Post by Admin Saovaluck on 28th Oct, 2015 at 1:14pm
Judy Garland was paid $9,600 to play Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz
We asked people a fun and somewhat tricky multiple choice question on the Judy Garland as Dorothy Facebook page about how much they think Judy Garland earned to play Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.
The correct answer is she earned $9,600.
MGM Studios paid Judy Garland $500 per week with extras for a total amount of only $9,600 for her lead role as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. $9,600 was a lot of money in 1939 for the average Joe in America, but for A-list celebrities in the caliber of Judy Garland it's a very small amount for a movie.
To give you a better picture, it's best to make a comparison between Judy Garland and the A-list stars today in the same bracket.
The average cost of a new house in America in 1939 was about $4,000. With Judy Garland's earnings from The Wizard of Oz, that could only buy her 2 houses at the time.
The top movie actors these days earn $20 million for a movie, so with that kind of money they can afford to buy 80 houses, if you consider the average cost of a new house is $250,000.
So as you can see, movie actors in this day and age are well looked-after financially for their work, whereas poor Judy Garland as talented and hard-working as she was, got paid measly money. To rub more salt into her wounds, the guys who played the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion earned up to six times more than her for their role.