Meinhardt Raabe, Munchkin from 'The Wizard of Oz,' 'really most sincerely dead'

Meinhardt Raabe, who played the Munchkin coroner in the 1939 Judy Garland smash "The Wizard of Oz," proclaiming the Wicked Witch of the East "really most sincerely dead," has died at the age of 94.


Raabe died Friday, April 9 in Orange Park, FL from cardiac arrest. He was one of only a handful of survivor Munchkins from the film. His caregiver Cindy Bosnyak tells the Associated Press, "He had a headful of hair at 94 and he ... remembered everything everyday. To me he was a walking history book, very alert."

Raabe was 22 years old and only 3'6'' ft tall when "Wizard of Oz" was filmed, eventually growing to 4'6'' tall. He was one of only nine speaking Munchkins in the movie, his full line being, "As coroner I must aver, I thoroughly examined her, And she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead."

He is preceeded in death by his wife Marie Hartline, who worked for a vaudeville show called Rose's Royal Midget Troupe when he married her in 1946. She was killed in a car accident in 1997.

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Photo credit: MGM