How old is the character Dorothy in 'The Wizard of Oz'?

McGruff

4.10. How old is Dorothy? Nobody knows. Baum wrote her as a generic child, with few descriptors, and never gave her a specific age. She could be as young as five or as old as twelve if you go by the illustrations in the books. In the 1902 stage adaptation, she was probably quite a bit older, as some of the characters expressed a romantic interest in her. In The Movie, Judy Garland was sixteen during filming (by the time the film premiered, she'd turned seventeen), but her costume included a corset to flatten her bosom so as to make her appear younger (studio publicity of the day usually gave the character's age as twelve). An earlier film adaptation from 1925 had Dorothy celebrating her eighteenth birthday -- and discovering that she was a lost princess of Oz! In The Wiz on Broadway, Stephanie Mills was in her teens (but played her a bit younger), while in the film version, Dorothy was played by Diana Ross and was twenty-four (!). Fairuza Balk was ten when she made Return to Oz. And in the novel Visitors from Oz, author Martin Gardner gives her age as seventeen (but this book is considered apocryphal by many Oz scholars). Best guess on how old she is in the books? In The Lost Princess of Oz it is stated that Betsy Bobbin is a year older than Dorothy, and Trot is a year younger. Then, in The Giant Horse of Oz, it is supposed to say that Trot is ten years old (but I have been unable to find the reference). If that's the case, then Dorothy would be eleven, and since nobody ages in Oz who doesn't want to, she's probably going to remain eleven. http://www.eskimo.com/%7Etiktok/faq04.html#q4.4 Jun 19 00, 1:00 PM