The Daughter of the Cowardly Lion Remembers Her Father, ‘The Wizard of Oz’ Star Bert Lahr (EXCLUSIVE)
In an interview with Woman's World, Jane Lahr paints a revealing portrait of the man beneath the mane
In an iconic movie filled with iconic moments and iconic characters, 1939’s The Wizard of Oz has iconic written all over it, and in terms of the latter, few embody that just over-used description more than actor Bert Lahr and his portrayal of the Cowardly Lion. In this interview, his daughter, Jane Lahr, reflects on her father, his life, career and what he was like off-camera and far from the stage. While the portrait she paints isn’t always a positive one, it is one in which she conveys her love for a man who wasn’t always lovable.
Born Irving Lahrheim on August 13, 1895 in New York City, the future Bert Lahr had a challenging childhood with little money, struggles in school, fears that gnawed at him at night and a tendency to hang out with what was deemed “the wrong crowd.” At the same time, he managed to find the path that would lead him to stardom when he and other children from the neighborhood formed a vaudeville act known as the Seven Frolics, which actually found themselves hired for several weeks and filled him with the conviction that this was his future.
He would spend a decade working in burlesque, looking for a break, and found it when he was cast in the Broadway show Delmar’s Revels, which was a flop and nearly led Lahr to give up. Noted the New York Daily News in December of 1939, “One of the few people who saw Delmar’s Revels was a musical comedy producer. He got a laugh out of Lahr. He needed a laugh for his forthcoming show. So when Bert was getting ready to say quits, he was signed to play in his first Broadway hit, Hold Everything. The unexpected always happens.”
“Life was just one dismissal slip after another until I got into acting,” he related to the Hanford Morning Journal in 1942. “I couldn’t hold a job mainly because I couldn’t keep my mind on my work. I was bitten by the theatrical bug when I was in the cradle, I guess, because I never wanted to do anything else as far back as I can remember.”
Obviously it all worked out for him, but that’s the professional side of Bert Lahr. Now get to know the man behind the mane through the reflections of his daughter, Jane Lahr.
WOMAN’S WORLD (WW): How is it possible that we’re still talking about The Wizard of Oz?
JANE LAHR (JL): Isn’t it extraordinary? I think part of its ongoing success lies in the timing of when it was made—1938, just before the world plunged into a major war. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but the Flying Monkeys remind me of the planes bombing London during the Blitz. And the witch’s soldiers march like fascists or Nazis.
There’s this sense of darkness that permeates the movie, much like the films of that era. For instance, look at Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs—it has a real darkness to it as well. The Wizard of Oz tapped into that same tone, reflecting the anxiety of its time.
I wasn’t alive when the movie was made, but when I was five, there was a screening in New York for family and friends of the cast and crew. I attended, and there’s even a photograph of me sitting in an aisle seat, absolutely stunned. I was terrified! The power of the movie came through so strongly, even to a child. This was after the war, but the themes of danger and fascism resonate again in our world today.
Beyond that, the movie also endures because it brought together the best talent Hollywood had at the time. My dad and the rest of his “Fab Four”—Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, and Judy Garland—were incredible. The men were middle-aged vaudevillians, and Judy, of course, was part of the MGM studio system. Interestingly, she and Toto made the least money on the film. Judy earned $500 a week, and Toto made $125 a week, which is mind-boggling.
WW: One would imagine your dad was well compensated.
JL: MGM initially offered him three weeks at $2,500 a week, but the movie ended up taking 24 weeks to film. In today’s money, he made over a million dollars. My father was a Leo astrologically, and true to his sign, he insisted on a five-week guarantee instead of three. Negotiating with MGM took forever, but he eventually got what he wanted—and then some, as the film dragged on. While the rest of the cast made good money, Judy still didn’t earn nearly what she should have, considering her contribution.
WW: What did your father think of the film?
JL: He didn’t like watching his own movies. He was proud of his stage work but felt his film performances didn’t measure up—except for Zaza. He avoided watching The Wizard of Oz for most of his life.
Then, near the end of his life, I was home from college, and the movie came on TV. For the first time, he watched it. He allowed himself to admit, “That was good.”
My father was a phenomenal stage performer. His energy, physicality, and the unique sounds he made were unmatched. Those traits made him the perfect Cowardly Lion. Even in his vaudeville days, he incorporated animal sounds into his act. He also had this vulnerability, this sweetness and pathos, that made him so lovable.
That’s why I always think about the end of the movie when Dorothy kisses Ray Bolger’s Scarecrow and says, “I’m going to miss you most of all.” I can’t help but think, “No, you won’t. You’ll miss the Lion most of all. He was the most adorable.”
WW: A great example is that moment when Dorothy smacks him on the nose.
Jane Lahr (JL): What’s hysterical is that Judy Garland breaks character right after slapping him and puts Toto in front of her face to hide her laughter. The director actually slapped her to stop her from breaking up—can you imagine? But in the final cut, they use the take where she’s holding Toto in front of her mouth, and you can still see her smiling. It’s such a charming moment. Everyone should rewatch the movie just to catch that.
WW: What’s frustrating about your dad is that, in trying to research him through archived newspapers, he really didn’t give many interviews.
JL: Let me tell you something about my father: He was a man of very few words. I joked with a friend about this interview, saying, “What am I going to tell him? I had 12 conversations with my father my whole life.” That’s not entirely true—we had a lovely relationship—but he wasn’t a talker.
You had to pay attention to him, really watch and read him, because he didn’t express himself verbally very often. But I could make him laugh, and that was something special. He was completely in his own world. He didn’t even know what schools my brother John and I went to! He was a worrier and a classic clown, a serious, sweet hermit with great instincts.
Despite leaving school before eighth grade, he was very self-educated. He loved reading Dickens and completed the New York Times crossword puzzle every week. He had this quiet intelligence and taste that showed in unexpected ways. When I started sculpting in high school and had a one-woman show at Dalton, he surprised me by showing up. He wasn’t interested in our school lives, but that moment meant everything to me.
WW: Especially given how reserved he was.
JL: Oh my God, it meant the world. Later, when I came home from college, I found that he had started painting. I’d ring the doorbell, and he’d answer wearing a beret and smock, paintbrushes in hand. And he was good! He didn’t have a lot of technical skill, but his paintings had this wonderful graphic quality. Both my brother and I have some of his work, and now my daughter does, too.
In any case, when he spoke, you paid attention. I remember one time when I was just becoming a teenager, figuring out boys and relationships. I was on the phone talking about which boy I’d go to a party with and which one I wouldn’t. Dad overheard and came into the room. He told me, “In my neighborhood, if you treated guys like that, you’d end up in the East River with your feet in cement.” Do you think I ever treated anyone like that again?
But he wasn’t tough—he had this sweetness to him. For instance, when I was a teenager, I’d blast my music all the time. After I left for college, he started going into my room and playing my records. That’s just who he was—completely adorable. I loved him dearly and felt admired by him, which is so important for a girl.
WW: Did your relationship with him always stay the same?
JL: He couldn’t say, “I love you,” and John and I received only two letters from him in our whole lives. But I knew he loved me. It was in the small things he did—like my mom telling me he’d go into my room to play my music.
When I left for the Slade School of Fine Arts in London, it was my first time away from home. He drove my best friend, my brother, my mom, and me to the airport, and he cried the whole way there—we were all afraid for our lives. Later, my friend told me he cried all the way home, too. He didn’t need to say, “I love you.” I knew.
WW: Your brother wrote a biography of your dad, Notes on a Cowardly Lion, and one of his memories is of your father sitting at his desk with his back to everyone. That paints quite a dichotomy: he was so out there and outrageous on stage or on camera, but he seems to have been the exact opposite at home.
