Die, Monkeys, Die!

The last of the flying monkeys is dead. Shed a tear...

Sig Frohlich, who has died aged 97, was a bit-part actor for much of his long career in Hollywood, playing messengers, waiters, callboys, clerks and soldiers, rarely earning even a flicker of recognition from viewers over 50 years.

But he achieved some lasting celebrity as one of the winged monkeys in The Wizard of Oz (1939). This was despite the fact that he was completely disguised in a monkey costume and uttered no words on screen.

The 13 actors playing these unlovely animals, in the service of the Wicked Witch of the West, were originally promised $25 for each time they swooped down screaming from the sky on the heroine, Dorothy (Judy Garland). The director, Victor Fleming, protested that this sum was the usual fee for a whole day's work. But it was agreed that Frohlich, who was an early member of the Screen Actors' Guild, should receive an extra $5 a swoop since he was the one who snatched Dorothy's dog, Toto; and he was paid more for his other scenes with Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch.

Frohlich, the last surviving monkey, found himself constantly questioned about the film, which enjoys such iconic status in the United States that flying monkeys are periodically referred to in The Simpsons. He was a favourite at the Wizard of Oz festival, which is held in the house where Judy Garland was born at Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

Frohlich believed that the great interest was due to the monkeys being the stuff of childhood nightmares.

(hat tip: The Corner) Um, what kind of screwed up kid has nightmares about flying monkeys? Yeesh. As for The Simpsons using the flying monkees as a reference point, they've used everything as a reference point, as South Park once noted.