Betty Danko

Biography

Danko was born Bertha Danko in Newark, New Jersey, in 1903, the daughter of a blacksmith who'd emigrated from Czechoslovakia. At the age of 20 she moved to L.A. with her widowed mother and moved into a bungalow at 6522 La Mirada Avenue where she would live for the next half century. She worked as a stenographer at a dental supply company and in 1924 began haunting the studios looking for extra work. It would be her career for the rest of her life. During the 1930's she worked steadily at MGM, listing "studio worker" as her occupation in City Directories. Danko was hired as an extra for The Wizard of Oz and was paid the standard $11 a day. But her resemblance and small stature matched that of actress Margaret Hamilton (playing the Wicked Witch of the West) so she earned $35 for doing stunt work doubling Hamilton as well. On February 11, 1939, she replaced Hamilton for the "Surrender Dorothy" scene. After an earlier accident in which she was burned, Hamilton refused to play the scene, sitting on a smoking pipe configured to look like the Witch's broom. As Danko sat on the contraption and cameras rolled, the pipe exploded, seriously injuring both of Danko's legs. She was hospitalized for almost two weeks and the accident left her legs permanently disfigured and scarred. Another brave extra, Eileen Goodman, finished the scene for her. Danko earned $790 for her work on Oz plus the $35 she earned for riding the broomstick.