In February 2009, Maren performed in Project Lodestar Sagas as Thaddeus, opposite former MGM child actress Margaret O'Brien in the lead role of Livia Wells.
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He also starred in the Eric Swelstad-directed horror movie Frankenstein Rising (2009).
Maren had a walk-on role in an episode of Seinfeld (" The Yada Yada") and played a mime in the 2010-released comedy horror movie Dahmer vs. In 1982 he played Morris the bellboy, a regular character in the ABC sitcom No Soap, Radio. He made a notable appearance in the episode "Felix the Horseplayer" of The Odd Couple as Harry Tallman, a racehorse exerciser who gives Oscar tips on winning horses. In the late 1970s, Maren was the dapper little man in top hat and tuxedo on The Gong Show, heralding each show's big finish with an onslaught of confetti as Milton DeLugg's band played "Hoop Dee Doo". Maren was a stuntman on the 1975 film The Apple Dumpling Gang and said he "nearly got killed" filming a scene where a buckboard went out of control. He also portrayed Mayor McCheese and The TurkeyBoy in commercials for McDonald's. He later joined his friend Billy Barty in organizing Little People of America. In the 1950s, Maren worked as Little Oscar for the Oscar Mayer Company and as Buster Brown in television and radio commercials. He is also featured, along with fellow Munchkin Billy Curtis, in American International Pictures' release Little Cigars (1973), about a gang of "midgets" on a crime spree. Īfter The Wizard of Oz, Maren had roles in several movies and television shows, including a circus performer in the Marx Brothers film At The Circus (1939) and as an ape in Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973). In the same year as The Wizard of Oz, Maren appeared in an Our Gang short Tiny Troubles as the criminal "Light-Fingered Lester", and was an extra in the Western film The Terror of Tiny Town. He began attending singing and dancing lessons in his early teens, and enjoyed them so much that he opted to team up with his teacher in an act known as "Three Steps and a Hop." The idea was a success on stage, and the group toured the New England circuit for a considerable length of time. Maren began to cultivate his performance talents by creating a persona as a thirteen-year-old during school vacations. (Hormone treatments allowed Maren to reach a height of 4 ft 6 in (137 cm) later in life.) At that time he stood just 3 ft 6 in (107 cm).
Maren was 18 or 19 years old when he shot his scenes for The Wizard of Oz in the latter part of 1938 and early 1939. In The Wizard of Oz, he played the green-garbed member of the Lollipop Guild (between Jakob "Jackie" Gerlich and Harry Earles), handing a lollipop to Dorothy Gale ( Judy Garland).
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He was offered nearly $100 per week plus expenses. Maren received a telegram, just after graduating from high school, asking him to come to California to work on a film. He toured around New England with his dance instructor with an act called Three Steps and a Hop and was noticed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer scouts who were looking for three little guys who could sing and dance. Īt the age of 12, Maren started taking dancing lessons with his sister.
His father, Emil Marenghi, worked at a shoe factory. Gerard Marenghi, eventually known as Jerry Maren, was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, the youngest of eleven or twelve children.