Makeup is my passion, and my blood-force. When I work, I try my darnedest to make sure EVERY person in my chair is comfortable, safe from contamination and safe from product irritants, as well as happy to be creating with me. Each production is very different. From a photo shoot, to a commercial and a major motion picture. This does not mean a makeup artist should EVER sacrifice the health of a person because of budget or time constraints. It’s not easy, but some artists are ingenious about how they go about creating character looks, on a budget. From design, to planning, actual application and maintenance. As much as we try our best, sometimes the unfathomable happens, at least it did more often than we realize in the early days of Hollywood cinema.
Buddy Ebsen was originally cast as the Tin Man for the 1939 filming of The Wizard of Oz. SIDENOTE: Roy Bolger, (Scarecrow) convinced MGM to trade parts with himself and Buddy, he was the first actor slated. Roy must have been thanking his lucky stars when things went wrong.
At the start of production, MGM had no idea how to costume Buddy for his role. They tried a variety of materials for his clothing (real tin, silver paper, cardboard covered with silver cloth) and makeup before finally settling on aluminum dust (applied over clown white) for filming. When the Wizard of Oz began principal photography on the 12th of October 1938, Buddy had finished all his costume and makeup tests, recorded his songs for the film soundtrack, and completed four weeks of rehearsal. Nine days later, he was rushed to the hospital and placed in an oxygen tent when his lungs failed. As Buddy Ebsen described the onset of symptoms in his autobiography:
It was several days later when my cramps began. My first symptoms had been a noticeable shortness of breath. I would breathe and exhale and then get the panicky feeling I hadn’t breathed at all. Then I would gasp for another quick breath with the same result. My fingers began to cramp, and then my toes. For a time I could control this unusual cramping by forcibly straightening out my fingers and toes.
One night in bed I woke up screaming. My arms were cramping from my fingers upward and curling simultaneously so that I could not use one arm to uncurl the other. My wife tried to pull my arm straight with some success, just as my toes began to curl; then my feet and legs bent backward at the knees. I panicked. What was happening to me? Next came the worst. The cramps in my arms advanced into my chest to the muscles that controlled my breathing. If this continued, I wouldn’t even be able to take a breath. I was sure I was dying.
The aluminum dust in Buddy’s makeup caused an allergic reaction and/or infection, in his lungs that made it very difficult to breathe. He ended up spending 2 weeks in the hospital and another month recuperating in San Diego. That’s when the original director Richard Thorpe was fired.
While Buddy Ebsen was recovering, producer Mervin LeRoy hired Jack Haley to replace him. The aluminum makeup application and
products were changed, from a powder that was brushed on, to a paste painted on. Jack missed four days of filming when the new makeup caused an eye infection, but treatment was given in time to prevent any permanent damage.) Because Buddy Ebsen had fallen ill away from the set, the rest of the cast was unaware of what had happened to him. Haley and others assumed he had been fired along with Richard Thorpe. Although Buddy was replaced before filming resumed, his voice can still be heard in the soundtrack, when the quartet of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion sings, We’re Off To See The Wizard.
Now, not to scare you all before Halloween, the aluminum is regulated differently than in 1938. Traces of aluminum can still be found in SOME cosmetics, unfortunately it is even in some water we drink. It’s a very common substance, but their are US FDA regulations against some use. Please see the link below to read about this product and the Environmental Working Groups rating for Aluminum.
