Buddy Ebsen was originally cast as the Tin Man in the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz, but he was forced to drop out after the production team coated him in pure aluminum dust, causing his lungs to fail.

A closer look

Buddy Ebsen was originally cast as the Tin Man in the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz, but he was forced to drop out after the production team coated him in pure aluminum dust, causing his lungs to fail. the studio was so unsympathetic to his near-fatal medical emergency that they quietly replaced him with Jack Haley, mixed the toxic metal dust into a slightly safer paste, and never even bothered to tell the new actor why his predecessor was currently fighting for his life in an iron lung. you can still hear Ebsen's voice in some of the group musical numbers, serving as a permanent, cheerful auditory ghost haunting a beloved children's classic. it is a grim reminder that the golden age of Hollywood was essentially built on a foundation of horrific workplace safety violations and executives who viewed human lives as completely expendable props