Jane Lahr (JL): He really loved to perform. It wasn’t an ego thing—he genuinely loved the audience, and they loved him back. He gave them something powerful. People wouldn’t just laugh; they’d fall out of their seats.
I remember seeing that firsthand when he played Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Stratford company. I literally saw a man fall out of his seat laughing. My dad could make people laugh until they cried. There was this incredible energy exchange between him and the audience—a kind of wave that moved back and forth.
But keep in mind, he was born in 1895. His sensibilities were shaped by a different era, long before therapy and psychology courses became commonplace. He carried a lot of emotional weight from his life experiences. For example, his first partner, Mercedes Delpino, was schizophrenic. He felt guilt over that—it was very painful for him.
He also supported about eight people throughout his life. That constant worry and responsibility weighed on him. But that’s often the nature of clowns—they can have a deeply internal, even depressed side. My father was no exception. Yet, his sweetness balanced it out. The love he gave to his audience was the same love my brother John and I felt from him. It was profound, and in the theater, it felt like pure love.
In some ways, his absence—the space he gave us—was beneficial. By not being overbearing, he allowed John and me to grow in our own ways, to have our own thoughts without suppression. Yes, he was depressed at times, but he didn’t dominate the household in a way that stifled us.
My mother, Mildred Schroeder, believed strongly in education, and she ensured we were well-educated. If it had just been my father’s household, without her influence, who knows what we would have become?
WW: He went through quite a struggle to win your mom back after they separated, didn’t he?
JL: Yes, it was a huge scandal at the time. My mother left him and married Robbie Robinson, this tall, handsome lawyer. All of my dad’s friends—and even her own friends—pressured her to return to him, saying, “Bert is going crazy. You can’t leave him.”
She had gone to Reno, where she spent about six months with Robbie and had the time of her life. But eventually, she went back to my father. It broke Robbie’s heart.
Years later, before my mother passed away, I was at the Player’s Club with a boyfriend and his family. They pointed across the room and said, “That’s Robbie Robinson over there.” He was sitting against the wall. I wrote him a note that said, “I’ve always wanted to meet you. My name is Jane Lahr.”
I saw the waiter deliver the note, and Robbie crumpled it up and put it in his pocket. But then he called me. We met up, and he reconnected with my mom.
When we got together, I couldn’t stop crying. I don’t even know why—I just wept the whole time I was with him. Maybe it was because I could feel the pain of his loss. I don’t know, but I had a very real connection with him.
WW: Was your dad gone at this point?
Jane Lahr (JL): Yes. Dad passed away on December 4, 1967, when I was 24. By then, I was married and had a child. Mom lived many years longer, but she passed away around the same time of year, which always felt significant to me.
WW: Did you want to meet Robbie to fill in a gap for yourself, to better understand what had happened to him?
JL: Yes, absolutely. As for what happened to him, after my mom broke up with him, he went off to serve in World War II. He was part of the war theater and eventually became a lawyer for a major German company. He did very well for himself and became quite wealthy. He remarried and seemed to have a good life.
WW: Your dad worked so hard to win your mom back. Was he more outwardly affectionate with her than he was with you and your brother?
JL: Yes, somewhat. Mom needed affection, and while Dad wasn’t naturally physically affectionate, there was still love between them. My mom had a spiritual side, and she would sometimes confide in me, saying, “I’m afraid he won’t be there when I die.” I’d reassure her, “Of course he will be.”
She truly loved him, but I suspect she sought emotional connection elsewhere for what she wasn’t getting at home. I don’t mean that in a negative way—she just found companionship and support in Robbie. She had a close circle of women friends, and I think she may have had a few affairs later in life. But she always stayed with my father, and there was an enduring affection between them despite their struggles.
My mother was a showgirl, but she also deeply valued education. She was an Aquarius—very democratic in her thinking. The house she built for us in California was designed by one of the first Black architects in the country, which was remarkable for the time. It shows how progressive she was. She was a very interesting woman.
