{"id":410,"date":"2023-12-23T17:09:45","date_gmt":"2023-12-23T17:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/allthingsoz.org\/blog\/?p=410"},"modified":"2023-12-23T17:58:13","modified_gmt":"2023-12-23T17:58:13","slug":"the-little-people-who-lived-in-this-land-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allthingsoz.org\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/12\/23\/the-little-people-who-lived-in-this-land-part-4\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cTHE LITTLE PEOPLE WHO LIVE[D] IN THIS LAND\u201d \u2013 PART 4<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By John Fricke<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Above: Eighteen-year-old Jerry Maren is the \u201cLollipop Guild\u201d representative in the center here — most certainly \u201ccaught in the act\u201d at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in Culver City, CA, in December 1938. On the left is Jackie Gerlich, twenty-one; on the right, Harry Doll, who was nearly forty. Age wasn\u2019t a consideration when the three men were cast together; they were matched for the Munchkin trio because they were basically the same height, and it was felt that they would look good together.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

FOREWORD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our August 26th<\/sup> entry — posted on Chittenango\u2019s All Things Oz and OZ-Stravaganza! Facebook pages (as well as on this blog site) — we celebrated 2023\u2019s Oz festival. The highlights of that weekend, of course, were provided by the song, dance, autographing-and-reminiscing participation of ninety-one-year-old Betty Ann Bruno, an original \u201cMunchKid\u201d from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer\u2019s 1939 feature film, THE WIZARD OF OZ. This was Betty Ann\u2019s second annual visit to the upstate New York village where L. Frank Baum was born in 1856. Mr. Baum went on to write THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ (1900) and thirteen other Oz Books, and one and all involved in the OZ-Stravaganza! that has joyously honored him for more than four decades happily anticipated that Betty Ann would make many return trips to his birthplace in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incidentally, for those unfamiliar with the terminology, it\u2019s important to note here that the unofficially named \u201cMunchKids\u201d were comprised of a dozen little girls from Hollywood dance schools who mostly \u201cfilled in\u201d background spots on the MGM OZ set. Five, as of earlier this year, were still among us, although \u2013 as all are in their nineties \u2013 it was only Betty who traveled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most unexpectedly, however, she herself passed away just a month after Chittenango\u2019s forty-sixth festival. The shattering loss of Betty has since reminded me of other MGMunchkins, whose local appearances beginning in the late 1980s were much responsible for putting the village\u2019s long-term Oz event on the map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These men and women were among the 124 \u201clittle people\u201d (as they preferred to be called) who played in the film; more than five years have passed since we lost the last of them, and it\u2019s been more than a decade since any were able to appear in Chittenango. As I wasn\u2019t doing a blog across the 1989-2012 era of their participation, it occurred to me that this autumn might be an opportune time to especially remember some of them. In that manner, we\u2019re able to again celebrate their contributions as we did those of Betty Ann in 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, in keeping with such a \u201ctribute\u201d concept, this blog heralded Munchkins Ruth Duccini, Karl Slover, and Meinhardt Raabe across the last three months. Today, we move on to one of the most recognizable of all of Judy Garland\u2019s Ozian welcoming corps: \u201cThe Lollipop Guild\u201d kid in the middle!<\/p>\n\n\n

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Above: Moments after her arrival from Kansas, Dorothy Gale looks around Munchkinland. It\u2019s a posed still, as Judy Garland is actually never seen on the bridge in the OZ film itself. This art, however, gives a rare, clear view of a good portion of the set, as — once Billie Burke (Glinda) hove into view and beckoned \u201cthe little people who live in this land\u201d to \u201ccome out, come out, wherever you are\u201d — the plaza was never again this uninhabited for the rest of the sequence!<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cAND IN THE NAME OF THE LOLLIPOP GUILD. . . \u201d:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

HERE\u2019S JERRY MAREN!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s one of very few MGM Munchkins from THE WIZARD OF OZ to write \u2013 in company with revered pop culture historian Steve Cox — a full autobiography. (Betty Ann Bruno and Meinhardt Raabe are two of the others.) Yet it\u2019s safe to say that one could do no better than to seek out a copy of SHORT AND SWEET\/THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE LOLLIPOP MUNCHKIN (Nashville: Cumberland House, 2008) to get a sumptuously illustrated sense of the life and times of — as it\u2019s put in the heralding copy — \u201cThe Most Famous Midget Since Tom Thumb.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Jerry\u2019s professional career spanned nine decades, we can only trace highlights here. Gerard Marenghi was the youngest (and the only height-challenged) of twelve children, born January 24, 1920, in Roxbury, MA. His entertainment career began informally; he followed Anna, one of his sisters, to her dancing classes, aced any challenges there, and by the time he was sixteen or seventeen, he ended up performing in a hotel cabaret show with his dancing teachers. They were billed as Three Steps and A Half \u2013 the latter two words, of course, referenced the diminutive Jerry. In best traditional \u201cshow biz\u201d fashion, he was seen in that act by an agent, who offered him a not-great-deal to appear in the all-midget western movie, THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN. A family counsel of Marenghis wisely turned it down, but it was Jerry\u2019s sister Rae (\u201cshe was my encouragement\u201d) who soon thereafter saw the following newspaper notice: \u201cMervyn LeRoy needs 100 midgets for WIZARD OF OZ, address him at MGM.\u201d She submitted Jerry\u2019s photo and received in return a telegram from Loew\u2019s, Inc. (Metro\u2019s parent company), asking that Jerry come to New York to catch the bus and meet two dozen other little people who were being driven west to be in the film. As MGM\u2019s offer included transportation, hotel, meals, and fifty dollars a week, Jerry \u2013 fresh out of high school \u2013 accepted it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he got to NYC, Loew\u2019s put the teen up at a hotel and the next day, he foregathered in Times Square for a promotional \u201cphoto op\u201d before getting out of town. In the top picture below, he\u2019s third from the left in the front row. In the second picture, he\u2019s the second actor in the fourth window from the left, under the CHARTERED signage. (This photo was chosen for our blog because it both shows Jerry — already seemingly happy, excited, and \u201cat home\u201d with all the strangers — and provides a clear view of the ballyhoo banner that would promote MGM\u2019s forthcoming film — ten months prior to its release! — as these Munchkins-to-be were carted across country. 😊 )<\/p>\n\n\n

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The work itself began in an MGM rehearsal hall, where Jerry\u2019s life became increasingly exhilarating. Quickly cast as one of \u201cThe Lollipop Guild,\u201d he was told that his salary — while filming — would jump to $100 per week; his later recollection is that impresario\/entrepreneur Leo Singer took a twenty-five per cent cut of that. (Singer held the contract with the studio to provide most of the Munchkins appearing in the picture, and it was his vaudeville troupe of two dozen or more little people that made up the nucleus of that specific OZ ensemble.) Although savvy businessman Maren would die a millionaire eighty years later, the teenage Jerry didn\u2019t worry much about financial arrangements in 1938. He and his compatriots elatedly jumped into four weeks of music rehearsal, staging, wardrobe fittings, and make-up and wig tests. The costume reference photo below, taken at Metro in December 1938, shows the Munchkin trio who were termed the \u201c3 Little Tough Boys\u201d; Jerry is once again center, with Jackie Gerlich (misspelled Gerligh on the chalk board) on his left and Harry Doll on his right:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As rehearsals progressed, those in charge realized that Jerry had unusual presence and charisma \u2013 and that he was one of the tiniest and cutest of the Munchkin cast. Director Victor Fleming, choreographer Bobby Connolly, and his assistants Dona Massin and Arthur \u201cCowboy\u201d Appel thus utilized the kid from Roxbury all over the set. One of the most quietly comical Maren moments happens when the Wicked Witch of the West explosively appears, mid-plaza, in Munchkinland. Jerry is upstage, on the right hand side of the screen. On cue, he dashes from right to left and jumps in the window of one of the Munchkinland huts. Thereafter, whenever that hut is seen during Margaret Hamilton\u2019s scene, there\u2019s a pair of striped green and white stockings sticking out of the window frame. Additionally, there are some close-ups of Glinda \u2013 with several Munchkins, including Jerry, behind her — as she\u2019s speaking to Dorothy. When the film cuts to a response shot, with Judy talking to Billie Burke, there are Munchkins behind Judy, too . . . also including Jerry! He’s frequently that omnipresent, as in the moment illustrated below as the gathering sings \u201cWe welcome you to Munchkinland\u201d to Dorothy. The latter holds the lollipop Jerry had given her moments before: <\/p>\n\n\n

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Even though their singing voices were dubbed (per surviving studio records by Billy Bletcher, Pinto Colvig, and Harry Stanton), the \u201c3 Little Tough Boys\u201d made an immediate hit with OZ audiences when the film premiered. Harrison Carroll reviewed the Grauman\u2019s Chinese Theatre opening night screening for the Los Angeles HERALD-EXAMINER, and the next day (August 16, 1939), he wrote, \u201cThree midgets who receive no program credit offer a scene-stealing bit in [the \u2018Munchkinland\u2019] sequence.\u201d The moment that especially tickled the audience came immediately after the \u201cLollipop Guild\u201d song, when Jerry, Harry, and Jackie backed up — each with his own two hands clasped together and raised triumphantly over his head — in the then-standard imitation of a prize-winning boxer at a sporting event. This production still depicts the moment just before that:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Gleefully enough, Jerry was there at Grauman\u2019s to share that memorable moment of spectator recognition. He and four fellow Munchkins were enlisted by MGM to \u201cinhabit\u201d the theater courtyard \u2013 wearing costumes from the film \u2013 so as to greet the stars and general public in attendance. Here they pose with Glinda herself, Billie Burke; from left: Tommy Cottonaro, Jerry (wearing the garb of the Munchkin Mayor just for the occasion), Billie, Nona Cooper, and Victor Wetter. In this shot, the latter two unfortunately and pretty much completely obscure another Munchkin, Billy Curtis:<\/p>\n\n\n

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When filming of \u201cMunchkinland\u201d was completed circa New Year\u2019s Eve 1938, most of the little people — some as singles, some In duos, some in groups — went back home or returned to their respective vaudeville, supper club, theater, and circus engagements. Jerry, however, stayed in Hollywood \u2013 and really never left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also \u2013 at least seemingly — never again stopped working. Just days after completing OZ, Jerry was cast by MGM in an \u201cOur Gang\u201d short subject, TINY TROUBLES.  This was immediately followed by a featured role in THE MARX BROS. AT THE CIRCUS, and throughout the next sixty-plus years, he conquered every entertainment medium. Jerry amassed more than seventy motion picture and television credits; the former include HERE WE GO AGAIN (in which he played the running, dancing, and highly active incarnations of Edgar Bergen\u2019s ventriloquist dummies, Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd), SAMSON AND DELILAH, SUPERMAN AND THE MOLE-MEN, WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, PLANET OF THE APES, HELLO, DOLLY!, THE APPLE DUMPING GANG, and UNDER THE RAINBOW. (Heavily cloaked, Jerry was even one of the \u201cDinks\u201d in SPACEBALLS.) He also did \u201cdoubling\u201d and\/or minor stunts for child actors, and that work included television shows, as well. These days, and thanks to nostalgia TV cable channels, it\u2019s very easy (and a lot of fun) to watch for Jerry\u2019s appearances on such classic series as \u2013 among others — THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, BEWITCHED, HERE\u2019S LUCY, THE ODD COUPLE, THE WILD, WILD WEST, STAR TREK, CHARLIE\u2019S ANGELS, and NIGHT COURT. He had a recurring stint on THE ANDY WILLIAMS SHOW (as the Little German General) and a regular job as finale confetti-tosser on THE GONG SHOW. Perhaps topping much of the foregoing, Jerry and his real-life wife, Elizabeth Barrington, played the parents of Kramer\u2019s girlfriend in a definitive episode of SEINFELD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazingly, there was much more. The diverse Maren talents extended to radio roles; a World War II USO tour with fellow \u2018little person\u201d Billy Curtis; and a song and dance coupling with Jeanette Fern. (Both Curtis and Jeanette were OZ veterans as well.) Onstage, Jerry appeared as the Munchkin Mayor in a production of OZ and as one of the seven dwarfs in a massive mounting of Disney\u2019s SNOW WHITE at the outdoor, eleven-thousand-seat St. Louis MUNY Opera. Finally, there were his lucrative commercials and product representations; outstanding among these were long-term employment as both Buster Brown and Little Oscar. (In the latter capacity, he extensively toured with the Wiener Mobile!) Those extraordinary occupations were followed by a ten year stint with McDonalds \u2013 primarily as either The Hamburglar or Mayor McCheese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just above, you\u2019ll have read a reference to Elizabth Barrington. Another little person, she was the opposite of Jerry in that she was the oldest (but, again, the only height-challenged) of twelve kids. Jerry and Elizabeth married in 1975, built a Hollywood house for themselves \u201cto scale,\u201d and thereafter worked both separately and together. In the latter category \u2013 and in Jerry\u2019s own \u201creturn to the rainbow\u201d \u2013 the Marens appeared in a brief Munchkin fantasy sequence in THE DREAMER OF OZ (1990), a TV-movie biography starring John Ritter as L. Frank Baum. In the publicity art just below, Courtney Barilla appears with Jerry, Elizabeth, and Joe Griffo. (Ms. Barilla played a real-life niece of Frank Baum who died very young. Her parents had dubbed her Dorothy, and very soon thereafter, Baum used that name for a little girl about whom he was writing a book . . ..)<\/p>\n\n\n

