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When Judy Garland’s innocent Dorothy Gale ran off to save her dog Toto, she embarked on an ­adventure that has enchanted generations of families, writes Lewis Panther in The People.

But behind the tender magic of The Wizard of Oz lay real-life escapades that would shame even today’s movie stars.

As the classic Hollywood children’s fantasy approaches its 75th anniversary, the Sunday People has dug up some of its bizarre behind-the-scenes secrets.

And it is the midgets who played the Munchkins whose antics amaze most.

In the studio they earned between £200 and £500 a week in 1939 – and they had giant party appetites.

Tales of drunken dwarf love-ins and an “unholy assembly of pimps, hookers and gamblers” emerged from the Culver Hotel where they stayed during filming.

After the movie was finished, producer Mervyn LeRoy recalled: “They had orgies in the hotel and we had to have police on about every floor.”

He admitted: “To make a picture like The Wizard of Oz, everybody had to be a little drunk with imagination.”

(Image: Rex)

Star Judy Garland went on a date with one of the most randy midgets, ­accompanied by her mum because she was only 17.

But that only prompted the little lothario to quip: “Fair enough, two broads for the price of one.”

By the time filming was over, Garland had seen enough of the Munchkins’ unsavoury amorous antics to go right off the idea of anything like a relationship.

She said: “They were drunks. They got smashed every night and the police used to scoop them up in butterfly nets.”

The film’s make-up artist Jack Dawn recalled later how one German midget who called himself The Count even had to been rescued from a toilet bowl.

He said: “You had to watch them all the time. Once when he was due on set, he went missing. Then we heard a

whining from the men’s room. He had got plastered during lunch, fallen in the toilet and could not get out.”

Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion, said: “Many Munchkins made their living by panhandling, pimping and whoring.

"Midgets brandished knives and often had passions for larger personnel.”

(Image: Rex)

Buddy Ebsen, the first choice Tin Man, had an extreme ­reaction to aluminium dust in his make-up and nearly died.

Jack Haley, who took over the role, had an eye infection from aluminium paste, which turned out to be poisonous.

The Wicked Witch’s make-up was also toxic. Actress Margaret Hamilton ­swallowed some and had to live on liquids for days. Her face stayed green for weeks after ­shooting because of copper-based ingredients.

And it took a year for marks left by a mask to fade on Scarecrow actor Ray Bolger’s face.

More than 3,200 ­costumes were made for the movie but the ­shabby coat worn by Frank Morgan’s Professor Marvel/The Wiz was found in a charity shop.

It had belonged to Wizard of Oz ­author L. Frank Baum.

Bert Lahr’s Lion costume weighed seven stone and was made with real lion pelts. And Judy Garland had to wear a corset to appear more childlike with her boobs flattened.

Second favourite for the role behind 11-year-old Shirley Temple, Judy was ordered to lose 12 pounds.

In the 1900 novel Dorothy’s slippers were silver. They became “ruby” to take advantage of new Technicolor film.

Her blue and white gingham dress was ­actually blue and pink because true white looked dull on the big screen because of the Technicolor process.

The materials used meant ­temperatures in the studio regularly hit 100F.

The witch’s slaves, called the Winkies, wore costumes of such heavy felt that some of them nearly died of heat stroke.

The Winged Monkeys, who hunted down Dorothy and Toto in the Haunted Forest, were more small men wearing suits made of hair and facial prosthetics to look like apes.

They nearly roasted alive in the heat.

Yelping Toto, a Cairn terrier called Terry, was making £500 a week for her owner – more than most of the Munchkins.

(Image: Wiki)

Paint used on the Yellow Brick Road had to be made industrial strength ­because it appeared mint green on film.

Flavoured jelly powder coloured the horses for the Emerald City scenes. But it had to be a quick shoot because the animals tried to lick themselves clean.

Judy Garland had a giggle fit in the scene where she slaps the Cowardly Lion. To snap her out of it, director Victor Fleming slapped her before they filmed another take.

Many scenes with the Wicked Witch and her jutting chin and hooked nose were cut or edited as being too scary for children.

But the scare factor didn’t just apply to the witch. Ray Bolger, the Scarecrow, Bert Lahr, the Cowardly Lion, and Jack Haley, Tin Man, were banned from the MGM canteen as they were alarming.

Over the Rainbow was almost cut ­because execs thought it made the film too long. But it won the Best Song Oscar.

Oz was beaten to the Academy Award for best picture – by Gone with the Wind.

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