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Obituaries

Mickey Carroll | Munchkin, 89

Mickey Carroll, 89, one of the last surviving Munchkins from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz , died Thursday at his caretaker's home near St. Louis.

    Inquirer
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Mickey Carroll, 89, one of the last surviving Munchkins from the 1939 film

The Wizard of Oz

, died Thursday at his caretaker's home near St. Louis.

In the movie, Mr. Carroll played the Munchkinland town crier, marched as a Munchkin soldier, and was the candy-striped fiddler who escorted Judy Garland down the yellow brick road toward Emerald City.

Born Michael Finocchiaro, he danced at the Muny Theater in St. Louis when he was in grade school, he said, and in the 1920s worked in Chicago clubs and on the Orpheum Theater vaudeville circuit.

Mr. Carroll warmed up crowds for President Franklin D. Roosevelt when Roosevelt campaigned in New York City, and he served as a crowd-getter in President Harry S. Truman's whistlestop campaign. Over the years, he appeared with Mae West and did radio shows with George Burns, Gracie Allen, Jack Benny, and Al Jolson.

In November 2007, Mr. Carroll and six other survivors were on hand in Los Angeles when the Munchkins received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. - AP

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