrote her memoir, The Munchkin Diary: My Personal Yellow Brick Road. She is survived by her husband, Craig, and her three sons.

(Information courtesy Deadline and SFGate.)

July 29, 2023: The 2023 Winkie Award and Oz Club Awards

The International Wizard of Oz Club presented its annual awards tonight, alongside the Winkie Award, as part of the 2023 OzCon International in Pomona, California. The awards were:

First of the Club's annual writing and art contest winners, the Fred Otto Prize for Fiction:
- First place to J. L. Bell for "The Missing Key".
- Second place, also to J. L. Bell, for "The Piglets and the Tin Soldier".
The C. Warren Hollister Prize for Non-fiction:
- First place to J. L. Bell (him again?) for "Inspiring Maps of Oz".
- Second place to Jem Abbas for "Technicolor at the Theatrical Premiere of The Wizard of Oz".
The Rob Roy MacVeigh Award for Art went to David Valentin for "Mombi's Magic".
The Winkie Award, voted on by member of OzCon International for contributions to the convention, went to Freddy Fogarty.
The L. Frank Baum Memorial Award, the most prestigious prize in Oz fandom, went to Blair Frodelius for his many contributions to spreading the word about Oz online over the years.

July 17, 2023: The Baum Bugle Spring 2023 Issue

The Spring 2023 issue of The Baum Bugle, the journal of the International Wizard of Oz Club, has made its way back from the printers and is on its way to members' mailboxes right now. This issue emphasizes the first word in the name of the club, with articles about how Oz is expressed in countries outside of the United States.

In this issue:

The front cover reproduces the cover art for the Oz game from Gen X Games.
The inside front and back covers reproduce art by Leonid Vladimirsky for postcards based on Волшебник Изумрудного Города (The Wizard of the Emerald City, the Russian version of The Wizard of Oz).
In letters, Jane Albright writes her final column as President of the International Wizard of Oz Club, while Editor-in-Chief Sarah K. Crotzer takes the readers through the process of this becoming a truly international issue.
In "The Bugle Bulletin":
- The Wiz gets a new production and nationwide tour with the aim of making it to Broadway next year.
- The Wicked movies get new cast members (Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero, Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible, Marissa Bode as Nessarose, Ethan Slater as Boq, Bowen Yang as Pfannee), and part 1 gets its release date moved up to November 2024. [No doubt part 2's release also moving, to November 2025, will make it into the next issue.]
- The animated short The Tin Woods will premiere at OzCon International.
- Online story platform Land of Tales now has an adaptation of "Hickory, Dickory, Dock", a story from Mother Goose in Prose by L. Frank Baum.
- Ozzy backdrops from a 1941 Mardi Gras ball have been rediscovered and cataloged by NOLA Tableaux. The program has been digitized as well.
- A new opera based on the second Oz book, Marvelous, is gearing up for its world premiere.
- "Across the Shifting Sands" remembers two notable Ozians who recently passed away: Romona Carlin, former First Lady of Kansas who organized an Oz-themed event in Topeka; and artist Shawn Maldonado.
- "Through the Tube!" only presents one video from YouTube instead of its usual three, but it's a good one: Artist Leonid Vladimirsky on Russian television in 1989 celebrating fifty years of Magic Land. (Don't worry, it has English subtitles.)
Jane Albright and Sara K. Crotzer interview the daughter of Magic Land illustrator Leonid Vladimirsky in "The Map to Magic Land: Aia Vladimirsky Remembers Her Fathre".
Want to collect the art of a Magic Land illustrator? Well, "An Initial Checklist of the Works by Leonid Vladimirsky" is a good place to start.
A Strange Post-Soviet Union" by Atticus Gannaway looks at an unusual pairing of recent Russian translations in one volume: L. Frank Baum's Queen Zixi of Ix and John R. Neill's The Wonder City of Oz!
Dave Ward looks at the first British stage production of The Wizard of Oz in "London, 1942".
Nick Campbell gives an overview of British editions of the Oz books in "Following Wonder: A History of British Publishing in Five Oz Books".
The creator of the new ballet The Lost Princess of Oz (reviewed last issue) is interviewed in "Faith: Gabriel Chajnik's Journey to Find a Lost Princess".
The creator of the new Oz card game is interviewed in "Walk the Road: An Interview with Óscar Arévalo" (with art and additional comments by Lorena Azpiri).
Sarah K. Crotzer looks at one particular word in the name of the organization when she asks, "How International Was the Early International Wizard of Oz Club?"
Reviewed in "Oz in the Arts":
- The Land of Oz at the Dobama Theatre, Cleveland Heights, Ohio, December 2022.
- Claus: The Musical (based on The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus), The Lowry, Salford, England, December 2022.
- The Wizard of Paws, or There's No Place Like a Furever Home, Englewood Arts Center, Independence, Missouri, April 2023.
Reviewed in "The Bugle Review":
- The Oracle of Maracoor by Gregory Maguire, reviewed by Alan Wise.
- Can You Survive The Wonderful Wizard of Oz? by Ryan Jacobsen, reviewed by Atticus Gannaway.
- Oz and the Musical: Performing the American Fairy Tale by Ryan Bunch, reviewed by Dina Schiff Massachi.
- The new Spanish card game Oz by Óscar Arévalo and Lorena Azpiri, reviewed by Sarah K. Crotzer.
And the inside back cover reproduces four cover images from British editions of the Oz books.

