Ray Wallace Bolger as
The Scarecrow
This image "reprinted by permission, The Official 50th Anniversary
Pictorial
History, The Wizard of Oz Warner Books NY,NY © 1989, all rights reserved."
Ray Bolger was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 10, 1904. Rays career spanned some 53 years. Many of his fans looked on Ray as a dancer who could make his body look as though it were made of rubber. Ray told everyone that he was not a dancer but a comedian that could dance a little.
Mr. Bolger played in a string of Vaudevillian and Broadway shows beginning in 1922. Ray Bolger was essentially a standup comedian but had a hard time getting off stage once his routine was over. He had taken some tap dance lessons from a black bank guard so he used this knowledge of tap to get off stage with his loose brand of dance steps which only increased the audiences appreciation for Ray's brand of humor.
Ray met and married his life partner, Gwendolyn Rickard, a fellow vaudevillian in 1929. The couple remained childless. At his death on January 15, 1987, Ray was survived only by his wife of 58 years.
In 1936 Ray Bolger came to Hollywood to make movies not the least of which was the Wizard of Oz. Of this film Ray Bolger said, "I knew that I was a part of a strange kind of adventure. Everything had to be invented for the picture-the effects, the sound, the Technicolor. It was all new. But when the reviews came out the picture got terrible notices." Bolger said, "the picture finally redeemed itself when it was shown on television, going on to become a classic. Then it was no longer a picture, it was an institution."
Year's later Ray Bolger would say of the Wizard of Oz, . . .all of the people connected with Oz would be remembered as a part of the one beautiful moment captured on film . . .
Ray, you were a comedian but your stand up fall down style of dancing was nothing short of comedic genius. You are sorely missed by your public and you're funny brand of charm will never be repeated again.