The “ruby slippers” worn by Judy Garland’s Dorothy Gale in the classic 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz have sold at auction for an unprecedented fee.
On Saturday (7 December), it was confirmed that the slippers had been bought for $28m (£22m), nearly 10 times the amount that was expected.
Auctioneers for Heritage Auctions described the slippers as the “holy grail of Hollywood memorabilia”, stating that the winning bid – roughly $25m above the predicted ceiling of $3m – made them the most valuable item of film memorabilia ever sold at auction.
While filming The Wizard of Oz, Garland wore several different copies of the red-coloured shoes, though only four are believed to have survived to this day.
Her character is given the magical shoes, previously worn by the Wicked Witch of the East, after her house crushes the witch near the beginning of the story. In L Frank Baum’s original children’s novel, the slippers in question are silver, but the 1939 film changed their colour to better showcase the film’s Technicolor.
One of the other pairs is currently on show at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.
The pair sold at auction were previously owned by collector Michael Shaw, who loaned the item out to Minnesota’s Judy Garland Museum.
In 2005, the slippers were stolen by a professional thief, who, encouraged by the high price the slippers were insured for, wrongly believed them to be covered in actual rubies.
After failing to sell them to a fence, thief Terry Jon Martin then gave them to someone else, and it is not known what happened to the slippers for the next 13 years. In 2018, however, an FBI sting operation saw the item retrieved.
Last year, Martin, now in his seventies, pleaded guilty to the theft, and was sentenced to time served.
The sale of the slippers comes amid a surge in interest in The Wizard of Oz, coinciding with the release of new musical prequel film Wicked.
Adapted from the hit West End/Broadway show, Wicked follows the origin story of the Wicked Witch of the West (Cynthia Erivo) and her friendship with fellow witch Glinda the Good (Ariana Grande).
Wicked does feature the famous slippers – however, because it is adapted from the original book (the copyright for which has expired) and not the 1939 film, the slippers are silver, and not ruby.
