Doll-A-Day 2019: #60: Oscar Week: Glinda by Presents

  Today's doll is from the Oscar winning film "The Wizard of Oz".

It's Glinda the Witch of the North,(otherwise known as the Good Witch.)

Glinda was made by Trevco in 1998.

She's missing her crown.

"The Wizard of Oz" was nominated for several Academy Awards, or Oscars. It actually won for Best Original Song, for "Over the Rainbow",(which was originally cut from the film because it was thought that it slowed down the already overlong film, and it was thought unseemly for Judy Garland to sing in a barnyard,before being reinstated at the producers' insistence.), and a Juvenile Oscar went to Judy Garland. In those days the 'Juvenile' Oscar was awarded for the cumulative year's work of an underage performer.  (To read more about Judy Garland and her Juvenile Oscar, you can read my Oscar Week post on my Effanbee Dorothy doll HERE. You can also go there for my favourite piece of little known Oz trivia.)

  One award "The Wizard of Oz" did not win,was the Oscar for Best Picture. This was 1939,widely considered to be the biggest year ever for classic films. "The Wizard of Oz" was up against some stiff competition. Other nominees that year included "Wuthering Heights", "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", "Stagecoach","Of Mice and Men","Goodbye Mr. Chips", "Love Affair",(the original version of "An Affair to Remember"),"Dark Victory", and the winner,"Gone With the Wind".
  She's from a series of Oz dolls made by Trevco.There were at least six dolls in the series. Other than Glinda,the set included Dorothy,the Tin Man,the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion,and the Wicked Witch. Although similar in height,(15" tall.), to the 1988 Oz Presents dolls,the Trevco dolls don't have nearly as good likenesses to the actors. The Tin Man isn't too far off the sculpt of the Presents doll,and the Dorothy may even be better than the Presents version. The rest of the dolls range from very inaccurate to frighteningly awful.

When Emma was small she loved The Wizard of Oz. She had a large Golden Book of the movie that she slept with when she was tiny. (When she was really small she slept with her favourite books instead of toys. That was her choice.) We took her to meet Margaret Pellegrini and Meinhardt Raabe when she was not quite 2 years old. Margaret played a citizen of Munchkinland and a Sleepyhead,(as in the song "Ding Dong,the Wicked Witch is Dead: "Wake up you sleepyhead,rub your eyes, get out of bed.")

Margaret Pellegrini on the left. She was 16 years old.

    Meinhardt Raabe was The Coroner, (As coroner I must aver,I thoroughly examined her,and she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead.")

Meinhardt Rabbe as The Coroner,with Judy Garland as Dorothy. Meinhardt was 24 at the time.

They both signed Emma's Oz book, and although she still slept with it for a short while, I began to be afraid it would get ruined. So we went looking for another one to replace it. I had had several of the same book, but I had given the last one away to my friend's daughter. We ended up having to buy Emma a much larger book. It was a hard backed 'frame by frame' retelling of the movie. She loved it,but it was really heavy for such a little person, and she struggled to carry it around! In spite of that she carried it around for ages. I have pictures of toddler Emma, in her plastic pants,(We used cloth diapers.), struggling with that huge book.
  I felt a bit sorry for Meinhardt and Margaret. There they were, at 78 and 70 years old, still working and having to travel to do it,and worst of all,they were not appearing as former Munchkins. They were making a middle of the day St. Patrick's Day appearance at a bar,dressed as leprechauns. I thought it was degrading. Why couldn't they have appeared in their own clothes? Why did they have to be dressed as Leprechauns? It was St. Patrick's Day, but I find it offensive that just because they were Little People they had to dress as Leprechauns. These people were cinema icons. Just who they were was enough to warrant going to see them. And seeing as how "The Wizard of Oz" is something kids love,it was a shame it was a bar. I didn't really like taking Emma in there,but it was daytime and it was more of a sports bar and grill than a dark bar full of drunks.
  Glinda has the huge puffy sheer shoulders,and sheer sleeves on her dress, like the film dress.

  The bodice is much simpler than the film dress.

  Under her dress,Glinda doll is wearing matching bloomers,which are stitched to her body,in a removable way. (It's strictly to keep them on,but the stitch can be snipped if you want to remove them.

Sorry about the upside down thing.

 And she has pearly pink high heels,which are molded and painted on.

   Her dress is MUCH simpler than the film dress, or the Presents dress.

