A pair of the ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland for 1939’s The Wizard of Oz sold for $28 million this weekend at auction, breaking the all-time record for entertainment memorabilia. Created by Hollywood fashion designed Gilbert Adrian, the slippers were just one of several made for use in the MGM musical and were the pair worn by Garland for the close up of the actress tapping her heels together while intoning the immortal line “There’s no place like home.”
With auction house Heritage Auctions buyer’s premium included, the anonymous buyer will be doling out a total of $32.5 million. That is nearly eleven times Heritage’s pre-auction anticipated $3 million sale price. Bidding opened at $1.55 million.
The previous auction sale record was set in 2011 for the white halter dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in 1955’s The Seven Year Itch. That iconic dress, designed by William Travilla, came from the private collection of late actress Debbie Reynolds and sold for $5.52 million
The slippers were just one of two pairs of the four sets known to exist that have resided in private collections. One of the other four pairs is on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American Heritage while the fourth pair is on display at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles having been purchased at auction in 2012 by a group of donors led by Leonardo DiCaprio.
This particular pair of ruby slippers comes with more of a story than just their use in Wizard Of Oz. They were on display at the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota when they were stolen in August 2005. The slippers were recovered by the Minneapolis division of the FBI in 2018 working in cooperation with the city’s police department and the US Attorney’s office. At the time of their theft, the ruby slippers were on loan to the museum from collector Michael Shaw. A thief entered after hours, smashed the glass case that contained them and then fled. There were no fingerprints or footprints left at the scene and the one security camera positioned to watch the slippers was not operating that evening. The theft and the at-the-time unsuccessful investigation to recover them were the subject of the 2015 documentary Who Stole The Ruby Slippers?.