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By that juncture in Jerry\u2019s life, however \u2013 and amidst all else — Oz was never far away. Reunions of surviving Munchkin players were launched with the fiftieth anniversary of the MGM film in 1989. Oz festivals sprang up around the county, and pending their budgets, imported the little people as special guests \u2013 and very special attractions. Some of the occasions were one-time-only events, but several others became annual festivals. Additionally, the Munchkins began to turn up in countless TV and radio interviews, on talk shows, and in video documentaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A long-overdue and deserved honor was then provided them when Chicago-area theater manager, Ted Bulthaup \u2013 who\u2019d featured the Munchkins as special guests at his venues — began a lobbying campaign within the film industry to get the Munchkins their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Major influencers fell in line to endorse Bulthaup\u2019s idea and to appeal to the Mayor of Hollywood to get onboard with the project. (Among those in support:  Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ted Turner, Roger Ebert, Hugh Hefner, Tippi Hedren, Mickey Rooney, Leonard Maltin, TCM, the AFI \u2013 and every major Hollywood studio: Warner Bros, Universal, MGM, Sony, Disney, and Paramount.) It all came to pass on November 20, 2007; from left, below: Clarence Swensen, Jerry, Mickey Carroll, Karl Slover, Ruth Duccini, Margaret Pellegrini, and Meinhardt Raabe:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Two years later, Jerry and four of the Munchkins — plus Lorna Luft (Judy Garland\u2019s daughter) and yours truly joined forces in New York City for three days of press conferences, radio, TV and internet interviews, and a by-invitation-only party at Central Park\u2019s famed Tavern on the Green restaurant. Our efforts hailed the new seventieth anniversary OZ book (which I coauthored with Jonathan Shirshekan) and seventieth anniversary DVD set (which I helped produce). All these festivities were capped by a screening of THE WIZARD OF OZ at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. Oddy enough, for all their coast-to-coast festivals and gatherings, the Munchkins \u2013 en masse — had never before done an open-to-the public Manhattan appearance. When they took stage that morning, it was a complete surprise for the supposedly urbane, sophisticated (and all-ages) NYC audience, which went immediately and unquietly mad. The crowd — including Spike Lee — gave increasingly greater response to each brief anecdote or song snippet rendered by the five little people. (Lovingly, Jerry never tired of singing his five-line theme to an appreciative throng \u2013 and no spectators anywhere could ever get enough of it.) Across those days, the constant posing resulted in this photograph; from left: Meinhardt, Jerry, Ruth, Margaret, Karl, Lorna Luft (at right) and me (at left):<\/p>\n\n\n

