Wicked would have had Dorothy’s stamp of approval!
The Wizard of Oz star Judy Garland’s daughter, Lorna Luft, said she believes her mom would have “loved” the recent musical starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.
“She would’ve loved it,” Luft, 72, told People at the Broadway opening night of Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends on Tuesday, April 8.
As for which song Garland would have loved the most, Luft said, “I have no idea. But she would’ve loved it.”
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Garland famously played Dorothy Gale in the 1939 adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, which inspired Wicked, a prequel of sorts to that film from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West, who is given the name Elphaba in Wicked.
The famous actress died in 1969 at the age of 47, however, she is survived by her three children, including actress and singer Liza Minnelli, 79, whom she shared with her second husband, Vincente Minelli. Garland later welcomed Lorna and Lorna’s brother, Joey, 70, with film producer and manager Sidney Luft.
While Dorothy doesn’t appear in 2024’s Wicked, which adapts the first half of the 2003 stage musical of the same name, she is expected to appear in the sequel Wicked: For Good later this year.
Director Jon M. Chu has yet to reveal who will play Dorothy in the movie, but he teased that she will have a significant role in the upcoming sequel.
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“I won’t talk too much about what we show or don’t show in movie 2,” he told Screen Rant in November 2024. “But in movie 1, it was important to let Dorothy be how you want her to be. I didn’t want to step on your images of whatever version of Dorothy you wanted her to be.”
“But [Dorothy’s] presence is important, because that plays a significant role in what will happen and how they intersect. That was sort of how we played with it. But you’ll have to see movie 2 to know how far we go with her,” Chu added.
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In February, Matilda the Musical and Abigail star Alisha Weir, 15, responded to rumors that she is set to play Dorothy in Wicked: For Good. “When I saw it, I was like, ‘This is absolutely crazy,’ and it went so crazy on social media, and everybody was asking me,” Weir told RTÉ News (per HuffPost). “I mean, that would be wonderful. I’m such a big fan of Wicked, and I saw the first one with my family.”
“I was such a big fan of Jon Chu’s work, and Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. That would be pretty cool,” she added.
