You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
A judge has cleared the way for the Catholic University of America to auction off a gingham dress that Judy Garland wore in The Wizard of Oz, rejecting a legal challenge from someone who claimed ownership rights to the dress.
The university announced last week that it would sell the dress to raise money for an endowed professorship at its Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama and Art. Officials at Catholic announced nearly two years ago that the university would auction off the blue-checked dress, one of several Garland wore in the 1939 film.
CBS Television Network, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
An alumna donated the dress in 1973 to the then head of Catholic’s drama school, the Reverend Gilbert Hartke, to support the school. Last year, the priest’s niece challenged Catholic’s plan to sell the dress, saying that the alumna had donated it as a personal gift to the priest, not to the university. But a federal judge in New York twice rejected her claims.
“While it took a little while longer, it is very satisfying to know that we will be able to proceed with an auction to raise funds benefiting a school that Father Hartke loved so dearly,” Jacqueline J. Leary-Warsaw, dean of the Rome School, said in a news release. “Just like in the movie The Wizard of Oz, we have encountered some obstacles to reach this destination, but in the end it will be worth it—benefiting our students and our program.”