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Jerry made what was basically his last formal public appearance by returning again to the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. This time, however, it was all about him, as he autographed \u2013 and placed his hand and footprints in — a block of cement. Swamped by photographers from international news services, he obliged one and all, and when the ceremony was over, he then willingly moved to the barricades beyond the theater forecourt to greet some of the hundreds of fans who\u2019d gathered to concur with that day\u2019s unique entertainment accolade. Ronnee Sass of Warner Bros. Classic Home Video was largely responsible for propelling the event to reality; we lost Ronnee in 2021, but she\u2019s shown in the picture below with Jerry and me \u201con the day\u201d in September 2023. (I was on hand for his \u201ccement event,\u201d as it was one of many anticipatory, celebratory aspects initiating another OZ anniversary. This included the launch of an even more elaborate deluxe DVD set and — notably! — inaugurated the debut of the 3D version of the film itself. Warner Bros. invited me to serve as their spokesperson for all the seventy-fifth birthday proceedings, and these included emcee duties at the 3D premiere, held right back at the Chinese Theatre, where \u2013 as referenced above \u2013 the film had received its official Los Angeles debut in 1939.)<\/p>\n\n\n

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During those days in 2013, Jerry also enjoyed a reunion with Ruth Duccini; at that point, they were the final surviving little people Munchkins of THE WIZARD OF OZ. He poignantly and privately told her that he didn\u2019t \u201cwant to be the last\u201d to go, but Ruthie quietly preceded him in 2014. Meanwhile, Jerry\u2019s Elizabeth had unexpectedly passed in 2011, and it was left to Jerry to retire and otherwise quietly withdraw. He welcomed and enjoyed the occasional familiar visitor to his assisted living situation; he much more frequently and much more often enjoyed his omnipresent cigars — until he, too, passed on May 24, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Needless to say, there are countless other Maren career highlights. (Please seek out the Maren\/Cox tome mentioned above; it\u2019s a journalistic and pictorial beauty!) Finally, however, I\u2019ll speak personally — grateful and privileged to be able to note that Jerry and Elizabeth and I worked together perhaps eighty times between 1989 and 2010. Their nickname for me was \u201cBig John,\u201d and my memories of their dynamism are vast and powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So this month\u2019s blog comes (as always) with gratitude to them \u2013 and to any and all of you for reading this far and sharing in recollections of some of Jerry\u2019s countless accomplishments. He was a lovely but \u201creal\u201d human being, with an extraordinary sense of humor, memory, and loyalty. The last photo, below, is the Jerry I knew and continue to treasure. He was about to launch one of his innumerable appearances, with his lollipop prop and his ready smile \u2013 and the anticipation of his own joy at the opportunity to please another few hundred children (and people who used to be children). Lining up, sometimes for hours, they never could believe they were going to meet HIM. . . yet there he was: ready to sign, to kibitz, to josh with the very youngest of his cult. 😊 (Sudden remembrance: how he\u2019d invent, on the spot, alliterative nicknames for the kids: \u201cYour name is Patty? I\u2019m going to call you \u2018Patty Petunia\u2019!\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I\u2019ll never forget Elizabeth, always right there, alongside: a cheerleader, a caregiver, a wonderful wife. With her at hand to help with the fans and photos and fun, Jerry was ever-ready, and \u2013 to the benefit of all \u2013 ever on the circuit, just as you see here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One last thought and realization: For Jerry Maren — as with so many of us \u2013 it all started with Oz! 😊<\/p>\n\n\n

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By John Fricke FOREWORD In our August 26th entry — posted on Chittenango\u2019s All Things Oz and OZ-Stravaganza! Facebook pages (as well as on this blog site) — we celebrated 2023\u2019s Oz festival. The highlights of that weekend, of course, were provided by the song, dance, autographing-and-reminiscing participation of ninety-one-year-old Betty Ann Bruno, an original … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “\u201cTHE LITTLE PEOPLE WHO LIVE[D] IN THIS LAND\u201d \u2013 PART 4<\/strong>“<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,21,2],"tags":[14,13,9,4,5],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allthingsoz.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allthingsoz.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allthingsoz.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allthingsoz.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allthingsoz.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/allthingsoz.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":433,"href":"https:\/\/allthingsoz.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions\/433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allthingsoz.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allthingsoz.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allthingsoz.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}