Was Shirley Temple MGM’s First Choice for Dorothy? Truth About ‘Wizard of Oz’ Revealed! (EXCLUSIVE)
Take an exclusive look at the truth behind the legend of who was originally going to play Dorothy
Hollywood is filled with legends, many of which have been debunked and others that persistently hang on for generations. The idea of actress Shirley Temple being MGM’s first choice to play Dorothy Gale in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz over Judy Garland stands as one of the latter. In fact, so deeply entrenched was this rumor that Temple herself, as will be detailed below, also believed it.
Separating fact from legend is author John Fricke, one of the world’s foremost authorities on both The Wizard of Oz and Judy Garland, who has taken the time to exclusively delve into how things really played out.
“There have long been rumors about a negotiation between Louis B. Mayer at MGM and Darryl F. Zanuck at 20th Century-Fox that would have seen Clark Gable and Jean Harlow being loaned to Fox to do a film—in exchange for which ShirleyTemple would be loaned to Metro to do a film.”
Said film, of course, was supposedly The Wizard of Oz. The details are broken down by Fricke.
The Harlow/Gable situation
In 1937, the truth is that MGM apparently did begin negotiations to loan Jean Harlow and Clark Cable to Fox, but the film in question was In Old Chicago.
“Any specific use of Temple at Metro wasn’t referenced at the time,” says Fricke, “though after Harlow’s death, Fox used its own Alice Faye and Tyrone Power in the Chicago picture, released in early 1938.”
He also points out that Harlow died on June 7, 1937, which eliminated the possibility—if there had been one—of such a deal over a later property. “In fact,” he notes, “on the date of Harlow’s death, MGM’s Broadway Melody of 1938 was in the process of editing and scoring. The film wouldn’t preview (never mind premiere or go into release) until later that summer. So Judy Garland’s big ‘splash’ in that film didn’t occur until several months after Jean Harlow’s passing, and thus The Wizard of Oz wasn’t even on Metro’s radar when Harlow passed. But there’s more.
“The hit Judy made across the country in autumn 1937 in Broadway Melody of 1938 included her rendition of ‘Dear Mr. Gable: You Made Me Love You’—which basically stole the film from its top-billed stars: Eleanor Powell, Robert Taylor, George Murphy, Buddy Ebsen, Binnie Barnes and Sophie Tucker. Judy won a recording contract with Decca as a result of that impact, and MGM prepared new newspaper ads for Broadway Melody that moved Judy from 7th billing to 3rd.
“So at that time (autumn 1937), MGM lyricist Arthur Freed—’Singin’ in the Rain,’ ‘You Are My Lucky Star,’ ‘You Were Meant for Me,’ etc.—wanted to move out of the songwriting echelon and become a film producer. With the success of Broadway Melody (which also included new Arthur Freed/Nacio Herb Brown songs), he made a request of Louis B. Mayer that he be allowed to seek a musical property to mount, and as he later said, ‘I made my bet on Judy.’ He reminded Mayer how much audiences were loving her in Broadway Melody, on MGM’s radio program Good News and that her recording of ‘Dear Mr. Gable’ was a hit.
“Also, in Autumn 1937, Mayer gave Freed the okay to ‘find a property’ for Judy. Freed came up with The Wizard of Oz—a best-selling book since 1900, a Broadway and stage smash hit from 1902-1909. and the subject of several unimpressive silent films. Freed knew that Judy ‘was Dorothy.'”
Early efforts on ‘The Wizard of Oz’ began in 1933
In 1933, producer Samuel Goldwyn owned The Wizard of Oz film rights; he’d bought them from L. Frank Baum’s widow and planned to make a movie musical of the story. It would star Eddie Cantor as the Scarecrow, W. C. Fields as the Wizard and either Helen Hayes or Mary Pickford as Dorothy. (Hayes was then 33, and Pickford was 40!).
“Goldwyn lost interest in the project when Moss Hart and Irving Berlin turned down the studio’s offer to (respectively) write the script and the songs for Oz,” Fricke details. “So four years later, Goldwyn wasn’t unhappy about selling the rights to the story. Fortunately for him, Walt Disney opened Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in December 1937, and in addition to its extraordinary success as a full-length Technicolor cartoon, it proved there was an all-ages audience for musical fantasy.
