Frank Morgan, who played the Wizard and Professor Marvel in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, was born Frank Wupperman, the youngest of six boys and five girls, in New York City in 1890. W.C. Fields was originally cast in the role but the studio got tired of haggling over his fee. Morgan had a distinctive and powerful voice and even “hidden” behind the screen, could elicit terror in pleading victims. Read more about the making of the movie in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).
