'Wizard of Oz' Munchkin Mickey Carroll passes away

'Wizard of Oz' Munchkin Mickey Carroll passes away

Mickey Carroll, one of the last surviving Munchkins from the 1939 famous film "The Wizard of Oz," passed away on Thursday. He was eighty-nine year old.

According to his caretaker, Linda Dodge, said that Carroll died in his sleep at her home in suburban Crestwood. He was suffering from heart problems and received a pacemaker in the month of February. Till the month of January, he resided in his own home in suburban Bel-Nor.

Carroll was one of more than one hundred adults and children who were recruited to play the movie natives of what author L. Frank Baum called Munchkin Country in his 1900 book "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz."

In a 2007 interview Carroll told a popular news agency that the Munchkins made only 125 dollars every  week while filming the movie that would become a classic.

"The Wizard of Oz" was Carroll's only movie. When it appeared on television during 1960s, he found a new career at charitable events, retail events and Oz-related events.

Carroll continued, "It's not me; it's the movie," "When they see me, they think of their childhood, and it makes them smile."

Carroll was born on July 8, 1919, in St. Louis. As a son of immigrants, he grew up in an Italian neighborhood on the city's north side with a twin sister and four elder siblings. All preceded him in death.

A pituitary condition caused Carroll's short stature. Stephen Cox, a friend of Carroll's and the author of a book on the Munchkins, told the St.Louis Post-Dispatch that Carroll was 4-foot-3 when he stopped growing during his 40s.

It is also reported that Carroll danced at the Muny Theater in St. Louis when he was in grade school,and in the 1920s worked in Chicago clubs and on the Orpheum Theater vaudeville circuit.

His gift of gab and comedic timing helped his popularity. He warmed up crowds for President Franklin Roosevelt while campaigning in New York City and served as a crowd-getter in President Harry Truman's whistlestop campaign.

He did Phillip Morris live radio ads and appeared in shows with Mae West. He later did radio shows with George Burns, Gracie Allen, Jack Benny and Al Jolson.

But it was his role as one of the "Oz" Munchkins that defined him.

Carroll played the part of the Munchkinland "Town Crier," marched as a "Munchkin Soldier" and was the candy-striped "Fiddler" who escorted the movie's wide-eyed orphan, Dorothy Gale, played by Judy Garland, down the yellow brick road toward Emerald City.

During middle of 1940s, Mickey Carroll returned to St. Louis to run the family business making cemetery monuments. After he sold it in the year 1996, he filled his time with charity work.

In November 2007, Carroll and six other surviving Munchkins received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Carroll was joined on that occasion by former Munchkin colleagues Jerry Maren, Ruth Duccini, Margaret Pellegrini, Karl Slover  Meinhardt Raabe and Clarence Swensen.

At a special screening of the film in 2005 in Los Angeles, Carroll remarked that at the time of talking to longtime fans about the movie brought back their childhoods.

He continued, ."They have tears,"  "I'll say, 'May the magic of Oz always be with you.' And, 'Follow the yellow brick road!' And they're all excited. I bring back their childhood. Ain't that something?"