Also included in this issue:

The craft is a cut-out Russian nesting doll, based on the Magic Land art of Leonid Vladimirsky.
In The Emerald City Mirror, the newsletter aimed at younger Oz fans (no matter what their actual ages are):
- It seems Princess Toodee, who temporarily took over for Ozma, was just a paper doll being used by the usurper who just took over Oz: The Nome King!
- Editor-in-chief the Scarecrow reports from where everyone is hiding out from the new king, the Emerald City Library. (Since the Nome King doesn't read books, he probably won't find them there!)
- A reprint from the archives looks at just who the Nome King is, anyway.
- The Nome King's many schemes from the Oz books are recounted, along with a look at various eggs and a few of the Nome King's more colorful quotes.
- Oz Club member on assignment Katie Jones reports from San Francisco, where reports of fantastic beings appearing there include a dragon!
- And two contests: Guess the answer to "What Did the Wogglebug Say?" and draw a picture of the Cowardly Lion to celebrate the centennial of The Cowardly Lion of Oz.

July 15, 2023: SAG-AFTRA Strike Delays Wicked Production

Among the many movie and television projects put on hold by the SAG-AFTRA strike is the movie adaptation of Wicked. Word is that the main production only had ten days and one major musical number ("One Short Day") to go. Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Michelle Yeoh, and Bowen Yang are among the Wicked stars posting support for the actors' strike. When production can resume, and if the delay will affect the release dates for the two films, will likely depend on the length of the strike.

(Information courtesy Broadway World.)

June 20, 2023: Wicked Part 2 Release Moved Up

After the release of the first part of the Wicked movie adaptation was moved up to November earlier this year, it should come as no surprise that the release of part two was also moved up today. Originally scheduled for Christmas 2025, it will now come out on November 26, 2025. This will move it away from the same release window as Avatar 3, and also give it more time to build an audience over the holidays. (Both parts will now come out the day before Thanksgiving in the United States.)

(Information courtesy The Hollywood Reporter.)

June 1, 2023: Accused Ruby Slipper Thief Enters Plea

Terry Jon Martin, the man accused of stealing the Ruby Slippers from the Judy Garland Museum in 2005, entered his plea today. He has pled not guilty to one count of Theft of a Major Art Work.

(Information courtesy of KSTP Minneapolis/St. Paul.)

May 17, 2023: An Arrest in the Ruby Slipper Theft

Terry Martin, 76, has been indicted in the 2005 theft of a pair of Ruby Slippers, originally worn by Judy Garland in the famous 1939 film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. The Slippers were recovered in 2018. The investigation has been ongoing, and Martin has been charged with one count of theft of a major artwork. The charge was filed by federal prosecutors in North Dakota. The Ruby Slippers at the time belonged to collector Michael Shaw, who had loaned them to the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. They were stolen in 2005, and Shaw eventually received a settlement from his insurers. A man contacted the insurers about the Slippers in 2017, setting off an investigation and eventual FBI sting operation. Nobody was charged at the time of the Slippers' recovery. Martin lives just south of Grand Rapids, but otherwise does not appear to have any connection to the museum or Garland. This is still an ongoing investigation, and it's possible other indictments may come later.

(Information courtesy of The Associated Press. Video courtesy of WCCO CBS News Minnesota.)

Rumor Control

(Because of the many questions I am asked about possible forthcoming Oz projects or other bits of pseudo-news, I have added this section to answer some of these inquiries.)

The latest Oz projects to be announced in Hollywood: Cheshire Crossing, the graphic novel by Andy Weir and Sarah Anderson, optioned by Amblin Partners (see this report); and an animated musical adaptation of the book Toto: The Dog-Gone Amazing Story of the Wizard of Oz, where the story is told from Toto's point of view, to be produced at Warner Bros. (see this source).

Okay, yes, word has leaked out that Warner Bros. tried to talk Robert Zemeckis into directing a remake of The Wizard of Oz, using the same screenplay as the famous 1939 Judy Garland version. Zemeckis already rejected the idea. This probably puts the idea on the back burner for a while, and based on the extreme negative reaction the idea got, I suspect it will stay there. Rumors of this have surfaced again, but appear to be the result of someone finding the old story and running it again.

It's getting harder and harder to keep up with all of the currently planned Oz movie and television projects. Bear in mind that at this stage, most of it is speculation and/or not even in pre-production, or possibly even a game of "Telephone". But here are some of the current Oz movies that could be coming to your local theater in the next few years:

The Road to Oz, a movie biopic about the life of L. Frank Baum and how he created Oz, starring Eddie Redmayne as Frank. (See reports here and here.)
Dark Oz 3-D, based on the old Caliber comic book.
A non-musical, faithful adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from New Line and Temple Hill.
The Oz Wars, which would have the witches fighting for control of the Emerald City while the Wizard leads the resistance.
John Boorman's animated adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz seems to be on track for release — in France. Once it's released, an English-language release will likely come out soon afterwards. (However, in a recent interview, Boorman admitted that the project has stalled due to lack of funding.)
Oz: Return to the Emerald City was one of two possible competing projects at Warner Bros. This original sequel may now be shopped around to other studios, or turned into a novel.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a low-budget independent production from Barnyard Studios and Used Productions. This is very much a shoestring production, which is looking for money and actors. But its Kickstarter campaign to raise the last money it needed was a success, so it may be finished soon.
Legend of Oz, a modern retelling of The Wizard of Oz from Valley Wind Productions in Ottawa.
Oz, a new telling of The Wizard of Oz.
A still unnamed horror movie set in the 1920s with Dorothy meeting Alice in Bedlam Asylum.
Young Santa., based on L. Frank Baum's book The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus and directed by Sean McNamara.
How the Wizard Came to Oz, based on two books by Donald Abbott.
Not entirely Oz, strictly speaking, but the Judy Garland biography Get Happy may be made into a movie, featuring Anne Hathaway as Garland.

And it's not limited to movies any more. In development for television:

Red Brick Road, a television series continuation of The Wizard of Oz in the style of Game of Thrones. The latest word is that this is being developed for the Lifetime channel.
Dorothy, an Oz-themed medical drama in development at CBS
Dorothy Must Die, in which Dorothy has returned to Oz and become a dictator, in development at the CW. This would be based on the book series of the same name.
Warriors of Oz, a post-apocalyptic version in development at Syfy.
A Wicked television miniseries, based on the original book (not the stage musical). Salma Hayak was attached to this as a producer. When last heard of, it was under development at ABC.

No, Peter Jackson is not producing or directing a billion-dollar all-CGI remake of The Wizard of Oz for Warner Bros. How do stories like this get started? Oh, maybe in stories like this...

In recent years, there have been proposals for other Oz or related projects, none of which now appear that they will get off the ground. Among them:

Lost in Oz, a series that was to feature Melissa George as a Kansas university student who is whisked to Oz sixty years after the events of The Wizard of Oz (The Movie) and helping to spearhead a rebellion against the new Wicked Witch of the West. Although developed for the WB and a pilot film produced, it was never picked up, nor the pilot shown. (But keep an eye out on auction sites, as a bootleg DVD sometimes shows up…)
A television miniseries based on Gregory Maguire's novel Wicked, with Demi Moore in the title role. (There are stories that the people developing this version later pushed their involvement into the musical version now playing on Broadway and elsewhere.)
The O. Z., a hip-hop flavored re-telling of The Wizard of Oz for Fox. Among the rumored Dorothy's at one point were Brandy, Mya, and the late Aaliyah. Justin Timberlake, John Leuizamo, and Little Richard were mentioned for other parts.
Surrender Dorothy. Drew Barrymore as Dorothy's great-granddaughter coming to Oz, and battling the Wicked Witch of the West's granddaughter. (Rumors of this recently resurfaced, but were quickly squelched. This project is dead.)
Somewhere starring Elizabeth Taylor as Dorothy, now a grandmother, returning to Oz. The deaths of both Taylor and developer Rod Steiger means this is unlikely to ever happen.
Pamela West, where the Wicked Witch is the innocent victim and Dorothy (with Toto as a pit bull) is the evil interloper.
The Land of Oz (not based on the book of the same name), produced by Hallmark for NBC. This eventually became the basis for the Sci Fi Channel miniseries Tin Man.
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus from Circa Pictures. It's no longer listed on their website.
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus from Hyde Park Entertainment and Toonz Entertainment.
A Bollywood adaptation of The Wizard of Oz in India.
A movie version of American McGee's (later cancelled) Oz video game.
Geoff Ryman's Was.

If progress is made on any of these projects, such as actually going into production or a release date announced, the news will be posted as quickly as possible on this page. But at this stage, any of these going into production is very unlikely. (However, Tin Man was part of this list for some time before its eventual completion and broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel.)