`WIZARD OF OZ' MUNCHKIN, WIFE BADLY HURT IN CAR CRASH.

Byline: Associated Press 

Meinhardt Raabe, who played the Munchkin coroner in ``The Wizard of Oz,'' was in critical condition along with his wife Wednesday after a car accident near their home in rural northeastern Florida.

Raabe and his wife, Marie, both 82, were injured early Tuesday when their station wagon ran into the back of a van that had stopped to make a turn, authorities said. A passenger in the van was treated for minor injuries.

Raabe (pronounced ``robby'') was one of the 124 Munchkins in the 1939 film classic and one of only nine who had speaking parts. He portrayed the coroner who pronounced the Wicked Witch of the East ``not only merely dead but really, most sincerely dead'' after Dorothy's farmhouse landed on her.

Raabe was 22 years old and about 3-1/2 feet tall when the movie was shot, but later grew a foot taller. He toured the country for 30 years in the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, promoting hot dogs as ``Little Oscar, the World's Smallest Chef.''

He and his wife, who is about the same height, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in December 1996.

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Photo

PHOTO Meinhardt Raabe greets students at a school's Land of Oz Halloween parade Oct. 31, 1996, in Orange Park, Fla.

Associated Press