The Munchkin Suicides And Other Stories, Pt.3 - Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Dead-ends and detours along the Yellow Brick Road...

The Actors Playing The Munchkins Regularly Engaged In Orgies
FALSE
Blame the producer. Mid-shoot, Mervyn Le Roy gave an interview to a US newspaper in which he joked that every day, after the Munchkins clocked off, they “had sex orgies in the hotel and we had to have police on just about every floor.”
Despite the denials of the dwarf acting ensenble, Judy Garland further embelsihed the myth on The Jack Parr Show in 1962.
In fact, even though it’s built on quicksand, the Munchkin orgy story has become such a potent anecdote, they even made a film about it; Chevy Chase vehicle Under The Rainbow in which the little people trash LA’s Culver Hotel.

The Wicked With Of The West Nearly Died On Set
TRUE
If you think the Wicked Witch of the East gets a raw deal what with a house landing on her head, spare an ouch for actress Margaret Hamilton, aka The Wicked Witch Of The West.
During her sudden evaporation from Oz, Hamilton was severely injured by rogue pyrotechnics and was off the shoot for a month to give the burns time to heal. Her stand-in suffered a similar fate courtesy of an “exploding broom!”