![]() Remembering Toto the Dogĭog lovers, celebrity grave hunters and Toto fans banded together in 2010 with a Facebook page to raise money for a memorial to Toto. He succeeded in training a small group of military dogs at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro and was involved in launching the Dogs for Defense program that recruited pet dogs for training for war work. Terry even appeared with the cast at the premiere at Graumann’s Chinese Theater.īefore Terry stopped acting in 1942, Spitz had been trying to persuade the U.S. Terry had the look and skills and got along with Garland and the rest of the cast. Producer Mervyn LeRoy had been checking out nearly 100 dogs a day for a week when Spitz and Terry arrived. Frank Baum’s book, The Wizard of Oz, in 1900 established that Toto was a Cairn. The audition turned into a playfest for Ching-Ching and Terry in Temple’s dressing room and won her giggling approval. The casting process involved making sure Terry got along with Temple’s Pomeranian Ching-Ching. Shirley Temple was cast as an orphan and the focus of a custody battle between her cranky uncle and her young, aviator godfather. Terry had her first audition with Fox Studios executives for the role of Rags in “Bright Eyes” (1934). The school still exists there today.Īs films evolved from silent to sound, Spitz was sought out by Hollywood because of his use of wordless hand-signals to direct dogs. Spitz trained dogs there until his death in 1976. In the late 1950s, Spitz bought a dog kennel at 10805 Vanowen St., from another legendary Hollywood dog trainer, Rudd Weatherwax, Lassie’s trainer. Around 1935, he moved a mile north to 12350 Riverside Dr. He opened his Hollywood Dog Training School in 1927 at 12239 Ventura Blvd. Much of her career success was due to Spitz, a German who came to New York and then Chicago in 1926 before arriving in Los Angeles. She earned $125 a week for her work on “The Wizard of Oz.” (By comparison, actors portraying the Munchkins earned $50 to $100 a week. DeMille and actors Spencer Tracy, Shirley Temple, Merle Oberon, Normal Shearer, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, John Garfield, Hedy Lamar - and of course, her Oz colleagues, Judy Garland (Dorothy) Frank Morgan (the Wizard) Ray Bolger (the Scarecrow) Jack Haley (the Tin Man) and Bert Lahr (the Cowardly Lion). In 1939, she was in “The Women” and “Bad Little Angel” as well as “The Wizard of Oz.” She appeared in 16 films in her lifetime, working with the likes of directors Victor Fleming and Cecille B. You can still pay tribute to Terry / Toto at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where her cenotaph can be found on the west side of the Cathedral Mausoleum, not too far from the crypt of one of her former co-stars, Mickey Rooney. The 1958 building of the Ventura Freeway came through the 10-acre Studio City ranch where Toto’s owner and trainer Carl Spitz had buried her when she died in 1945. ![]() No, her entombment wasn’t a mob action by the flying monkeys. Dorothy and Toto return to Kansas and a joyful family reunion.Toto, Dorothy’s beloved Cairn terrier from “The Wizard of Oz” (1939), is buried under the 101 Freeway. Then she will give the Cap to the king of the Winged Monkeys, so they will never be under its spell again. She tearfully embraces her friends-all of whom will be returned, through Glinda's use of the Golden Cap, to their respective sovereignties: the Scarecrow to the Emerald City, the Tin Woodman to the Winkie Country, and the Cowardly Lion to the forest. The Silver Shoes she wears can take her anywhere she wishes to go. The Cowardly Lion kills a giant spider which is terrorizing the animals in a forest, and he agrees to return there to rule them after Dorothy returns to Kansas.Īt Glinda's palace, the travelers are greeted warmly, and it is revealed by Glinda that Dorothy had the power to go home all along. Together they escape the Fighting Trees, dodge the Hammerheads, and tread carefully through the China Country. They, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion journey to Glinda's palace in the Quadling Country. The citizens of the Emerald City advise that Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, may be able to send Dorothy and Toto home. Dorothy chases Toto after he runs after a kitten in the crowd, and before she can make it back to the balloon the ropes break leaving the Wizard to rise and float away alone.ĭorothy turns to the Winged Monkeys to carry her and Toto home, but they cannot cross the desert surrounding Oz.
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