4/20/2023 0 Comments Scarecrow wizard of oz![]() ''I tried to do another show, but I was not up to par and I had to cancel.'' A 'Dancer in Self-Defense' ''I stepped down from the stage and there was nothing there,'' he said afterward. In mid-1984 he suffered an injury to his right hip that necessitated his receiving an artificual joint. She remained a strong force in his career until it ended less than three years ago with an injury that removed him from the performing stage. For that reason, he was parcticularly gratified by the success of the farce, ''Charley's Aunt,'' the starring vehicle that was produced by his wife, Gwen Rickard, whom he had met in 1924 and married five years later. Bolger considered himself first of all a comedian. Indeed, many who watched him in later years were unable to shake the image of the straw-stuffed Scarecrow flopping about on boneless legs as he lurched down the Yellow Brick Road.Īlthough he won his greatest acclaim as a dancer, Mr. His legs were so flexible he appeared to be disjointed - even disembodied - as he leapt into the air to punctuate a song-and-dance number. Bolger, who was 5 feet 10 1/2 inches tall, was so thin that in his solo performances in the spotlight he appeared to be much taller. In the remake of the hoary stage play ''Charley's Aunt,'' he created his most memorable singing number, ''Once in Love With Amy.'' Long after the three-year run of ''Where's Charley,'' he was called upon to sing the lilting ballad and to perform the soft-shoe-dance routine accompanying it almost every time he appeared on television. ![]() In 1948 he opened in the musical ''Where's Charley,'' a vehicle that made him as celebrated on the stage as he had already become in film. Soon he was in Hollywood appearing in such musicals as ''The Great Ziegfeld,'' ''Rosalie'' and ''Sweethearts'' as well as ''The Wizard of Oz.'' But he was inevitably drawn back to the Broadway stage and in the years after World War II he was a regular in the Little Bar at Sardi's, where show-business luminaries gathered. There followed Broadway appearances in ''George White's Scandals'' (1931), ''Life Begins at 8:40'' (1934) and, in 1936, the musical ''On Your Toes,'' in which he won acclaim for his dancing in the number ''Slaughter on 10th Avenue,'' choreographed by George Balanchine. His got his first paid acting job at the age of 19 with a repertory company and soon was appearing in vaudeville with Gus Edwards. ![]() ![]() 10, 1904, he began acting in amateur theatricals and at one point was dismissed by an insurance company after being caught dancing in a hallway. Born Raymond Wallace Bolger in Boston on Jan. The film, in which the Scarecrow's lean, seemingly straw-filled body is propelled by long legs that bend with the wind, is a perennial favorite on television, being shown worldwide at least once a year. Bolger also outlived their nemesis, Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West, who died in 1985. He had his 83d birthday last Saturday and lived in Beverly Hills.Īmong his many roles on stage, screen and television in a career than spanned six decades, none captured the public imagination more than his appearance in the 1939 movie starring Judy Garland that sent him, along with the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr) and the Tin Woodman (Jack Haley), on a journey along the Yellow Brick Road with Dorothy, the girl from Kansas uprooted by a cyclone, in her search for the Wizard (Frank Morgan). Ray Bolger, the loose-limbed song-and-dance man who became known to millions as the Scarecrow in ''The Wizard of Oz,'' died yesterday of cancer in Los Angeles. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |