Margaret Brainard Hamilton (December 9, 1902 – May 16, 1985) was an American actress, vaudevillian[1] and educator, whose fifty-year career in entertainment spanned theatre, film, radio and television.

[2] She often played villains and was best known for her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West and her Kansas counterpart Almira Gulch in the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film The Wizard of Oz.

She also gained recognition for her work as an advocate of causes designed to benefit children and animals and retained a lifelong commitment to public education.

Hamilton and Jennie Adams,[1] and practiced her craft doing children's theater while she was a Junior League of Cleveland member.

She would go on to play numerous comedic roles, including circus performer Charlotta Ivanovna in Chekov's The Cherry Orchard, and the sultry Miss Prosperine Garnett in Candida.

[8] Hamilton co-starred opposite Buster Keaton and Richard Cromwell in a 1940s spoof of the long-running local melodrama The Drunkard, titled The Villain Still Pursued Her.

In 1960, producer/director William Castle cast Hamilton as a housekeeper in his 13 Ghosts horror film, in which 12-year-old lead Charles Herbert's character taunts her about being a witch, including the final scene, in which she is holding a broom in her hand.

On stage and screen, she was known for her rapid fire deadpan delivery, Midwestern accent, and her dark Contralto singing voice.

[4] Despite standing at only five feet tall with a slight build, Hamilton's commanding stage presence led to a successful career playing villains.

[13] When asked about her experiences on the set of The Wizard of Oz, Hamilton said her biggest fear was that her monstrous film role would give children the wrong idea of who she really was.

She appeared on an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in 1975 where she explained to children she was only playing a role and showed how putting on a costume "transformed" her into the witch.

A few months after filming Oz, she appeared in Babes in Arms (1939) as Jeff Steele's aunt, Martha, a society do-gooder who made it her goal to send the gang of child actors, led by Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, to a work farm.

In 1945, she played the domineering sister of Oz co-star Jack Haley in George White's Scandals, comically trying to prevent him from marrying actress Joan Davis, even going so far as to throw a hatchet at her.

Hamilton and Ray Bolger were cast members in the 1966 fantasy film The Daydreamer, a collection of stories by Hans Christian Andersen.

She appeared on Broadway in the musical Goldilocks opposite Don Ameche and Elaine Stritch, gave a lighter touch to the domineering Parthy Anne Hawks in the 1966 revival of Show Boat, dancing with David Wayne.

Hamilton toured in many plays and musicals, even repeating her role of the Wicked Witch in specially written stage productions of The Wizard of Oz.

Even with her extensive film career, Hamilton took roles in whatever medium she could get if she was free, making her soap opera debut as the nasty Mrs. Sayre on Valiant Lady, who schemed to prevent her daughter from marrying the heroine's son.

In the 1960s, Hamilton was a regular on another CBS soap opera, The Secret Storm, playing the role of Grace Tyrell's housekeeper, Katie.

For ABC's short-lived radio anthology Theatre-Five, she played a manipulative, ailing Aunt Lettie to Joan Lorring as the unhappy niece Maude in "Noose of Pearls".

[16] In the early 1970s, Hamilton joined the cast of another CBS soap opera, As the World Turns, on which she played Miss Peterson, Simon Gilbey's assistant.

She had a small role in the made-for-television film The Night Strangler (1973) and appeared as a befuddled neighbor on Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, a friend of the character played by Mary Wickes.

When Hamilton reprised her role as the Wicked Witch in a 1976 episode of Sesame Street, "the show's producers were flooded with letters from parents saying it was too frightening for children.

Throughout the 1970s, Hamilton lived in New York City's Gramercy Park neighborhood and appeared on local (and some national) public-service announcements for organizations promoting the welfare of pets.

Her most visible appearances during this period were as general store owner, Cora, in a national series of television commercials for Maxwell House coffee.

[19] Her Gramercy Park neighbor Sybil Daneman reported that Hamilton loved children, but they were often afraid to meet her because of her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz.

Hamilton lived in New York City for most of her adult life, and summered in a cottage on Cape Island, Southport, Maine.