 I have heard that these dolls were sold at theatres during some tours of the "The Wizard of Oz" stage musical starring Mickey Rooney as The Wizard. We took Emma and Fuzzy to see that,and I don't think they were sold at that theatre. We saw the one with Ertha Kitt as the Wicked Witch,(She was great.),and I read they were sold at a version of the show with Joanne Worley as The Wicked Witch,so maybe it was only certain tours. I do remember them being sold at Walmart.
  All of my kids loved "The Wizard of Oz". Emma and Fuzz had a joint Oz party once,instead of individual Oz birthday parties,because I didn't want to try to do that twice! (Calm down. They did get individual birthday parties too.) I spent ages making yellow brick road for the kids to walk around outside the house on. The kids did sort of a scavenger hunt with clues. For that I made a bunch of 'Courage' medals and a bunch of other stuff. It was one of my favourite parties they had. They were all multiple Oz characters for Halloween too. Emma and Fuzzy were both Tin Man. Fuzz was also The Scarecrow. Both Emma and Ivy were Dorothy and Glinda. In fact,Fuzz and Emma won a costume contest as Scarecrow and Dorothy. I had to make each of the girls their own Glinda costumes, That's not as bad as it sounds. I was A LOT better at sewing by the time I made Ivy's costume. With Emma's I had no idea what a huge amount of fabric it takes to make a skirt like the one on the Glinda dress. Consequently her skirt was fairly straight up and down with no puff. With Ivy I got lucky.She had decided months ahead of time who she was going to be for Halloween. (They tended to do that so I had time to work on their costumes.) So when I was at a yard sale where a lady who had done wedding decorations was selling off some of her wares,I bought up all the peach coloured tulle and shimmery fabric that she had. It was quite a bit. Ivy had a very huge, puffy skirt! And if you really look at the dress in the movie,it does look more peach than pink. I have to say though,Emma's crown, came out better than Ivy's. I made them both out of clear vinyl,but I had enough layers on Emma's to make it firm enough to stand up properly. But I think I may have decorated Ivy's better. I got the idea to use fishing line to put the little stars on that stand up off the top of the crown. I completely left that part off Emma's crown.  Ivy's dress had the sparkly stars all over the skirt, which involved glue and silver glitter, and glitter all over everything for ages.  
  Glinda was played by Billie Burke. As everyone remembers,she had red hair.

 

 Which makes it weird that this Glinda has blonde hair.

  When 'Glinda' introduces herself to 'Dorothy' in "The Wizard of Oz",Dorothy is amazed Glinda is a witch because,"I've never heard of a beautiful witch before." And Billie Burke was beautiful. She was actually fifty five years old when she played Glinda,and was stunning.
 

 Billie Burke was born Mary William Ethelburt Appleton Burke, (Shew!) in Washington,D.C., on August 7,1884. She toured the United States and Europe with her father William 'Billy' Burke, a singer and clown with the Barnum and Bailey Circus. The family eventually settled in London,where Billie began a stage career in 1903. She later returned to the United States to live,and began to appear in Broadway plays. It was there that she met Florenz 'Flo' Ziegfeld,known for his 'Ziegfeld Follies' on Broadway. They were married in 1914,and they had a daughter,Patricia.
  Billie made her film debut in 1915. At one point in those early days she was the highest paid actress in films. In 1919 she returned to the stage,but when the 1929 stock market crash destroyed the family investments,Billie returned to films to help earn money. Her first film after her return was as the mother of Katherine Hepburn, in Hepburn's debut film,"A Bill of Divorcement" in 1932. During the filming, Flo Ziegfeld died. Billie returned to work on the film shortly after Ziegfeld's funeral. Billie never remarried.
  Billie was offered the role of Scarlet O'Hara's husband's 'Aunt Pitty Pat' in "Gone With the Wind" the same year as "The Wizard of Oz", but she turned it down. 

  Billie Burke wrote two autobiographies,starred in many radio series and TV series,and was one of the very first female talk show hosts with her early TV show, "At Home with Billie Burke. She even returned to the stage. She retired in 1960,and passed away in 1970 at the age of 85.
  Tomorrow we'll conclude Oscar Week with a pair of

Doll-A-Day 2019 #59: Oscar Week: Laurel and Hardy

  With the recent release of the movie "Stan and Ollie" there has been a renewed interest in Laurel and Hardy lately. They've always been favourites of mine.  Today's Oscar Week dolls are these two guys.

They are obviously Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy,otherwise known as Laurel and Hardy.

They were made by Premiere in 1997,and were Target stores exclusives.

The backs of their boxes contain an pretty accurate account of their pairing.

The back of the box has a flap that opens to show photos of the team.

