Margaret Hamilton

Margaret Brainard Hamilton, born December 9, 1902, in Cleveland, Ohio, and died May 16, 1985, was an American actress, vaudevillian, and educator whose career in entertainment spanned five decades across theater, film, radio, and television. The daughter of W.J. Hamilton and Jennie Adams, she is best known to modern audiences for her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West and her Kansas counterpart Almira Gulch in the 1939 MGM film The Wizard of Oz, a role the American Film Institute ranks as Hollywood's fourth-greatest villain of all time and the greatest female villain in film history.

Hamilton's early training took place in Cleveland, where she attended Hathaway Brown School and participated in children's theater as a member of the Junior League of Cleveland. She studied acting and pantomime under Maria Ouspenskaya at the Cleveland Play House, where she began as an ensemble member in a production of The Brothers Karamazov. Her first major role at the Play House was as the First Witch in Macbeth, and she went on to perform comedic parts including circus performer Charlotta Ivanovna in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and Miss Prosperine Garnett in Candida. In December 1929, she starred in a musical vaudeville act titled Heartrending and Humorous Songs of 1840, 1890, and 1929. At her parents' insistence, she attended Wheelock College in Boston, Massachusetts, and subsequently worked as a kindergarten teacher before committing fully to acting.

Hamilton's Broadway career extended from 1932 to 1974 and included a range of productions across genres. She originated the role of Helen Hallam on Broadway before reprising it in the 1933 MGM film adaptation Another Language, starring Helen Hayes and Robert Montgomery. Her stage credits included starring roles in Fancy Meeting You Again and A Little Night Music, as well as appearances in the drama Our Town, Come Summer, and UTBU, among other productions.

Her film career began with Another Language in 1933, and she subsequently appeared in These Three (1936), Saratoga, You Only Live Once, When's Your Birthday?, Nothing Sacred (all 1937), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938), and Mae West's My Little Chickadee with W.C. Fields (1940). She never placed herself under contract with a single studio and was paid $1,000 a week. In 1939, she was cast as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz after Gale Sondergaard, originally considered for the role as a more glamorous witch with a musical scene, declined when the decision was made to portray the witch as ugly. During filming on December 23, 1938, Hamilton suffered a second-degree burn on her face and a third-degree burn on her hand when a trap door's delayed drop caused her fiery exit from Munchkinland to go wrong. She spent six weeks recovering before returning to the set, after which she refused to perform any further scenes involving fire. Her stand-in Betty Danko also suffered serious injuries on February 11, 1939, during the skywriting sequence, when a pipe configured as the Witch's broomstick exploded on its third take, permanently scarring Danko's legs and requiring an eleven-day hospital stay.

Hamilton co-starred opposite Buster Keaton and Richard Cromwell in The Villain Still Pursued Her, a spoof of the melodrama The Drunkard, and appeared alongside Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Comin' Round the Mountain, playing a witch whose character engages in a voodoo doll confrontation with Costello's character. She appeared uncredited in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's People Will Talk (1951) and was cast by producer-director William Castle as a housekeeper in 13 Ghosts (1960), in which her character is taunted about being a witch by the film's young lead. Later credits included The Sin of Harold Diddlebock with Harold Lloyd (1947) and the film noir Bungalow 13 (1948), in which she played Mrs. Theresa Appleby alongside Tom Conway and Richard Cromwell.

Known for her rapid-fire deadpan delivery, Midwestern accent, and dark contralto singing voice, Hamilton built a career playing villains despite standing only five feet tall. In later years she made frequent cameo appearances on television sitcoms and commercials and became recognized for her work as an animal rights activist and her commitment to public education. In 1975, she appeared on an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, where she demonstrated to children how putting on a costume transformed her into the Witch, explaining that the character was a role rather than a reflection of who she was.