Who knew? “Real Reason the Wicked Witch of the West is Green”

Indeed. An all time favorite in my house as long as I can remember.

When audiences first saw The Wizard of Oz in 1939, they were dazzled by the movie’s use of Technicolor. Dorothy’s ruby slippers sparkled, the yellow brick road gleamed and the Wicked Witch of the West appeared in a shocking shade of green skin. But L. Frank Baum’s original book never described her that way.

In Baum’s 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West is mean and scary but not green. “Now the Wicked Witch of the West had but one eye, yet that was as powerful as a telescope, and could see everywhere,” Baum wrote.

Illustrator W.W. Denslow depicted her as elderly with an eyepatch and braids.

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An early version of MGM’s movie script called for shooting the Kansas scenes in black and white (the final version was sepia), with Oz in full color. “It was an idea that was quickly accepted and that would become a legendary aspect of the movie,” Adams explains.

To showcase Technicolor, Dorothy’s silver shoes from the books became ruby red, the Emerald City was made more dazzling and the witch’s skin was painted green.

Actor Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 movie, said the choice of making her face, neck and hands green was about contrast.

“Black next to your skin seemed to give rise to a thin line of white on the edge of the black, which did not look like edging but rather a separation,” she wrote in the foreword of Aljean Harmetz’s book The Making of The Wizard of Oz. Using green solved that problem.

Applying the paint took two hours. Once it was on, Hamilton said she was “immobilized.” “If I touched my costume, it would be streaked with green.”

The paint even left Hamilton’s skin tinged green for weeks after filming wrapped. “I suppose the stuff gradually sort of sunk into my skin,” she said, according to Harmetz’s book. “It must have been months before my face was really normal again.”

The copper-based paint they used was also toxic. During the filming of a stunt scene where Hamilton’s hat and broom are set on fire, the green paint caused serious burns to the actor’s right hand.

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Against the bright yellows of the road and the reds of Dorothy’s slippers, the Witch’s green face dramatically popped. It also reinforced her role as a villain, setting her apart from the other characters in Oz.