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SAN FRANCISCO, Jul 26, 2006 (UPI via COMTEX) -- A new play, "Babylon Heights," which premiered in San Francisco, tells the story of the randy dwarfs who acted in the 1939 film, "The Wizard of Oz."
The play, which is written by Irvine Welsh, author of "Trainspotting," is played by full-sized actors on a stage with oversized scenery.
In the original film, the Munchkins were played by circus midgets who were often drunk, depraved and wildly sexual off screen, the Daily Mail said.
There were rumors of "dwarf sex parties" at the Culver Hotel in Culver City, Calif. One onlooker called them "an unholy assembly of pimps, hookers and gamblers."
Many of the dwarfs had survived the Great Depression. Some had escaped Nazi Germany's doctrine of social hygiene, which tried to eliminate all handicapped people, the newspaper said.
A man named Leo Singer was put in charge of finding and managing 350 little people who acted in the movie. He had had a troupe of midgets who performed in vaudeville shows across Europe, some of whom he had purchased from their parents, the Daily Mail reported.
Disability groups have protested "Babylon Heights," calling it insulting and exploitative.
URL: www.upi.com Copyright 2006 by United Press International
