Ray Bolger

Ray Bolger had a face full of deep lines by the time he reached his eighties. Those wrinkles were not just from age. They were the trace of the latex mask he wore glued to his face during the filming of The Wizard of Oz in 1939.

The glue and the heat of the Technicolor lights left permanent marks around his mouth and chin. But he didn't seem to mind much. He was born to move, and film was simply another stage for his impossible flexibility.

His legs looked made of rubber.

The Dancer Who Hated Offices

He started out selling vacuum cleaners and working at a bank in Boston. But it didn't last long, because he spent all day rehearsing dance steps in the bank's hallways. In 1922, he decided that vaudeville paid the bills better if you knew how to bend your knees in unnatural ways.

His style was pure physical control disguised as clumsiness. He was known as Old Rubber Legs, and it wasn't just publicity hype. On those 1920s stages, he learned that humor landed best when the body aggressively backed up the joke.

He arrived on Broadway in 1926, and audiences were amazed by his ability to defy gravity. He signed a contract with MGM in 1936, guaranteeing him three thousand dollars a week. It was a fortune for a guy who just wanted to jump across a wooden stage.

The obsession with playing the Scarecrow

When the studio offered him the role of the Tin Man, Bolger was furious. He knew his body was made for the Scarecrow. He convinced Buddy Ebsen to swap roles, and the rest is history in American film.

The shoot was a constant physical ordeal. The mask kept him from eating normally, and during breaks he could only take in liquids through a straw. He spent more than twelve hours a day under suffocating makeup that severely irritated his skin.

And he did it with a smile.

After the success of 1939, many thought his career would stall on the Yellow Brick Road. But Bolger returned to the stage with renewed energy. In 1948, he starred in the musical Where’s Charley? and won a Tony Award for his lead performance.

There he popularized the song Once in Love with Amy. It is said that during performances he made the audience sing along with him until the theater's energy completely exploded. He was a live performer who needed sweat and applause to feel alive.

The Twilight of a Rubber Man

During the sixties and seventies, he turned to television. He appeared in series such as The Partridge Family and The Jean Arthur Show. He no longer leaped as he once did, but he kept that mischievous glint that made him look like a boy trapped in the body of a retired Bostonian.

In 1985, he took part in the documentary That’s Dancing!, recalling his best days of physical glory. It was one of his last notable appearances on camera before his health began to fail for good.

He died in Los Angeles on January 15, 1987, from bladder cancer. He was 82 years old and was the last surviving member of the main cast of the 1939 film. His estate at the time of his death exceeded one million dollars, but his true legacy was stamped on the scars across his face.