Dorothy’s ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz movie sold for $28m
A pair of ruby red slippers worn by actress Judy Garland in the classic film The Wizard of Oz sold for $28m (£22m) at a US-based auction on Saturday.
One of only four surviving pairs used in the film, the famous sequin-embellished pumps were once stolen from a Minnesota museum.
Online bidding started last month, slippers are expected to start fetched around $3m (£2.35m) at auction, according to Heritage Auctions – estimates under $25m (£20m).
Sellers call the slippers the “Holy Grail of Hollywood memorabilia” and say their sale price made them the most valuable movie memorabilia ever sold at auction.
The winning bid drew applause from the Dallas auction room, and the sale coincided with renewed interest in the musical following the recent release of the prequel movie Wicked.
Garland was just 16 when she played Dorothy in the 1939 classic musical The Wizard of Oz. Variety media ranked it second on its first list of the “100 Greatest Movies of All Time”.
The film is a musical adaptation of L Frank Baum’s 1900 children’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. While in the book, the magic slippers are silver, the film producers changed them to red to use the new Technicolor technology.
In the film, as in the book, a pivotal moment occurs when Dorothy must click her heels three times as she repeats “There’s no place like home” to leave the magical land of Oz and return to Kansas with her Aunt Em.
While several pairs of shoes were worn by Garland during filming, only four are known to have survived.
One of the pairs is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. But this auction pair has its own unique history.
Collector Michael Shaw was on loan from the Judy Garland Museum in his hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, when they were stolen in 2005.
Master thief Terry Jon Martin used a sledgehammer to smash the glass case and snatch the slippers, believing their $1m insured value should be because they were encrusted with real gems.
But when he took them to the “phone” – and an intermediary who sells stolen goods to savvy buyers – he discovered it was just glass.
So he gave the shoes to another. It wasn’t until 2018 that the FBI found the shoes during the operation. What happened to them in those 13 years is still unknown.
In 2023, Martin – who was in his 70s and used a wheelchair – pleaded guilty to theft, and was given a lengthy sentence.
“There is a closure, and we know for sure that Terry Jon Martin entered our museum, but I would like to know what happened to them after they were released,” John Kelsch, curator of the Judy Garland Museum, he told CBS News Minnesota in 2023.
“Just doing it because he thought they were real rubies and turned them into jewelry wire. I mean, the value is not the rubies. The value is America’s treasure, the nation’s treasure. To steal them without knowing that seems ironic. .”
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