Personally, I find today’s Celebrity Birthday candidate to be way more interesting than anyone else I’ve written about, and he only had a single credit on his acting resume! Meinhardt Raabe was born in Wisconsin and became a member of the Midget City cast in the Chicago World’s Fair in 1934, using the money he made doing appearences to fund his education. He then went on to act in The Wizard of Oz as the Munchkin Coroner, which has to be the best credit anyone has ever received in a movie’s cast list – talk about making that one film appearence count! For reference, Raabe is the Munchkin who, upon examining the dead Wicked Witch of the East, sings:
As coroner, I must aver
I thoroughly examined her
And she’s not only merely dead
She’s really, most sincerely dead!
But it gets better! Raabe went on to play a role in commercials for Oscar Meyer as “Little Oscar, the World’s Smallest Chef” and rode in the first Wienermobile! He later enlisted in the Civil Air Patrol during World War II and became a pilot, and married a similar small-of-stature cigarette girl named Margaret. Talk about an amazing life story! Raabe was one of the last surviving Munchkin actors, and died in 2010 at the age of 94.