When Karl Slover was a boy in what is now the Czech Republic, his 6-foot-6 father tried many ways to make him grow before giving up and selling his 9-year-old son to a traveling carnival. Slover, who has died at the age of 93, never grew taller than 4-foot-5, but he went a long way in life, moving to the US and finding work in show business, including a role as a Munchkin in 1939's Wizard of Oz. Slover was the lead trumpeter in the Munchkins' band and also appeared as a soldier and townsman.
Long after Slover retired, he continued to appear at Oz-related events around the country, and was one of seven Munchkins present when their star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame was unveiled in 2007. "He has a genuine immortality," the author of 100 Years of Oz tells AP. "Of the 124 little people, he's one of the handful who got to enjoy this latter-day fame, to have people know who he was and be able to pick him out of the crowd in the movie." With Slover's death, only three of the original Munchkins remain. (More The Wizard of Oz stories.)
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