Munchkins Get a Star on Walk of Fame

Hollywood rolled out a yellow carpet in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre yesterday to honour the Wizard of Oz Munchkins with a Walk of Fame star.

Almost 70 years after film premiered at the historic Hollywood theatre, seven of the surviving nine actors who played the residents of Munchkinland arrived in carriages, tap-dancing and singing their way through the ceremony that awarded them the 2,352nd star on the walk.

"We love you, you have touched our hearts," 88-year-old Mickey Carroll told the crowd.

Mr Carroll (above left, in red bow-tie and cummerbund) was one of more than one hundred small people and children recruited to play the natives of Munchkinland in the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz.




"I'm not a Munchkin, I'm an entertainer," Mr Carroll said. "But the movie is great because we all grew up with it."

"It never dies."

Mr Carroll was joined by ex-Munchkins Ruth Duccini, Jerry Maren, Margaret Pellegrini, Meinhardt Raabe, Karl Slover and Clarence Swensen.

The honour was the result of years of campaigning by Ted Bulthap, a Chicago cinema owner, on behalf of the surviving Munchkin actors.






http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/11/21/bfoz121.xml

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