The actress who played the Wicked Witch of the West in the original Wizard of Oz movie suffered second- and third-degree burns on set, it has been revealed.
Margaret Hamilton, who passed away in May 1985 at the age of 82, portrayed the unforgettable green villain – now being played by British actress Cynthia Erivo in the new Wicked film – but her iconic role didn’t come without setbacks.
Oz expert and author John Fricke has spoken out about how Hamilton found herself injured on set of the 1939 film one day in a scene that involved real fire.
The scene in question is the one where the witch appears on the Yellow Brick Road and warns Dorothy, played by Judy Garland, and her pooch,Toto: ‘I’ll get you my pretty and your little dog, too.’
After doing her iconic cackling laugh, the witch disappears in a cloud of red smoke and fire – and due to there being no CGI back in those days, everything was real – and flammable.
Fricke explained to People that Hamilton was instructed to stand on an elevator platform built into the floor of the yellow brick road, ‘which would lower her and her broom down as the red smoke clouded her exit.’
Once Hamilton was fully lowered down underneath the set, the crew would send fire up through nearby vents in the floor.
Fricke said: ‘They rehearsed it and rehearsed it all one morning and they got it on the first take. Maggie said the line, she whirled around, she got to the elevator, the smoke came up, they dropped her through the floor, she cleared the floor, the fire came up perfect and there was much exultation on the set.
Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West in the original Wizard of Oz movie, suffered second- and third-degree burns on set
Hamilton pictured on set of the 1939 movie with actors Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Ray Bolger and Judy Garland
‘But then it was lunchtime, and they all went off. And as Maggie used to say, when everybody came back after lunch, they were all a little bit less attentive, less kind of on-the-money than they were first thing in the morning.’
‘And there were misfires every time they tried to get a second take,’ Fricke continued, before claiming that director Victor Fleming ‘grew impatient with the technicians’ and he ‘read them the riot act in no uncertain terms and language.’
Unfortunately, the next time they attempted the scene, things didn’t go to plan and Hamilton ended up injured while fully submerged through the floor.
‘Her shoulders and her head and the broom straw and her hat, which had that hanging piece of gauze from it as well, that much was still above the ground,’ Fricke explained.
‘The gauze caught fire, the broom straw caught fire,’ he revealed, adding that crew members who were stationed underneath had to help Hamilton get off the platform elevator.
They ‘quickly smothered the fire, but it wasn’t quick enough,’ and ‘the broom straw was next to the side of her face and near her right hand. And the upshot was that she had second-degree burns on her face, third-degree burns on her hand where the green makeup was.’
The crew reportedly told the actress: ‘”Ms. Hamilton, We have to get this makeup off you. Green is toxic and the copper will burn into your skin and disfigure you in effect if we don’t clear every bit of it off your face”.’
Fricke, who became friends with Hamilton in the decade before she passed, recalled: ‘And they took the rubbing alcohol and cleared her face off and cleared her hand off. And I’ve heard her tell this story many times.
Hamilton, who played the memorable role, passed away in May 1985 at the age of 82
Hamilton ‘loved’ making the movie alongside Judy Garland and was ‘very proud of it until the day she died’
‘She said, “I’m going to have to scream.” She said, “I will never, as long as I live, forget that pain of them rubbing alcohol on those two burns.”
‘From what Maggie used to say, she was burned because the closer-than-close flames instantly leapt from the broomstraw in her hand – and the trailing gauze from her hat – to her face and hand.
‘It was a very tiny elevator shaft and the smoke and fire vents were immediately around its opening. And she was burned much as anyone else would have been when caught in such a burst of fire.’
Hamilton took six weeks off after the incident to recuperate before returning to filming, but it took a bit longer for her skin to return to it’s normal complexion.
‘She said that in the months after filming, people said, “You look a little green.” Her skin had absorbed some of the green and it took a while for her to get that off of her skin or out of her system,’ Fricke revealed.
However, despite that and the accident, he confirmed that Hamilton ‘loved’ making the movie and ‘was very proud of it until the day she died.’
