I gently buckled my infant daughter in her car seat and whispered in her ear. “Someday, you can say you rode in the backseat of the car with a real life munchkin.” I was driving Mickey Carroll back to his hotel. Mickey, (pictured far left in the tux) then an elderly soul in his 80’s was one of several former cast members from the Wizard of Oz in town for a collectors convention. I was hired by a publicist to help escort the troop on several appearances.
One of the days, we took a “field trip” to Philadelphia for a couple of tv interviews. While we were in the city, we had some extra time on our hands between appearances so we ate at Denny’s (imagine me walking into a Denny’s with a half dozen little people) and then decided to visit Independence Hall. There is something surreal about sitting in the cradle of liberty next to a “Munchkin.” As we stood around the Liberty Bell and the Park Ranger began to offer his history lesson, Mickey blurted out, “Do you know who we are? ‘Follow the yellow brick road’ “, he said in his best Munchkin voice. Everyone turned their heads to look and the son of another “Munchkin” who accompanied his mom shot back, “No one cares who we are Mickey”.
It struck me how some of the former cast members treated their appearance as a job, while Mickey was still a “Munchkin” in his mind, a teenager on a movie set, living in a Hollywood past and quick to tell you about his longtime friendship with Judy Garland. Mickey passed away in 2009 at the age of 89.
I was reminded of my brush with Munchkinland this week when I read that one of the 3 remaining cast members, Margaret Pellegrini (who was also with us that week, pictured far right in the dress) reportedly died near her home in Phoenix, AZ after suffering a stroke. She was 89. Standing at 3 ft. 4 inches, Pellegrini played multiple “Munchkin” parts in the movie, including a “sleepyhead” and a Munchkin villager.
Pellegrini can be seen dancing near the front of the parade behind Dorothy in the video below, wearing a blue hat.
Time has passed and my infant little girl is now a 14 year old teenager, but every once in a while I tell her the story about the time she sat in our car next to a “Munchkin”. And I could have never imagined myself as a little boy sitting in my pajamas on the living room floor watching wide-eyed as a black and white television screen magically turned color welcoming me to somewhere over the rainbow that one day I would drive the backroads of South Jersey with a real life “Munchkin” in my backseat. Unlike Dorothy, it wasn’t a dream, it actually happened and as Dorothy said, they were all there including Mickey and Margaret.
Jeff Whitaker 