The Wizard of Oz (1939 film) regrets about turning down the part, and would go on to play a glamorous villain in Fox's version of Maurice Maeterlinck's "The Blue Bird" in 1940; Margaret Hamilton played a role remarkably similar to the Wicked Witch in the Judy Garland film "Babes in Arms" (1939). According to Aljean Harmetz, the "gone-to-seed" coat worn by Morgan as the wizard was selected from a rack of coats purchased from a second-hand shop. According to legend, Morgan later discovered a label in the coat indicating it had once belonged to Baum, that Baum's widow confirmed this, and that the coat was eventually
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz own reward." After Baum's death in 1919, Baum's publishers delegated the creation of more sequels to Ruth Plumly Thompson who wrote 21. An original "Oz" book was published every Christmas between 1913 and 1942. By 1956, five million copies of the "Oz" books had been published in the English language, while hundreds of thousands had been published in eight foreign languages. "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" has been adapted to other media numerous times, most famously in "The Wizard of Oz", the 1939 film starring Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, and Bert Lahr. Until this version, the book had