Gerard Marenghi

 Gerard Marenghi (January 24, 1920 – May 24, 2018), known as Jerry Maren

Maren was an actor who played a Munchkin member of the Lollipop Guild in the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film, The Wizard of Oz. He became the last surviving Munchkin following the death of Ruth Duccini on January 16, 2014, and was also the last surviving cast member with a speaking or singing role. At the age of 12, Maren started taking dancing lessons with his sister. He toured around New England with his dance instructor with an act called Three Steps and a Hop and was noticed by MGM scouts who were looking for three little guys who could sing and dance. Maren received a telegram, just after graduating from High school, asking him to come to California to work on a movie. At that time of making The Wizard of Oz he stood just three feet six inches (107 cm). (Hormone treatments would allow Maren to grow to a height of four feet six inches (137 cm) later in life.) After The Wizard of Oz, Maren continued acting, and appeared in many movies and television shows. Some of these appearances were in the Our Gang comedy shorts, in At The Circus (1939), starring the Marx Brothers and as an ape in Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973). In the 1950s Maren worked as a Little Oscar for the Oscar Mayer Company and as Buster Brown in television and radio commercials. Later he joined his friend Billy Barty in organizing Little People of America.

Maren has also portrayed Mayor McCheese and The Hamburglar in commercials for McDonald's. In the late 1970s, Maren was the dapper little man in top hat and tuxedo on The Gong Show, heralding each show's big finish with an onslaught of confetti as Milton DeLugg's band played "Hoop Dee Doo". He made a notable appearance in the episode "Felix the Horseplayer" of The Odd Couple. On November 21, 2007, Maren appeared with six other Munchkin actors at the unveiling of a Hollywood Star for the Wizard of Oz Munchkins on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The other actors were Mickey Carroll, Ruth Duccini, Margaret Pellegrini, Meinhardt Raabe, Karl Slover, and Clarence Swensen. Maren was married to Elizabeth Barrington from 1975 until her death at age 69 on January 27, 2011.

Maren died in San Diego, California, at a nursing facility center in La Jolla, California on May 24, 2018, aged 98, from a combination of old age-related diseases including cachexia, heart failure and senile dementia. He is interred at Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills.