NEED TO KNOW
The Wizard of Oz is a movie that stays with you long after you watch it.
For Lorna Luft, daughter of the film’s star, Judy Garland, she’ll always remember the first time she watched the movie. It was when the 1939 classic first aired on TV in 1956 — and Luft’s famous mom wasn’t home.
“We had a very well-meaning nanny. My mom was in New York, and the nanny kept saying, ‘Your mom’s on TV tonight. Your mom’s on TV tonight,’ ” Luft, 73, tells PEOPLE at the QVC Holiday House pop-up in New York City.
The singer and actress added, “Well we sat down — my brother, my sister and myself — and we sat down, we started to watch it. When the part came with the flying monkeys, we started to get so hysterical. [My mom] called from New York and I said, ‘The monkey took you to New York!’ “
Mgm/Kobal/Shutterstock
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Luft laughs while recalling the decades-ago moment, quipping that she no longer has a fear of the flying monkeys. But, she shares, Garland was so distraught over how scared her children were during that first watch that she vowed to never let them watch the movie without her again.
“And she didn’t,” Luft says.
She also notes that at the time, despite the movie being shown in color, many people didn’t have color TVs, so they didn’t understand the magic of Technicolor in Oz. Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion in the movie and who was hosting the TV special, had to describe the colors to the viewers who were missing out.
Garland, who died in 1969, starred as Dorothy Gale in the movie based on the book by L. Frank Baum about a young girl who finds herself in the wonderful world of Oz, just trying to make her way home. Along her way, she meets a Cowardly Lion (Lahr), Tin Man (Jack Haley) and Scarecrow (Ray Bolger).
Dorothy also encounters two witches: Glinda the Good Witch (Billie Burke) and the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton). These two characters would go on to be the centerpiece of Gregory Maguire’s novel, Wicked, and the subsequent Broadway show and two-part movie musical adaptation.
Getty
Luft shares that she was long immersed in the world of Oz as a kid and beyond. She considered her mother’s costars friends and reveals that they stayed in her life for many years. “As I grew up, I was lucky enough to call Margaret Hamilton my friend, and I knew so many of the little people [who played the Munchkins],” she tells PEOPLE. “Over the years, I’ve grown up in Oz with the people who made the movie. That’s spectacular.”
Luft is bringing her affinity for her mom’s film to life in another way — as a fashion collaboration with Jill Martin. The two are launching a Wizard of Oz-themed collection on QVC on Dec. 6 after providing a sneak peek of it at QVC’s Holiday House.
Martin tapped Luft to pick out the designs they would feature on the pieces, as well as which lines from the movie. Martin jokes to PEOPLE that Luft went way “old school” in her notes, using a pen to circle what she liked on the pages that Martin provided. In the end, they settled on a few pieces that will be for sale through the shopping platform.
“It’s amazing to me that I spent my adult life watching the film,” Luft says of always enjoying the movie that her late mother is so well-known for. “What’s so important to me and to Jill is, like the line ‘There’s no place like home,’ represents hope because that’s what we need. We need to feel like we can go over that rainbow.”
