Michael Jackson Once Tried To Own This Iconic Prop From ‘The Wizard of Oz’

THE WIZ, Michael Jackson, 1978. — Everett Collection

Did you know that the late pop singer Michael Jackson was a huge Wizard of Oz fan? Perhaps it all started when he made his feature film debut as the Scarecrow in The Wiz in 1978. To celebrate his love of Oz, Jackson once tried to buy the Wicked Witch of the West’s hourglass from the original film in an auction.

The iconic artifact that signaled Dorothy’s dwindling time became the centerpiece of a bidding war, and another collector edged out Jackson. So, who bought it?

When it appeared for sale, Jackson’s representative placed a bid capped at a specific limit, but another buyer kept outbidding the artist. The prop eventually went to filmmaker Willard Carroll, a legendary collector of Wizard of Oz memorabilia, who, according to the Press Herald, paid around $80,000 for the piece. The purchase remains the largest single amount he has ever personally spent on a collectible. He was lucky in his purchase, as Jackson could have outbid him if only he had placed a higher cap.

Everett Collection

Over the years, that hourglass surfaced in other MGM films, including Babes on Broadway (1941), Diane (1956), and 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964). It also toured in museums nationwide, solidifying its status as a treasured piece of Hollywood history. More recently, in December 2022, Heritage Auctions sold a different screen-used Wicked Witch hourglass for $495,000 according to Smithsonian Magazine. That piece stood twenty inches tall and eleven and a half inches wide. Heritage described it as the most famous and recognizable timepiece in cinema history.

Today, the original hourglass that Jackson tried to buy reportedly remains in Carroll’s private collection. Carroll has shown it publicly in exhibitions, but it is not part of any permanent museum display.