蜜芽传媒

Over the decades, replicas have been worn by millions of children for book days and fancy dress parties, but what's believed to be one of the original blue gingham dresses worn by Judy Garland in the 1930's film The Wizard of Oz has been found after it disappeared for many years.

The dress had been gifted to Father Gilbert Hartke, known as the 'showbiz priest', who was the founder and former head of the drama department at the Catholic University of America (CUA), in the 1970s. He used to show the dress off to interested visitors, but after his death it was lost for many years. It's now being authenticated.

Lecturer and operations coordinator at the University, Matt Ripa, said he'd always wondered where the legendary dress was - so imagine his shock when he opened a box during a clear out of his office....

"I saw that pattern, that blue and white gingham pattern, and I just started laughing and screaming - my colleague was wondering 'what's going on? What's in this box?'. So we took it out and took a couple of pictures for social media and our personal collection, and then we boxed it back up and I took it across to the university archives."

(Photo: Dorothy with the Lion, Scarecrow and Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz Credit: FilmPublicityArchive/United Archives/Getty Images)

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