That said, when I was growing up, especially as a teenager, I was often angry with her. But that’s normal, right? We worked through it and eventually became friends. Towards the end of her life, she developed dementia, but before that, we had really connected.
WW: Did your brother John handle your father’s personality as well as you did?
JL: John had great respect for Dad. He also had the foresight to interview him extensively, which allowed him to write a wonderful biography of our father. Without those interviews, none of us would really know much about Dad—or even Mom. Both of them carried tremendous shame about their childhoods, and they were very private about their pasts.
My mother’s childhood was particularly terrible, like something straight out of Dickens. My brother is less forgiving of Mom, but he understood Dad better because of those interviews. I sympathize with Mom more after learning about her upbringing. Both of them, in their own ways, were self-invented people—they had to build their lives from scratch.
WW: When you say her childhood was terrible, what do you mean?
JL: I mean it was compromised, difficult. Both of my parents were the children of German-Jewish immigrants. My grandfather was an upholsterer and craftsman, and my grandmother, Augusta, was supposedly connected to Judaism, possibly with rabbinical roots. The family came to America in the 1880s and settled in Yorkville, on the East Side of New York City.
My father grew up in Yorkville, and while he eventually lived on Fifth Avenue and 85th Street, there wasn’t much money during his childhood. He hated school and was terrified at night—he wouldn’t sleep alone in his room. Instead, he spent time out on the streets with friends who probably weren’t the best influences.
One of his teachers once told him, “Bert, you’re either going to end up in jail or on the stage.”
WW: One or the other.
JL: Exactly. Thankfully, he ended up on the stage. Vaudeville became his dream—it was a way to meet girls and escape his circumstances. His first partner was Mercedes Delpino, and they performed as “Mercedes and Lahr.”
They had a child, Herbert, but Mercedes struggled deeply with her mental health. She became schizophrenic, and my father always carried guilt about her breakdown. He thought he might have been too tough on her, especially during the grueling vaudeville years when they were traveling and doing five shows a day. After she had Herbert, the stress became too much for her, and she broke.
At one point, she tore up money and even threatened to throw the baby out with the trash. It was devastating. She was institutionalized, and my father took on the responsibility of supporting her, her sister, and Herbert for the rest of his life.
WW: That must have been incredibly difficult.
JL: It was. And that’s why the money he made from The Wizard of Oz—$22,000 a week—was so important. He needed it to support all these people.
He was an incredibly hard worker with an extraordinary career that spanned every medium. When he died, he was working on The Night They Raided Minsky’s and still doing the Lay’s Potato Chips TV ads. He even had another contract lined up.
In a way, he died at the top of his game. He had a lot to live for, and I think he passed away feeling good about his journey.
WW: His early career was on vaudeville. Was it difficult for him to make that happen for himself?
Jane Lahr: Before reaching the big time, you essentially toured the country, performing five shows a day. It was a grueling schedule but a way to learn your craft. My father was doing this even before teaming up with Mercedes. When they partnered, it marked an important phase in his career. Eventually, he broke through and started working on Broadway.
He starred in major productions like the Ziegfeld Follies and The George White Scandals. These were spectacular shows filled with incredible talent, and Dad was one of them. Performers like Kate Smith were part of these productions, and composers like George Gershwin wrote the music. Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen also wrote skits for Dad in these shows, and they later composed the score for The Wizard of Oz.
Once he made it to Broadway, the movie business started pulling talent from the stage and bringing them to Hollywood. MGM, in particular, recruited him for The Wizard of Oz. Most of the cast were MGM contract players, but my father, Frank Morgan (the Wizard), and Auntie Em weren’t under contract.
Back then, Hollywood would pillage Broadway talent. Interestingly, today, the opposite is true—Broadway takes talent from Hollywood. But if you were a stage performer, you really learned your craft. It’s worth noting that performers like Ethel Merman and Dad didn’t have microphones. They had to project their voices in a way that many of today’s Broadway stars wouldn’t know how to do. The sound systems in modern Broadway productions can be so loud and aggressive—it’s such a contrast.
