Dorothy’s ruby slippers will be auctioned
A pair of ruby red slippers worn by actress Judy Garland in the classic film The Wizard of Oz are set to be auctioned off on Saturday.
The iconic sequin pumps were once stolen from a Minnesota museum. But now according to Heritage Auctions, they are expected to fetch up to $3 million (£2.35 million) at auction.
Online bidding began a month ago, and as of noon local time on Saturday, the highest bid was $1.55 million.
Heritage Auctions has called these slippers “the Holy Grail of Hollywood memorabilia.”
Garland was only 16 when she played Dorothy in the 1939 classic musical The Wizard of Oz. Media outlet Variety ranked it second on its inaugural list of the “100 Greatest Movies of All Time”.
This film L. is a musical adaptation of Frank Baum’s 1900 children’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. While in the book, the magic slippers are silver, the film’s producers changed them to red to take advantage of the new Technicolor technology.
In the film, as in the book, a key moment occurs when Dorothy clicks her heels three times to leave the magical land of Oz and return to Kansas and her Auntie Em, repeating “There’s no place like home”. Have to do.
While several pairs of shoes were worn by Garland during filming, only four are known to have survived.
A pair of these are on display in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. But this pair coming up for auction has its own unique history.
Collector Michael Shaw loaned the slippers to the Judy Garland Museum in his hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, when they were stolen in 2005.
Professional thief Terry John Martin used a hammer to break a glass case and snatch slippers he believed to be worth $1 million because they were covered with genuine gems.
But when he took them to a “fence” – and the middleman who sells stolen goods to discriminating buyers – he discovered they were just glass.
So he gave the shoes to someone else. It was not until 2018 that the FBI recovered the shoes in a sting operation. What happened to him during those 13 years is not known till date.
In 2023, Martin – who was 70 and used a wheelchair – pleaded guilty to stealing them, and was sentenced to time served.
“There is some degree of closure, and we certainly know that Terry John Martin broke into our museum, but I would like to know what happened to him after he left,” said John Kelsh, curator of the Judy Garland Museum. ” CBS News Minnesota in 2023“To just do it because he thought they were real rubies and turned them into a jewelry fence. I mean, the value is not the rubies. The value is an American treasure, a national treasure. To steal them without knowing it’s ridiculous. Seems like .”
