It wasn’t easy being green for the actress who originally played The Wicked Witch: NPR

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The most successful film musical opening of all time continues to fly high.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE SONG, “DEFYING GRAVITY”)

CYNTHIA ERIVO: (As Elphaba sings) I think I’ll try to defy gravity.

SHAPIRO: Long before the new movie “Wicked” made a sympathetic character out of The Wicked Witch of the West, she was played by actress Margaret Hamilton in the classic movie “The Wizard Of Oz.” As NPR’s Neda Ulaby reports, being green wasn’t easy.

NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: In the original book, author L. Frank Baum didn’t even envision his witch with green skin, says author Ailea Merriam-Pigg.

AILEA MERRIAM-PIGG: She has a working eye as good as a telescope.

ULABY: Pretty cool. But not cool enough for the MGM filmmakers who made “The Wizard Of Oz” in 1939. They wanted to show off the glorious new technicolor.

MERRIAM-PIGG: They made her green because they wanted high-contrast colors to have a huge impact.

ULABY: And they cast an actress who was apparently one of the nicest people off screen to play the Wicked Witch of the West. Margaret Hamilton was a former kindergarten teacher and newly divorced single mother when she signed on to play the character that etched her into film history. That part almost killed her.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, “THE TRIDLE OF OZ”)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (screaming).

ULABY: Do you remember when the Wicked Witch first appeared in Oz? Dorothy’s house has fallen over and flattened her sister. She vows revenge for the murder.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, “THE TRIDLE OF OZ”)

MARGARET HAMILTON: (As the Wicked Witch of the West) I’ll get you, my beautiful. And your little dog too (laughter).

ULABY: The witch disappears in a puff of orange smoke, but the fire was all too real.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE DOCUMENTARY, “THE WONDERFUL TROLLS OF OZ: MADE FROM A FILM CLASSIC”)

HAMILTON: I stepped down and the smoke came up and I went down.

(SOUND OF MUSIC)

HAMILTON: I just felt something – heat on my face.

ULABY: That’s Margaret Hamilton in a documentary that came out in 1990 about the making of “The Wizard Of Oz.” She remembered the makeup melting into her skin.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE DOCUMENTARY, “THE WONDERFUL TROLLS OF OZ: MADE FROM A FILM CLASSIC”)

HAMILTON: I had a second degree on my face and a third on my hand.

ULABY: The green makeup contained high concentrations of copper. In the documentary “The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz: The Making Of A Movie Classic,” Hamilton described burns so severe they kept her out of work for weeks. She returned with exposed nerves on one hand from the injury and refused to film another dangerous scene.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, “THE TRIDLE OF OZ”)

BERT LAHR: (As the Cowardly Lion) Surrender Dorothy.

ULABY: To create the moment when the Wicked Witch uses skywriting to issue a demand, stuntwoman Betty Danko pretended to fly on a broomstick with a hidden pipe that belches smoke.

(SOUNDBITE OF BROOM HIZZING)

ULABY: But the stunt went wrong, the tube exploded, and poor Betty Danko spent almost two weeks in the hospital.

(EXPLOSION SOUND CHANGE)

ULABY: Many of the actors suffered during the filming of the beloved film. Judy Garland became addicted to the amphetamines she was prescribed to lose weight. The Cowardly Lion costume weighed nearly 90 pounds. The first actor to play the role of Tin Man had to bend over after inhaling aluminum dust that was part of his makeup. And the actor who played the scarecrow was scarred literally for life by his mask, which was stuck to his face every day.

Ray Bolger went on NPR in 1985 to remember his dear friend Margaret Hamilton, who had recently died.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

RAY BOLGER: Margaret Hamilton was a warm person who was interested in so many things. She was so interested in ecology and environmentalism.

ULABY: Ecology and environmentalism – turning out to be green for Margaret Hamilton was more than just skin deep. Neda Ulaby, NPR News.

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