The inside of the flap is a bit less accurate, although not surprisingly so. The actual quote Ollie frequently used on Stan is, "Here's another nice mess you've gotten me into.", in spite of the title of their 1930 short, "Another Fine Mess". For proof, you can watch a compilation of Oliver saying the famous line HERE. As for the rest of the phrases, none of them are quotes Laurel and Hardy are really known for. I would have gone more for, "You make me tired!", "Why don't you do something to help me?!","You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be led.", and "Yes, I never did."

The likenesses are pretty good. Oliver has his spit curl bangs and his tiny mustache.

I'm not so sure it isn't a little too tiny though.

Stan has his stretched smile and tiny eyes.

For films Stan lined his inner eyelids to make his eyes appear smaller. It was all part of his efforts to "look stupider", as was in keeping with the character of  'Stan'.

Their look is instantly recognizable, even if the faces aren't exactly right.

This is one of the few REAL colour pictures of Laurel and Hardy taken in their heyday. Taken by New York Daily News photographer Harry Warneke in 1938, during the shooting of "Blockheads", it hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in the Smithsonian.

 The dolls were a limited edition, numbered series and were called '70th Anniversary' editions on their packaging.

That's because 1997 was the 70th anniversary of their first official movie as a team, "Putting Pants on Phillip". They had both appeared in 1921's "Lucky Dog", but not as a team. "Lucky Dog" was a Stan Laurel vehicle, but Oliver Hardy appeared as a thief who robs him. (You can watch "Lucky Dog" HERE.) "Putting Pants on Phillip"  starred them both, but their usual characters weren't set yet. Oliver played a man whose nephew, Phillip, arrives from Scotland wearing a kilt, much to his uncle's embarrassment. Stan played Phillip. (You can watch "Putting Pants on Phillip" HERE.)

  The dolls come with accessories, including display stands decorated with facsimiles of their actual signatures.

Both have umbrellas

Molded ones that don't open.

  Stan comes with a suitcase.

 Oliver comes with a pie.

 

The fact that Laurel and Hardy dolls frequently come with pies kind of ticks me off. I realize Laurel and Hardy may be best known to some for their movie "The Battle of the Century", which contains a pie fight that the Guinness Book of World Records says as many as 10,000 pies were used in, (although 3000 is generally considered to be the real amount.).  But pie fights were more Mack Sennett comedies and the Three Stooges. Laurel and Hardy weren't known for their pie fights. Just saying. (If you want to read the full story of "The Battle of the Century", you can check out my post on my Stan Laurel figure HERE.) You can watch the reconstructed "Battle of the Century", which was thought to be lost for years, HERE.
  They share a hand sculpt.

"Hold my beer."

  I should note here that they are NOT the exact same hands as the Premiere Ingrid Bergman doll which I posted the other day. Hers are a different sculpt, and not nearly as big as these guys' hands. That puts to rest my theory that Premiere used the same hands for both it's male and female figures. The girls still have 'man hands' though.
  The dolls are 9" tall. Their clothes are removable, and have some nice detail.

Oliver's stand-up collar has disappeared down his jacket, and I'm not sure about that tie fabric either. Polka dots yes, plaid, no.

 Meanwhile, Stan's collar is swallowing his head.

 The little buttons and pockets are nice, but as with other Premiere dolls, the fabric used for the clothes is too heavy and bulky.

Definitely too much collar.

The hats are part of the heads, and do not come off.

  Stan was known to have very pale blue eyes, and this doll definitely doesn't. In fact, Stan's eyes were so pale that one studio turned him down as an actor because they thought his eyes wouldn't photograph well. (Certain types of early film photographed the light blue eyes as white!) His early films show Stan with huge black circles around his eyes, in an attempt to make his eyes show up!

There was another set of Laurel and Hardy dolls made by Premiere. That set of dolls was dressed in white shirts and overalls, as the team appeared in several shorts,(short subject films, that is.), including "The Finishing Touch"(1928),"Towed in a Hole"(1932),"Busy Bodies"(1933),and their Oscar winning short, "The Music Box"(1932). See? There is an Oscar connection to these dolls.

"The Music Box" concerns Stan and Ollie delivering a piano to a house that sits atop a very tall hill. The short won the first Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film (Comedy). For the whole story on "The Music Box" and biographies of Stan and Oliver, see my Oscar Week post on my Hamilton Laurel and Hardy dolls HERE. You can watch Laurel and Hardy's Oscar winning short HERE. The other Oscar connection to Laurel and Hardy is Stan's Lifetime Achievement Oscar, which was awarded to him in 1961. Unfortunately, Oliver had passed away in 1957. Stan passed away in 1965.

  Tomorrow we'll see another Oscar doll.