Judy Garland ’s blue-and-white checked gingham dress worn in the 1939 classic movie The Wizard of Oz is expected to fetch more than £1 million at auction.
Bidding is set to be furious for the costume - one of the most recognisable outfits in film history.
The dress, worn by Garland’s character Dorothy, is a version of the outfit that for decades was thought lost.
It had been at the Catholic University of America, where it had been given to someone in the drama department in the early 1970s.
Only following a recent clear-out was it discovered in an old shoebox.
Jacqueline Leary-Warsaw, dean of the school of music, drama and art at the Washington, D.C. college, said “all I could think about was watching the movie when I was a child and growing up with”.
“In a way, it was like I was looking at my past childhood,” she added.
The dress will go under the hammer at the Bonhams “Classic Hollywood: Film and Television” auction on May 24 in Los Angeles.
Auctioneers believe it will go for more than £1 million.
The sale comes a month after the oil can carried by the Tin Man in the movie sold for £190,000 at auction.
More than eight decades after gracing the silver screen, the prop from the 1939 iconic film went under the hammer.
Such was the frenzy in bidding the item quickly surpassed the £150,000 Kruse GWS Auctions had thought it would make.
The buyer remains unknown.
The oil can was one of several used by actor Jack Haley while playing the role of the Tin Man.
Wizard of Oz memorabilia is highly sought among collectors.
One of the four existing pairs of Dorothy's ruby red slippers once sold for more than £1.5 million.
Another set, stolen from a Judy Garland museum on display in her hometown, once sparked an FBI manhunt to find the thief. The case is still open, although the shoes were retrieved.
