Jack Haley in The Wizard of Oz as the Tin Woodman

Jack Haley as
The Tin Woodman

Jack Haley talking with Director Victor Fleming

This image "reprinted by permission, The Official 50th Anniversary Pictorial
History, The Wizard of Oz Warner Books NY,NY © 1989, all rights reserved."

Jack Haley was born in Boston, Massachusetts on August 10, 1898. Jack's career began at about 6 years of age. Jack used to tell everyone that the first 5 years of his life were wasted, as he did not find out what he wanted to be until then. After attending a play his mother took him to with dancers in it he was hooked. His father wanted him to be navigator and go to sea. His mother, being more practical, thought he should apprentice as an electrician.

Jack's career came to include his beginnings in Vaudeville and numerous Broadway shows. Then, Jack went on to radio and eventually television with a body of work that came to include 51 motion pictures. Just as all the others, who played the lead parts in the Wizard of Oz, he was best known for his role as the Tin Woodman. This role in Oz was purely a fluke. Buddy Ebsen who was to have played the part became very ill due to the silver metallic makeup he was required to wear. When Mr. Ebsen was in the hospital fighting for his life, Jack Haley was hired for the part. At that time the makeup department also changed the type of makeup that had made Buddy Ebsen so ill. The way the studio saw this was that time was money and they were already behind schedule.

Jack Haley was one of the most well liked personalities in the movie industry. He was not only a consummate professional but thought of as a genuinely nice man. He died on June 7, 1979. His wife Florence McFadden, his Son Jack Junior and a daughter Gloria, survived him. Jack had married Florence in the 1920's when she played the Vaudeville circuit with him.

Jack Haley, though given a heart in the Wizard of Oz, probably needed the heart less than most people. He shall be missed but remembered more than most in his part of the Tin Woodman in the beloved Oz.

This image "reprinted by permission, The Official 50th Anniversary Pictorial
History, The Wizard of Oz Warner Books NY,NY © 1989, all rights reserved."

Our Tin Woodsman does not look as if he had
been standing and rusting for a long time. So--they
dirtied him up and made him look rusty and had to
reshoot all his previous scenes at a cost of $60,000
to once again take the film even further over budget.

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