The famous sequined shoes, with their vermilion reflections, mysteriously disappeared in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, the actress’s hometown, in Minnesota.
An American pleaded guilty on Friday October 13 to having stolen, almost 20 years ago, Hollywood’s most famous red pumps, worn by Judy Garland in the “Wizard of Oz”. The famous sequined shoes, with their vermilion reflections, mysteriously disappeared in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, the actress’s hometown, in Minnesota. Then, as if by magic, but above all thanks to the FBI, the precious accessories, one of the four pairs remaining after the filming of the cult 1939 film, reappeared in 2018. Terry Martin, 76, who had been charged with theft in last May, pleaded guilty and remains free to move until the date of his sentence, which has not yet been determined, the court said.
“Precious stones”
Terry Martin, who lives about 20 kilometers from the Judy Garland museum, told a Minnesota court that he used a club to break the Plexiglas case protecting the shoes that he thought were encrusted with real rubies, according to the Star Tribune newspaper in Minneapolis (link in English). But once he learned, when he tried to sell them on the black market, that these “precious stones” were actually made of glass, Terry Martin “didn’t want to hear about it anymore”, he added, according to the daily. Prosecutors did not seek prison time for the defendant, who showed up to court in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank. These red slippers are “considered one of the most famous props in the history of American cinema”, according to the Department of Justice.
Over the years, the amount of the bounty offered to find the pumps had soared, with one patron going so far as to offer a million dollars. North Dakota prosecutors now estimate them at $3.5 million. Two major elements explain the quasi-relic status of these ruby shoes: firstly the veneration that Americans have for Judy Garland, a legendary actress and singer propelled to the rank of world star at the age of 17, but also a woman with a tragic fate who died at only 47 years old; then the importance of Wizard of Oz in the American collective imagination, particularly for the younger generations of the 1940s and 1950s.
In the musical film adapted from the novel of the same name, Dorothy, the young heroine, clicks her heels together three times to make her dearest wish come true: to return home to Kansas.