Lost Judy Garland ‘Wizard of Oz’ Dress Up for Auction

In an indelible scene from “The Wizard of Oz,” the vivid eco-friendly Wicked Witch held a frightened Dorothy captive by threatening harm to her dog Toto if she did not give up her ruby-pink slippers.

The scene was memorable not only for the vibrant red of Dorothy’s sneakers, but also for her striking white-and-blue gingham pinafore gown — one particular of several that the teenage Judy Garland wore in 1 of the 1st big movies filmed in Technicolor, in 1939.

“The gown was a legend, but no a person had witnessed it considering the fact that the late 1980s,’’ Jacqueline Leary-Warsaw, the dean of the university of music, drama and artwork at the Catholic University of The united states in Washington, D.C., stated on Friday. A priest who headed the drama office had been provided the gown in 1973, but the college lost observe of it.

Now the college hopes to auction it off for at the very least $1.2 million, with the money likely to spend for a new film plan. It goes on show on Saturday at Bonhams New York, 580 Madison Avenue in Manhattan, the place the community can see it via April 29. Then, on May perhaps 24, it will be presented at the “Bonhams Traditional Hollywood: Movie and Television” auction in Los Angeles, Bonhams declared this week.

Garland wore quite a few versions of the fragile blue-and-white dress, but only a person other — made use of somewhere else in the movie — is regarded to however exist. Julien’s Auctions sold it for $480,000 in 2012. Bonhams marketed the very same costume again for nearly $1.6 million in 2015. The auction residence also sold the Cowardly Lion costume worn by actor Bert Lahr for more than $3 million the earlier yr.

This next dress was uncovered by likelihood past year, in a shoe box, inside of a bag, sitting on leading of some faculty mailboxes. It had been “a legend all around the drama department,” Dean Leary-Warsaw said, but no a person truly knew if the story was real.

The tale was that a good friend of Garland’s, Mercedes McCambridge, who was then an actress and artist in home at the college, had provided it to the school’s former head of drama, Father Gilbert Hartke, in 1973.

Pictures existed of it from that time, but the costume was “tucked away” in the 1980s and the university seemingly shed track of it, the dean stated.

That altered very last 12 months when Matt Ripa, a lecturer and operations manager at the drama faculty, was cleaning up in planning for renovations of the Hartke Theater and uncovered the bag on best of the mailboxes.

“I opened the bag and inside of the bag was an aged shoe box and within of the shoe box, I noticed the blue-and-white gingham costume,” Mr. Ripa recalled on Friday. “And I knew particularly what it was.”

His to start with reaction? “‘Oh my God!’”

He advised a co-employee to grab some latex gloves, and he took some pics of the costume, which he reported he had listened to about considering that he was employed in 2014.

“It was 1 of all those tall tales,’’ he said. “You listened to stories from former students and college customers about Father Hartke being gifted this costume,” including “I had in no way laid eyes on it.”

Following he folded the dress and put it back into the box, he took it to campus archivists. They arrived at out to the Smithsonian’s Countrywide Museum of American Background to enable with authentication, Dean Leary-Warsaw claimed. She noted that the museum has the popular ruby slippers.

When she examine about the find past calendar year, Helen Corridor, director of well-liked culture at Bonhams in Los Angeles, reported on Thursday that she was astounded and immediately attained out to the university.

“These costumes are exceptionally uncommon and the amassing community thought that all extant dresses experienced been accounted for,’’ Corridor said. “For a single to area around 80 years soon after the launch of the movie is unbelievable.”

The gown consists of a equipped bodice, a superior-necked blouse and a full skirt, with a material label inside inscribed “Judy Garland 4223.” Bonhams claims the gown has been matched to the scene in which Dorothy faces the Wicked Witch of the West in her castle.

In addition to paying out for the new film application, the proceeds of the auction will be made use of to endow a college chair placement in Father Hartke’s name, Dean Leary-Warsaw stated.

“We appreciate the gown, but it has never ever been shown or shared broadly over the previous 50 yrs and we hope now it will be,’’ she included. “And, maybe this will inspire some others who discover about it to examine their personal closets and offices for concealed treasures.”