Meinhardt Raabe (MYN’ hahrt RAH’ bee), who played the Munchkin coroner in “The Wizard of Oz,” has died.
Original Munchkin Meinhardt Raabe attends the "Wizard of Oz" 70th Anniversary Emerald Gala at Tavern on the Green in New York, in this Sept. 24, 2009 file photo. Raabe, who played the Munchkin coroner in "The Wizard of Oz," died. Friday morning April 9, 2010 according to his caregiver, Cindy Bosnyak, at a hospital in Orange Park, Fla. He was 94 and was one of the few surviving Munchkins from the 1939 film. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes, File)
His caregiver, Cindy Bosnyak, said Raabe died Friday morning at a hospital in Orange Park, Fla. He was 94 and was one of the few surviving Munchkins from the 1939 film.
Bosnyak said he complained of a sore throat at his retirement community before collapsing.
Raabe was a veteran “midget” performer, as little people were then known, when the film was made. He was the official who pronounces the Wicked Witch “really most sincerely dead.”
In a 1988 Associated Press interview, he said he had no idea the movie would become a classic, because at the time of its release, it was overshadowed by “Gone With the Wind.”
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