American actress and champion swimmer. She represented the United States Olympic team in 1928. Married twice, her first marriage to Jack Wilson was annulled in 1936 after just four months.
She is best known for being Judy Garland's stand-in and stunt double on The Wizard of Oz (1939). We see her from the back as Dorothy opens the door from the sepia farmhouse to the colorful land of Oz (wearing a sepia-toned variant of Dorothy's gingham dress; Judy re-enters for the color part); she also doubled Judy for Dorothy's fall into the pigpen, and for when she gets scooped up by the Flying Monkeys.
Her parents were Bronislawa "Bernice" (Balano) (1881-1950) and Dyonizy "Denis" Karwoski (1868-1942), both of Poland. They married in Suwałki, Poland in 1899 and divorced in Denver, Colorado in 1914. In 1922, Bernice remarried to Leonard G. Koshade. The youngest of five children, Henrietta Karwoski, would become Barbara Marie Koshade/Koshay as a result.
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