For decades there had been rumors that one of the iconic blue dresses a young Judy Garland wore as Dorothy in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz was given to the Catholic University school in Washington D.C. But after more than 50 years of rumors, the story was assumed to be nothing more than a myth.
As the story was told, the dress was given to the head of the Catholic University of America’s drama department, Father Gilbert Hartke, in the early 1970’s by actress Mercedes McCambridge. Nobody was clear on how McCambridge came to possess the dress nor why she gave it to Father Hartke. But in the years that followed, the dress disappeared. Then last year, workers were preparing for a renovation when they found an old shoe box inside a plastic bag. When it was opened, there it was. The dress was in good condition aside from a small swatch that had been cut away. The blouse that Dorothy wore under the dress was also inside the box.
The school decided to auction off the dress rather than keep it. It goes up for sale at the Bonhams “Classic Hollywood: Film and Television” auction on May 24 in Los Angeles where it is estimated to go for between $800,000 and $1.2 million. The school says proceeds from the sale will be used to create a full-fledged film program at the school.
There was more than one of the costumes made for Garland while filming. Four are known to exist and only two, including the one found at Catholic University, include the blouse she wore underneath. Bonhams sold the other one with a blouse at an auction in 2015 for more than $1.5 million. The dress found at Catholic University of America was the one Garland wore in the scene where she is confronted in a castle by a threatening Wicked Witch of the West.
