Of the 122 actors hired to portray the tiny townspeople, Cox located 28 and kneeled down to ask about their experiences during their seven weeks on the set in November and December 1938. Fifteen he traced had passed away, and several who claimed to be former Munchkins were not. Munchkins are still turning up. The magician wanted to celebrate the first anniversary of his marriage to supermodel and Oz fan Claudia Schiffer in a special way, so he introduced her to Slover. Cox also spoke to three of the dozen actors who were hired as children to fill out crowd scenes.
Midgets are a vanishing tribe.
Thanks to new growth hormones, when a child looks as if he's stopped growing, they give him these hormones and he shoots up. The Munchkins were brought to Hollywood for The Wizard of Oz by an agent named Leo Singer, who specialized in little people vaudeville and who had earlier supplied the cast for the all-midget musical, The Terror of Tiny Town. Singer hired only midgets because they were proportional like average-size people. Dwarfs have slight deformities, making them less adept at dancing and moving about fluidly. In his book, Cox describes the actors' memories of the shooting, Judy Garland, the hotel where they stayed, the train trips to and from Hollywood, and how they were selected for particular parts.