The dress Judy Garland wore as Dorothy in the original “Wizard of Oz” film could be off to the auction house after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging the ownership of the iconic blue gingham costume.
A New York federal judge on Monday ruled that the dress worn by Garland in the famed 1939 movie, belonged to the Catholic University of America, according to CNBC.
The Washington, DC-based school was set to sell the garment in a high-profile auction with Bonhams’ auction house in May 2022, though the event was halted just one day before it was set to take place after a woman filed a lawsuit alleging The Catholic University of America does not own the dress.
The plaintiff, Barbara Hartke, asserted that her family owned the costume, since it was gifted to her uncle, Father Gilbert Hartke — the founder of the university’s drama program — back in 1972.
The Catholic University, however, insisted that Hartke had accepted the gift from actress Mercedes McCambridge on behalf of the school.
Barbara’s $3 million lawsuit halted the auction for the past year, but Judge Paul Gardephe ruled this week that she had failed to establish that she had legal standing to assert an ownership right in the “Oz” dress, CNBC reported.
Hartke, a famous-in-his-own-right priest and professor at The Catholic University who died in 1986, was reportedly given the dress — complete with a short-sleeved blouse of cream organdy — by Mercedes McCambridge.
It was never clear how McCambridge — perhaps best known in the modern era for voicing the demon which possessed Linda Blair’s character in “The Exorcist” — came to own the costume.
Up until recently, whoever rightfully owned this dress — one of only five versions of the dress worn by Garland’s Dorothy — was less trivial, as the garb mysteriously went missing just a year after it arrived to the university.
It wasn’t until decades after Hartike’s passing, in 2021, that Matt Ripa — a lecturer and operations coordinator for drama and music at the Catholic University of America — was decluttering a storage closet in the Hartke building when he stumbled across the precious “Wizard of Oz” costume.
While he was cleaning, Ripa spotted a trash bag on top of a set of mailboxes and was curious as to what was inside.
To his surprise, it was a shoebox containing the blue-and-white dress.
The yellowing dress included Garland’s name handwritten on the interior and a hidden pocket where the actress supposedly stored her handkerchief.
Because of the cultural significance of the garment — which skipped down the Yellow Brick Road, visited Emerald City and defeated the Wicked Witch of the West — it is thought to be worth at least $1.5 million.
Another of the surviving Dorothy dresses went for more than $1.5 million in 2015.
It’s unclear if The Catholic University still plans on selling the dress now that the court battle over who owns it has come to an end.
The Post has sought comment from The Catholic University of America and Bonhams.
