The Margaret Pellegrini Centennial

Munchkin maid Margaret Pellegrini (Margaret Williams, 1923-2013) would be 100 years ago today, and she got pretty close. It was only ten years ago that she left us.

Standing all of 3′ 4″, the North Alabama native was working a potato chip concession at the Tennessee State Fair, when members of Henry Kramer’s Troupe of Midgets spotted her and recruited her for the act. Until this time, she always maintained, she’d never been informed in so many words that she was in any way different from her family and neighbors. Southern gentility! Williams toured vaudeville with the Kramer act until the whole troupe was booked to play Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz (1939). She dined out on the experience for decades, attending conventions, appearing in documentaries, answering fan mail from children. At the time of her death she was one of three surviving cast members from the film.

For related reading, pleasecheck outRose’s Royal Midgets and Other Little People in Vaudeville.