WW: Did he feel typecast because of The Wizard of Oz and his role as the Cowardly Lion?
Jane Lahr: In some ways, yes. But the Cowardly Lion was just my father being himself—his personality, physicality, and the unique noises he made. Yip Harburg recognized this when the Lion character was added to the script. Originally, the story had a prince, but when they rewrote it, Yip said, “We know who should play the Lion.” He specifically wrote “If I Were King of the Forest” for Dad, knowing how he would bring it to life.
The Lion wasn’t part of the first version of the script—it was added during the fourth rewrite. Yip saw Dad’s physical presence and ability to make those sounds and knew he was perfect for the role.
WW: There’s a clip of your dad in Medley of Madness—you can see how much of the Lion was just him, especially when he does, “And a woof, and a woof!”
Jane Lahr: Exactly. That’s him. He wasn’t with MGM at the time; he had contracts with other studios. MGM pulled him in specifically for The Wizard of Oz.
Frank Morgan told my father during filming that he and Judy would get rave reviews, but the movie wouldn’t help his career. Dad asked why, and Frank said, “Because there aren’t any other lion parts.” He was right. While Dad and Judy got the best reviews, MGM dropped his contract within a year of the movie’s release.
WW: What happened after that?
Jane Lahr: We moved back to New York. My mother had built her dream house in Coldwater Canyon, but when Dad’s contract was dropped, he sold it while she was in the hospital giving birth to me. That was a huge blow to her. Dad didn’t even discuss it—he just made the decision, which was typical of his generation.
He returned to Broadway and performed in DuBarry Was a Lady with Ethel Merman, which was Betty Grable’s Broadway debut. But selling that house—designed by a remarkable Black architect—was very difficult for my mother. Dad loved that house, though. He loved gardening there and would even send avocados from his garden to the 21 Club. But after MGM dropped him, we all moved back to Manhattan.
WW: Why did he sell the house?
Jane Lahr (JL): He loved Broadway. I think he thought, “I can fly out to Hollywood to do movies if I need to, but I’d rather live in Manhattan and do shows.” Theater was his greatest love, and he had tremendous success there.
Movies weren’t his passion. He felt—and I think he was right—that he wasn’t a perfect fit for film. His performance style was too big for the screen. It was too hot, too out there. That kind of energy worked beautifully on stage but didn’t always translate well to film.
That said, The Wizard of Oz and a few other movies suited him just fine, but he could never be a traditional leading man. He wanted to be the star, and in the theater, he could be. After returning to Broadway, he achieved great acclaim. He even made the cover of Time magazine when he starred in Two on the Aisle with Dorothy Gray.
WW: Not to harp on the house, but what did your mother do about it?
JL: I promise you she paid him back for that. I won’t go into the specifics, but she did. Through it all, though, she did a great job raising John and me.
WW: When we think of Bert Lahr, we think of The Wizard of Oz and, of course, the Cowardly Lion. What comes to mind when you hear his name?
Jane Lahr (JL): He’s buried out on Long Island in a cemetery—you can look online and see his grave. John and I hadn’t been there since he passed away, but we eventually went back. His gravesite is supposed to be perpetually cared for, but when we arrived, we found it needed some attention.
What really struck me was that on his gravestone, a child had left a toy lion. That speaks to me of who Dad was.
We tidied up the gravesite, planted a new plant and moved the little toy lion to a prominent spot in front of the stone. We left everything in good shape. But that toy lion—left by a child—stayed with me. I can imagine a mother visiting with her little boy and saying, “This is the Lion from The Wizard of Oz,” and the child leaving the toy as a tribute.
It’s so sweet and so reflective of Dad’s legacy. That’s what I think of when I think of him—the enduring love and affection people have for the Cowardly Lion, and for him.
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