| STILL MORE ON...Judy Garland's Ruby Slippers |
| Most important to Warner where the close up or insert shoes, the take me home to Kansas shoes, the witch's shoes, these, he would keep for himself. All together the trove of ruby slippers where an incredible find. Only a few people knew Kent Warner had them, fellow costumers working the auction, and even they weren't aware of the details. The ruby slippers where his secret, his delicious secret. Kent Warner enjoyed letting people assume what they wanted to assume. When he delivered a size of 5C ruby slippers to M-G-M's liquidators, he said, "Look what I found, the ruby slippers!" nothing more. He let the auctioneer and everyone else assume they were the one, and only, pair. Once more, they were the runts of the litter, in terrible shape, obviously well worn by someone, either Judy Garland, her stand-in, or both. When they sold for fifteen thousand dollars, Kent Warner was thrilled, his effort to save these historic treasures was ratified. Then came news of a pair of ruby slippers in Memphis, TN. Roberta Bauman's size 6B ruby slippers. Kent Warner had to laugh, he was the only |
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| person in the world who knew the whole truth of the ruby slippers, he knew how many pairs existed, and he personally owned the best. Kent Warner reveled in his secret and the power he suddenly possessed. When he told people he planned to sell some of the slippers, the genius of the M-G-M auction, became eveyone's best friend. Warner always hoped that the costumes he saved from destruction would be preserved by people who charished Hollywood history. People like Debbie Renyolds. "He knew the things that were so wonderful and so memorabilia, so in our minds, that we he knew everone would want to preserve, and he knew he could trust me to do that. So he sent over these slippers to me, (indicating the Arabian test pair) and they never came up for auction. He simply brought them home I suppose, he's since gone so I can't say that. He also brought home an original pair of the other style of the ruby red slippers, and that he sold to a man named Michael Shaw. They are the originals and they are really Judy's 'cause I tried them on, and via they fit me I knew they were really Judy's." Ms. Renyolds explains. Debbie Renyolds bought the Arabian Test pair from Kent Warner for an undisclosed sum of money. Michael Shaw paid twenty-five-hundred for his, a bargin. Warner always believed the pair he kept for himself where the most valueable. They where the close-up shoes without the orange felt, the witch's shoes. For many years he cherished them, but then he realized that people where paying more attention to his ruby slippers then to him. Thier power consumed his idenity. Quite sadly, he realized the charm of the ruby slippers was fickel, and if abused, their power was wicked. |
| In 1980 Kent Warner decided to sell his valueable ruby slippers. He told a friend, "They just don't have the same meaning to me anymore." Warner placed them in a memoribilia auction in Los Angeles. He thought they would bring as much as seventy-five thousand dollars, maybe more, but prudently, he set a twenty thousand dollar minimum; they didn't sell. Warner was furious, they where a steal at twenty thousand dollars, and nobody knew it. The next year he consigned them to Christie's East in New York, they fetched a modest twelve-thousand-six-hundred dollars. Two years later on April 25th, 1984, Kent Warner died of complications caused by the acquired immune deficiency syndrome, he was forty-one years old. |
| If ever there where a real-life Dorothy, she is Roberta Bauman. "Yes, I've been called that a lot of times, but that's a happy thing, I don't mind it." she has admitted. As with Dorothy, the ruby slippers where never a quest for Roberta, she just happened to find them on her feet. "Well, lets just say out of the blue I was given something that became magic, and there is a lot of magic to the ruby slippers, becouse it's provided a lot of joy to millions of little kids." she continues. As with Dorothy, the ruby slippers took Roberta on an incredible journey. She met a lot of interesting people along the way, a few not so nice, like Dorothy's Wicked Witch of the West, but most, like the Lion, Tin Man, and Scarcrow, became her true friends. Roberta Bauman never recieved an answer from M-G-M, but she did find out, to her satisfaction, that she owned an authintic pair of ruby slippers. "Well, she did have a real pair, and I believe she sold them." comments Renyolds. |
