Just who is Francis Phillip Wuppermann, you may ask? You
don’t have to gaze into Professor Marvel’s crystal to divine that Francis
Phillip Wuppermann is the birth name of Frank Morgan. Though the beloved character
actor may never have known the crowned heads of Europe, his humorous,
heartwarming performances in many a golden-age movie (mostly for
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, his home studio), where, as the title character in MGM’s timeless
1939 classic, he attained motion-picture immortality as Oz, the First Wizard
deluxe. Though The Wizard of Oz
was not considered his greatest film triumph at the time (none of his 1949 obituaries even mention
it), today it is the only film in which he appeared from which most people know
this prolific character player. Say what you will
about James Franco as the most recent reincarnation of the Wizard (Too much of
a 21st century boy to play the Wizard? The box office business done
by Disney’s Oz The Great and Powerful
belies such objections), he is probably one of the few bankable young actors
who knows who Frank Morgan—and his accomplishments beyond Oz—is. In addition to enhancing many hit films such as The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Boom Town (1940) and The Human Comedy (1943), Frank was twice
nominated for an Academy Award—as Best Actor for The Affairs of Cellini (1934) and as Best Supporting Actor for Tortilla Flat (1942). (Frank is pictured
below with the other Oz leads, sporting the top hat he only holds, never wears,
in the film itself.) So the next time you see The Wizard of Oz, take
time to also seek out some of the other films (shown frequently on TCM) of Francis
Phillip Wuppermann.
