In Michael Hearn and Douglas Greene's 1976 biography of W.W. Denslow, there's an interesting passage quoting the artist on how he came up with the images for the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman. This was taken from a 1904 article in the Denver
Republican newspaper -
"I made twenty-five sketches of those two monkeys before I was satisfied with them. You may well believe that there was a great deal of evolution before I got that golf ball in the Scarecrow's ear or the funnel on the Tin Man's head. I experimented and tried out all sorts of straw waist-coats and sheet-iron cravats before I was satisfied."
What's interesting here is that Denslow seems to be confusing his illustrations for
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and some stage business worked into the theatrical version of
The Wizard of Oz. I never understood the reference to the "golf ball in the Scarecrow's ear" until I learned more about the stage play. In Denslow's drawings of the character, I never noticed anything that looked like a golf ball!
But, the stage show is a different story. During the opening Kansas prologue, before the cyclone arrives, a golfer wanders onstage looking for his ball. He flirts with one of the farm girls, the cyclone hits, and he's not thought of again. In the detail on the left, the golf club can be seen at the actor's feet as he reacts to the arrival of the twister.
Then later in Oz, when the Scarecrow comes to life, one of the first things he does is remove a golf ball from his ear - the discovery of the missing golf ball! In the detail on the right from the production, the ball can be clearly seen, and in his autobiography Fred Stone even mentions strapping a golf ball to his ear for the part. Incidentally, it's also humorous to note, in the photo below, that the face of the actor playing Imogene the cow (Fred's brother, Edwin Stone) is clearly visible beneath the bow on the cow's neck! These stage photos are from the collection of the
Museum of the City of New York.
So, that's one of my little Ozian mysteries cleared up - and another proof that memories are not always reliable - even the memories of those directly involved in the creation of a legend!
While digging around in the basement recently, I ran across my Bicentennial scrapbook. As a teenager outside Philadelphia in 1976, I was fascinated by the 200th birthday celebration - although I quickly grew more fascinated by the earlier Centennial and Sesquicentennial celebrations. These had included World Fairs held in Philadelphia, rather than random events around the region - but there were still a lot of things to see and do that summer.
At any rate, aside from the various newspaper accounts of celebration events, there were two particular clippings I included in the book. The first is the obituary for Ruth Plumly Thompson, from the Philadelphia Inquirer. Thompson died on April 6th, 1976. I had only recently re-discovered the Oz books at that point, and had never read a Thompson title - at that time, her books simply were not available. I had already started rummaging through used book stores in the area, but had had little success in finding much Oz related material. I still remember my surprise at learning that she had lived in the region!
The other clipping is from an answer column that ran in the paper. This one is interesting as it's from a woman whose mother owned a house in Chittenango, NY, where she believed the author of The Wizard of Oz had once lived. The paper agreed that the house sounded like Roselawn, L. Frank Baum's childhood home, and suggested contacting Oz Club member Ray Powell for more information. This coming weekend is the 33rd annual Oz-Stravaganza! celebration in Chittenango - an event that started in 1978, a couple years after this column was printed!
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