Gale Sondergaard: You Learn Something New Every Day (Almost)!

This post originally appeared on my now-deleted blog, You Learn Something New Every Day (Almost)!

Almost everyone in the civilized world is probably aware of MGM's "The Wizard of Oz." And Margaret Hamilton made one heck of a great Wicked Witch of the West.

I know a lot of Oz trivia, but it wasn't until tonight that I learned that Margaret Hamilton was not the first actress cast as Ol' WWW.

The first was Gale Sondergaard. MGM was trying to ride on the coattails of Disney's beautiful witch in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," apparently.

Ms. Sondergaard looked too good in the initial costume. (It's hard to see here, but the card they're holding in front of her misspells her name as "Sondergard.")

They re-designed the make-up, in an attempt to make her look less attractive -- although she still outshines one or two women whom I've dated -- and it is reportedly at this point that Gale refused the role!

Oddly enough, while I was researching this bit of trivia, I discovered something else -- something totally unrelated to "The Wizard of Oz" -- and as luck would have it, I learned it after midnight... So now I have Saturday's post as well! See you there!

Thanks for your time.