A rediscovered Wizard Of Oz dress sparks cutthroat legal battle

Naturally, finding the dress (one of two remaining from the film that still has the accompanying white blouse) was like striking gold for the school. In fact, Bonhams, the auction house Catholic engaged to sell the dress, listed a presale estimate of $800,000 to $1.2 million for it, per NBC News.

But here’s where Catholic’s fairy tale hit a snag: 81-year-old Barbara Ann Hartke filed a lawsuit against the school, claiming that the dress belonged to her uncle, Father Gilbert Hartke, who was once head of the university’s drama department. As the priest died in 1986, Hartke argued that the dress should be hers as his closest living relative, especially given “there is no documentation demonstrating decedent ever formally or informally donated the dress to Catholic University,” according to the suit.

According to Hartke, the Oz memorabilia was a gift to her uncle from actress Mercedes McCambridge. But the University countered that as a Dominican priest, Father Hartke had taken a vow “to never accept gifts in his personal capacity,” therefore the dress couldn’t be considered part of an estate.

Long story short, the auction has been put on pause while the court sorts out whether the late priest could have indeed owned an extremely valuable piece of film history which had been missing for decades. (Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not lost in the basement of Catholic University anymore?) We’ll have to wait and see who ultimately gets the honor of… auctioning it off to the highest bidder.