Toto, actually Terry—was a female Cairn terrier. Born in the 1933 and seemingly untrainable, Terry was abandoned by her original owners only to be rescued soon afterwards by Carl Spitz, widely regarded as a pioneer in dog training in America. In 1938, Spitz landed a role for Terry that would change her life, securing the part of Toto in MGM’s production of L. Frank Baum’s classic children’s tale, The Wizard of Oz. In preparation for the role, Terry spent two weeks living with Judy Garland, who was reportedly so enamoured with the Cairn Terrier that she proposed an adoption arrangement with Carl Spitz, who refused. Over the course of thirteen feature films, Terry became one of Hollywood’s most popular canine stars, but it is her iconic role as Toto in The Wizard of Oz that ensures that she will continue to be loved by film fans around the world for years to come.
Carl Spitz retired Terry from cinema in 1942, and she became a beloved family pet, making appearances at numerous events, state fairs and animal shows until her death in 1944. She was buried in the grounds of Spitz’s kennels, which were destroyed many years later during the extension of California’s Ventura Freeway. Before the area was razed entirely, writer/director and Wizard of Oz acolyte Willard Carroll unearthed a leather-bound scrapbook containing Spitz’s personal archive of Terry’s life and work, which was published in 2001 as I, Toto: The Autobiography of Terry, the Dog Who Was Toto.
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