A PIECE OF OZ IN P.G.
Wizard of Oz club meeting draws West Coast fans
By JULIA REYNOLDS
Herald Staff Writer
Nearly 100 die-hard fans of the land of Oz spent a weekend in the land of Winkies, which, if you've read the works of author L. Frank Baum, you would know means the west. The east, you see, is the land of Munchkins.
The West Coast faction of the International Wizard of Oz Club is holding its annual gathering at Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove this weekend, and Oz conferences, it seems, are made up of two types of fans: the book people and the movie people.
For the book people, one of the weekend's stars was Robert A. Baum, L. Frank's great-grandson, who has written a few Oz books himself.
But for the movie people, the star attraction was the effusive Margaret Pellegrini, now 82, who was 15 years old when she took a train by herself from Alabama to Hollywood.
"It was Culver City, actually. They paid us $50 a week, plus room and board," Pellegrini said.
Pellegrini had three Munchkin roles in "The Wizard of Oz."
She said she had a blast sitting on the yellow brick road during breaks to chat with Judy Garland, who was only a year older than she.
"A lot of us was underage, so we couldn't go night-clubbing," she said.
None of the Munchkin actors received royalties for their work, she said, and she soon moved on, starting a family and raising kids and grandkids.
"Royalties would have been nice," she said.
Since then, she and Myrna and Clarence Swensen have slept in airports and college dorms, working the Oz circuit -- speaking at festivals, film screenings and conferences like this one.
Myrna Swensen said she and her parents were all cast in the movie, but Myrna came down with appendicitis and never made it on camera.
Clarence, her husband of 61 years, was a professional actor before he played a soldier in Oz, though. He had a role in the all-midget production "The Terror of Tiny Town," which Oz club member John Fricke described as the worst movie ever made "and therefore destined to become a cult classic."
"They call me an almost-munchkin," said the diminutive Anna Wyatt of Marina, who has known Pellegrini and the Swensens for years, she said. Wyatt stood next to her table offering Oz charm bracelets, three-dimensional picture frames, movie stills and a ceramic pair of Wicked Witch feet that might serve as an alarming door-stopper. She usually sells her collectibles in the Antique Mall on Cannery Row, where she recently put up an Oz memorabilia exhibit on the second floor.
Jerry Welling and Guy Rodriguez of Monterey pulled out a coffee-table book of photos about the movie and pointed out stills of Pellegrini and the Swensens.
Welling and Rodriguez own the Book Haven in downtown Monterey, putting them definitively in the book faction, along with Peter Hanff, deputy director of the Bancroft Library at UC-Berkeley. Using Rodriguez and Welling's display of used Oz books, he gave a guided tour of L. Frank Baum's prolific career.
Also on the book side was Laura Gjovaag of Seattle.
"I'm an Oz widow," said Gjovaag, who attends the Winkie conference every other year with her husband Eric. He's been to 26 conferences in a row.
"I've been a fan for over 30 years," Eric said, "and I still haven't found out why." But a third-grade teacher showed him one of Baum's books and he was hooked, he said.
"One day, I figured out I had 800 Oz books," he said.
montereyherald.com.
By JULIA REYNOLDS
Herald Staff Writer
Nearly 100 die-hard fans of the land of Oz spent a weekend in the land of Winkies, which, if you've read the works of author L. Frank Baum, you would know means the west. The east, you see, is the land of Munchkins.
The West Coast faction of the International Wizard of Oz Club is holding its annual gathering at Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove this weekend, and Oz conferences, it seems, are made up of two types of fans: the book people and the movie people.
For the book people, one of the weekend's stars was Robert A. Baum, L. Frank's great-grandson, who has written a few Oz books himself.
But for the movie people, the star attraction was the effusive Margaret Pellegrini, now 82, who was 15 years old when she took a train by herself from Alabama to Hollywood.
"It was Culver City, actually. They paid us $50 a week, plus room and board," Pellegrini said.
Pellegrini had three Munchkin roles in "The Wizard of Oz."
She said she had a blast sitting on the yellow brick road during breaks to chat with Judy Garland, who was only a year older than she.
"A lot of us was underage, so we couldn't go night-clubbing," she said.
None of the Munchkin actors received royalties for their work, she said, and she soon moved on, starting a family and raising kids and grandkids.
"Royalties would have been nice," she said.
Since then, she and Myrna and Clarence Swensen have slept in airports and college dorms, working the Oz circuit -- speaking at festivals, film screenings and conferences like this one.
Myrna Swensen said she and her parents were all cast in the movie, but Myrna came down with appendicitis and never made it on camera.
Clarence, her husband of 61 years, was a professional actor before he played a soldier in Oz, though. He had a role in the all-midget production "The Terror of Tiny Town," which Oz club member John Fricke described as the worst movie ever made "and therefore destined to become a cult classic."
"They call me an almost-munchkin," said the diminutive Anna Wyatt of Marina, who has known Pellegrini and the Swensens for years, she said. Wyatt stood next to her table offering Oz charm bracelets, three-dimensional picture frames, movie stills and a ceramic pair of Wicked Witch feet that might serve as an alarming door-stopper. She usually sells her collectibles in the Antique Mall on Cannery Row, where she recently put up an Oz memorabilia exhibit on the second floor.
Jerry Welling and Guy Rodriguez of Monterey pulled out a coffee-table book of photos about the movie and pointed out stills of Pellegrini and the Swensens.
Welling and Rodriguez own the Book Haven in downtown Monterey, putting them definitively in the book faction, along with Peter Hanff, deputy director of the Bancroft Library at UC-Berkeley. Using Rodriguez and Welling's display of used Oz books, he gave a guided tour of L. Frank Baum's prolific career.
Also on the book side was Laura Gjovaag of Seattle.
"I'm an Oz widow," said Gjovaag, who attends the Winkie conference every other year with her husband Eric. He's been to 26 conferences in a row.
"I've been a fan for over 30 years," Eric said, "and I still haven't found out why." But a third-grade teacher showed him one of Baum's books and he was hooked, he said.
"One day, I figured out I had 800 Oz books," he said.
montereyherald.com.
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