Valerie Lee, One of the Young Munchkins in ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ Dies at 94

Valerie Lee in 1938 Courtesy of Stephen Cox

Valerie Lee, who appeared in Our Gang comedy shorts and as one of the child Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz, has died. She was 94.

Lee died Sunday in Reseda, Stephen Cox, author of the 1996 book The Munchkins of Oz, announced.

Born Valerie Shepard in Los Angeles on Dec. 14, 1931, Lee was one of a dozen youngsters hired mostly from the Bud Murray Dance School in L.A. to play Munchkin villagers in the 1939 masterpiece, and she celebrated her seventh birthday on the MGM lot in Culver City.

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In her film debut, Lee sported blond Shirley Temple spit curls and a pink and lavender dress and hat and danced alongside Munchkins young and old as they led Judy Garland’s Dorothy out of Munchkinland.

Some fans referred to her and the other children who appeared in the film as “Munchkids.”

Afterward, she showed up in such Our Gang comedy shorts as Time Out for Lessons (1939), Ye Olde Minstrels (1941), Doin’ Their Bit (1942), Benjamin Franklin, Jr. (1943), Election Daze (1943) and Dancing Romeo (1944).

She cherished her memories on Oz and shared them with fans who contacted her in later years, Cox noted.

“I remember one day Bert Lahr was on the set,” she recalled, “but not in his Cowardly Lion costume. He plopped one of the [little people] on his lap and starting doing a ventriloquist dummy routine for all of us.”

She appeared in the 2024 TV documentary Mysteries of Oz: 85 Questions Answered.

She was married to Robert Haynes, a longtime Broadway Department Stores employee, from 1949 until his death in 2002, and they had three children, Elise, Sharon and Larry.

According to Cox, Priscilla Montgomery Clark, 96, another child Munchkin, is the last surviving person to have appeared in The Wizard of Oz.