“As a result, five studios began bidding for his rights to Oz, including Fox, who wanted it for Temple. When Shirley’s mother asked if she’d like to play Dorothy, the precocious Temple answered, ‘I want to meet Dorothy!’ She was still at the age that it was easy to believe in the reality of her favorite Oz books. In fact, there are photos of her in her bedroom around that time that show several dozen of the famous Oz series books on the shelf next to her desk.”
The bottom line is that Arthur Freed came up with the best offer. He had Mayer and MGM’s backing, and he negotiated the rights to Oz from Goldwyn for Metro—in February 1938—for $75,000, which gave Goldwyn a profit of $35,000 over what he’d paid the Widow Baum.
Per Fricke, “It was announced on February 24, 1938, that MGM would make The Wizard of Oz, with Judy Garland as Dorothy and Mervyn LeRoy as producer. Freed went uncredited as his assistant; it was felt too big a project for him to undertake as a ‘first-timer.’
“However, his influence in casting, scripting, music and lyrics—including the fact that he championed Harold Arlen and E. Y. ‘Yip’ Harburg to write the songs—is all over the finished picture,” he continues, “and Arthur Freed went on to become the greatest producer of movie musicals in Hollywood history.”
So far, so good, until Nicholas Schenck (head of Loew’s, Inc. in NYC—MGM’s parent company) saw the preliminary Oz budget, which topped $1 million. It eventually cost $2.7 million—and an additional million was spent on prints and advertising.
“Schenck,” relates Fricke, “ranted and railed that such a project—a musical fantasy in Technicolor with live actors!—needed box office insurance, and he ordered Mayer to negotiate with Fox to borrow Temple to play Dorothy. This was anathema to everyone at Metro, but Freed ‘played nice’ and sent Roger Edens over to Fox to hear Temple sing ‘in person;’ Roger came back and reported: ‘What can I say, Arthur? Her vocal limitations are insurmountable.’
“So there was no actual negotiating for Shirley Temple to play Dorothy. Whatever, if anything, did occur seems to have happened intra-trade, behind-closed-doors, and amidst next-to-no gossiping at the time. In fact, there was nothing in the trade papers (Daily Variety, Variety or The Hollywood Reporter) that even mentioned Shirley in connection with the film—nor anything in the columns of the ‘Big Three’ [gossip columnists]: Hedda Hopper. Louella Parsons and Sidney Skolsky. MGM held fast to Judy; the scripts and songs were all written for her.”
Before wrapping up, Fricke offers up what he calls his “final meanderings,” beginning with the fact that Temple’s legal file at MGM doesn’t even begun until late 1940, which led to her subsequently making a single film for them in the form of 1941’s Kathleen, a box office disappointment.
“Had there been an earlier discussion about something as earth-shattering (to Hollywood) as a Temple and Gable/Harlow trade—or a serious attempt at borrowing Shirley for Oz—there would be at least some trace of it.
“Also, via the surviving legal files for The Wizard of Oz at MGM, the studio had already unconditionally rejected ideas about producing a Wizard of Oz film in 1924—and also rejected the idea of producing Oz cartoons in 1934 and then again in 1937. There’s no actual positive legal action at the studio re: Oz until January 1938, eight months after Harlow’s passing—when Arthur Freed was full-blown barreling into the production as a Garland vehicle.
“So . . . for all the rumors about Oz, Temple, Gable and Harlow (which continues into today and obviously came to be believed by Shirley herself), there’s no proof for it as a fact. And there’s plenty of fact that shoots it down.”
The Wizard of Oz, of course, went on to be one of the Best Picture nominees and won Oscars for Best Original score and Best Original song. On top of that, Garland received an Academy Juvenile Award for the year. Oz was one of the top 10 grossing films of 1939 (something over $3 million) and one of the top 10 critics’ selections for best films of the year (450 of them were polled).
Says Fricke, “It didn’t go into profit until first re-release in 1949, simply because 2/3rds of the audience were youngsters who paid less at the box office than adults. (The film did, however, break attendance records from coast to coast.) Also, in many theaters Oz couldn’t be ‘held over’ for more than a week or two—no matter how good the business—as there was so much film product waiting to be released and shown.
“Then, World War II broke out in Europe two weeks after Oz premiered (in August 1939), effectively cutting off much of the European market. The latter was considered by Loew’s and MGM to be a perfect place for a Technicolor musical.”
And as radio broadcaster Paul Harvey used to say, “Now you know the rest of the story.”
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