Why 1939 Wicked Judy had been put on amphetamines from the age of nine by her mother. His makeup was pure powdered aluminium.

Exclusive:Wizard of Oz curse - excruciating burns, poisoning and Judy Garland's pill addiction

The original Wizard of Oz film - the prelude to Wicked - was made in 1939, but it's a wonder any of the cast survived the horrors that happened on set

Judy had been put on amphetamines from the age of nine by her mother, and her drug use ramped up during the long gruelling days of filming. She’d start the day with her ‘pep pills’ - speed - to boost her energy levels, but would be so wired by nighttime that she needed barbiturates to help her sleep.

“They had us working days and nights on end,” Judy later told her biographer Paul Donnelley. “They’d give us pills to keep us on our feet long after we were exhausted. Then they’d take us to the studio hospital and knock us out with sleeping pills­… Then after four hours they’d wake us up and give us the pep pills again so we could work 72 hours in a row. Half of the time we were hanging from the ceiling but it was a way of life for us.”

By the time filming wrapped, Judy was a full-blown addict - and her drug abuse followed her for the rest of her life. “She suffered from this chronic sense of not being enough,” says Ellen. “She was clearly a talented young woman, but Mayer bullied all the fight out of her.”

It wasn’t just the film’s lead who suffered on set. The original Tin Man actor, Buddy Ebson, was hospitalised and nearly died of toxic aluminium poisoning just 10 days into filming. “His makeup was pure powdered aluminium, which he was inhaling for hours and hours, but the studio weren’t aware this could be potentially fatal,” explains Ellen