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| In 1988 Roberta decieded it was time to part with her treasure, just as Dorothy decieded it was time to go home to Kansas. For fourty-eight years the shoes worked their charm for Roberta, but in parting with them, they had one more suprise for her, they demonstrated their true power. Despite many private offers, Roberta chose to auction her pair of ruby red slippers at Chrisitie's East, in New York City. Largely because of their reputation, and their collectable specialist. Her name was Julie Collier, and she had some expirence with the ruby slippers. In 1981 she handled the sale of Kent Warner's pair. For that auction, she did extensive research, and learned much about their mystery. By 1988, her expertise was eclipsed only by her excitement to represent another pair of ruby slippers. On Wensday, March 9th, Roberta Bauman held her ruby slippers for the last time, that day she shipped them to Julie Collier at Christie's. The auction cataloge reflected Collier's enthusiasm, the shoes where exquisitly photoed, described, and diagramed. (the diagram can be found on the second page of this document) Today, that cataloge is worth several hundred dollars. |
| Quite modestly, the auction minimum was reserved at fifteen thousand dollars. When asked how uch she expected the shoes to sell for, Ms Collier replied, "Well, our estamite is fifteen to twenty thousand dollars, and from all the interest we've been getting so far, I have a feeling they're going to go quite a bit higher than that." "People came into the house to interview me, they said, 'Well, Roberta, those shoes are going to bring six figures' I said 'What are you taking [maybe] six figures?' and then they'd innumerate. I still had no idea, I had no earthy idea. But I heard there were fifteen bids for seventy-five thousand dollars, and one off them was Ted Turner.", Ms Bauman explains. Another hopeful was Anthony Landini, when this life long Judy Garland fan heard a pair of ruby slippers where for sale, he had to see them, so he went to Christie's auction preview. "Something happened to me that day, I just stood by that case, and I started to perspire, and just a thrill, a shrill went up my body I knew, that at that moment I knew, that I had to own the ruby slippers." Mr Landini explains. The auction began at 10 AM, on Wensday, June 21st, 1988. "The auctioneer said 'Lot number 125, the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz', and the place went into a frinzy. In two minutes the bidding had gone up to seventy five thousand dollars. I picked up my paddle at eighty thousand dollars. It went to eighty-five, it went to ninety, it went to a hundred thousand dollars, and there was a very adamant young man, sitting in the first row, who was bidding with me. So it went one-twenty, he went one-twenty-five, I went one-thirty, he went one-thirty-five, I went one-forty, he went one-forty-five, and I stopped and I thought, and I just heard the auctioneer say, 'One-forty-five, it's only money.' and I shot my paddle up, one-hundred and fifty-thousand dollars.", Landini explains. At that price, Landini won the bidding. Roberta Bauman did not attend the auction, instead she stayed home in Memphis, and waited for the call. "I felt good about it, I could almost feel when the auction was going on, and I was happy, I was calm, and the telephone rang and it was Julie Collier. She said, 'Are you alright, are you sitting down?' and I said, 'Yes, I'm fine.' She said, 'Roberta, the ruby slippers sold.', and I said 'Oh, thank God.' She said, 'That was the most electrifying auction that we have ever had.' She said, 'They went for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars." Ms Bauman explains. With Christies commission, the final price was One-hundred-sixty-five thousand dollars, a world record for Hollywood memorabilia. (Yes, you can look it up in the world records book) Just as the ruby slippers carried Dorothy home to Kansas, they carried Roberta into retirement. As for the slippers, since dubbed "Dorothy's Shoes", their new owner had an idea. "He called me and he asked me he said, 'What would you think if we was to put those shoes in a new theme park that Walt Disney is building in Arlington [Orlando] Florida?' I said, 'Sir, they're your shoes.' I said, 'That would be a wonderful idea." Ms Bauman explained. "I could have put them in my living room, I could have kept them locked up in a back vault, but that would not give me any pleasure, and that would not fufill my desire of owning the ruby slippers, which it to preserve the magic and to show them to the world, to the children, so I contacted Disney's MGM Studios theme park, which was just being built at the time, and their answer was, 'How soon can you get here?" Landini further explains. |