The Curse of Playing the Wicked Witch of the West
The Curse of Playing the Wicked Witch of the West - After nearly dying while filming “The Wizard of Oz,” Margaret Hamilton spent the rest of her career trying to escape her evil character’s long shadow.
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Margaret Hamilton almost did not get cast as the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film TheWizard of Oz. The former kindergarten teacher had already donned the black hat in a Cleveland stage production of L. Frank Baum’s classic children’s book, but producer Mervyn LeRoy had initially wanted a more prominent actress to play the witch in what would become one of the most iconic films of all time.
A single mom with a spiked chin and prominent nose, Hamilton was not exactly a casting director’s mental image of a movie star. She would often hear that she needed plastic surgery to remove the bump on her nose if she ever wanted to move her career beyond community theater and brief appearances in films. But Hamilton had gone into acting for the money, so she looked past these indignities and accepted any role that came her way. By the time the auditions for TheWizard of Oz came around, she had already played her share of spinsters and villains, both in theater productions and Hollywood films like Way Down East and TheFarmer Takes a Wife, both released in 1935.
But the role of the Wicked Witch of the West would take on a life of its own. Hamilton’s ability to scare became firmly rooted in the public’s mind. In the years that followed the film, she would take on a number of different roles, but it became nearly impossible for anyone to see her as anything other than the witch bent on destroying Dorothy and her dog Toto. Eventually, she started turning down opportunities to appear as the Wicked Witch.
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