‘Wizard of Oz’ Long Loss Dress

Finally, after all these years they have found the dress from the first movie “Wizard Of Oz.” It was found packed away in a shoebox by the Catholic University of America. It was given to Gilbert Hartke as a gift by actress Mercedes McCambridge. The university tried to auction off the dress for $800,000 to $1.2 million, but the dress was not theirs as it now belonged to a relative of Father Hartke, who worked at the university and was given the dress in 1973.

This dress is very old. It was used in the very first “Wizard Of Oz” movie back in 1939. It is very fragile because of the material from which it is made. This dress is one of a kind. They sold a dress similar to it in 2014 for 1.5 million. These dresses are antiquate’s they are very rare and not that many of them have been made they made about several other dresses, but the first one is the most unique one of them all.

The Catholic University of America felt that because it was found while they were renovating that it belong to them, but it did not it was given to Hartke personally. Barbara Ann Hartke, 81, filed a lawsuit against the school and the auctioneer earlier this month after media accounts that the dress was going up for auction. The judge found her favor and they could not sell the dress because it was not theirs to sell.

Hartke’s legal team showed proof the university had no rights to the dress in her lawsuit against them. They knew it was the dress from watching the movie and looking at the way the dress is made. They noticed it in the scene when she confronted the Wicked Witch.

Written By Niki Jones
Edited by Sheena Robertson

Sources: 

NBC News: Judge blocks auction of Long-loss ‘Wizard Of Oz’ dress worn by Judy Garland

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