Meet a munchkin at junior high's "Wizard of Oz" productions

At age 15 she went off to see the wizard. Now more than 70 years later, Margaret Pellegrini — an original munchkin from Munchkinland — still doesn't get tired of the story of Dorothy and her trip to the Emerald City.

"The Wizard of Oz is not only for kids," she said from her home in Arizona. "It's a movie for everyone. There's a meaning behind it because we can all have a heart if we use it. We can all have courage if we want it. We can all have brains if we use our heads."

Pellegrini is scheduled to appear at each performance of Mike Dumey's Central Junior High School presentation of "The Wizard of Oz." She travels the country around the year, sometimes twice a month, to appear at Oz functions.

She played two parts in the movie. She was a Sleepy Head in the bird's nest and a flowerpot girl on the front row. She wore a flowerpot for a hat.

"Everybody teases me, and they call me the flowerpot girl," Pellegrini said.

She brings the hat to all her appearances.

"It's very light," she said, but the elastic band that holds it on can be uncomfortable, so for the most part, it sits on the table beside her. She puts it on for pictures and to please the fans.

"Everybody wants to see the hat," she said.

As a 15-year-old munchkin on a Hollywood set, Pellegrini saw much more than costume props.

"Every day at 12 o'clock you could see Mickey Rooney come through because he was kind of sweet on Judy," she said. "They would go and eat lunch together."

Pellegrini said in the weeks they were filming the munchkin scenes, she got to spend a lot of time with Judy Garland. On breaks, the munchkins would sit on the famous yellow brick road.

"She would set down with us, and she would talk to us and we would talk to her. She was so excited working with so many little people, and we were excited to be working with her because she was an up-and-coming actress," she said.

Pellegrini was able to dispel some rumors about the set while recounting her experience.

She said the urban legend of a munchkin hanging from a tree in the background while Dorothy is skipping down the yellow brick road holds no merit.

"Oh no, no, no. That's not true," she said. Apparently a bird got caught in one of the lights and a maintenance man climbed up to get it.