For 2023, we are excited to bring to you special guests from all over the Oz universe.

It’s with great joy and excitement that we welcome BETTY ANN KA`IHILANI BRUNO to her second appearance at OZ-Stravaganza! – and you’ll soon know why.  Born in Hawaii, Betty Ann grew up in Southern California, and her memoir has just been published. She defines it as “a collection of stories about interesting, unusual things from my life,” beginning with her Hollywood childhood. The book — available at OZ-Stravaganza! — is affectionately titled THE MUNCHKIN DIARY/MY OWN YELLOW BRICK ROAD. That’s a phrase that honestly describes Betty Ann: she was one of the little girls (“MunchKids”) who filled in and appeared on-camera during the “Munchkinland” sequence” of MGM’s 1939 movie, THE WIZARD OF OZ. Now one of the few survivors of that eighty-four-year-old film, Betty Ann retains vivid recollections of dancing, singing, and working with “the little people” who appeared with her. Her writing is candid, too: she was “ecstatic” to meet adults her own size – despite the fact that “one of [the little gentleman] kept asking my mother if I could go to lunch with him!” 

OZ was one of several films in which Betty Ann appeared; another was THE HURRICANE (1937), with Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall. In her book, Betty Ann admits that (at age four), she “sabotaged take-after-expensive-take” – and she’ll tell you why during OZ-Stravaganza!

Her movie career ended when her parents moved 100 miles away to a farm in the San Jacinto Valley, but her adventures kept right on happening -- whether with her pet pig or her dream-come-true riding horse. She tells of doing a regression to previous lives as part of a series on psychic phenomena, and of going fishing with her dad years after he died. 

  Several of Betty Ann’s stories deal with her extraordinary television career as an adult, but the book’s main thread describes her struggle with her ethnic identity: of being a brown-skinned girl in “white America,” painfully aware she was growing up at a time when it wasn’t “cool” to be ethnic. Happily, she relates how she was finally able to resolve her identity issues through the hula, which — at age 91 — she still teaches and dances with the performing arts group she founded: Hula Mai in Sonoma’s Valley of the Moon.  She also teaches Hawaiian culture there, and two years ago, their Cultural and Fine Arts Commission named her the city’s Treasure Artist, an honor extended through 2021 because of the pandemic.

In between Hollywood and the hula, Betty Ann has enjoyed an equally astounding life: her studies at both Stanford and George Washington Universities, and her decades with Oakland’s KTVU (Channel 2) — first as community affairs producer and anchor, then as a member of the news team (as both an investigative reporter and as a performing arts correspondent). Betty Ann spent twenty-two years with KTVU, winning numerous awards, including three Emmys, the Joey, and an Asian-American Journalists Association National First. She retired in 1992 but continued reporting part-time for two more years. Her husband, Craig Scheiner, was a news editor and videographer at Channel 2, and after his wife’s retirement, they produced commercial videos together. 

Again, we are thrilled to welcome Betty Ann – from the actual cast of MGM’s THE WIZARD OF OZ – to the birthplace of L. Frank Baum . . . who started the whole thing! 

(Sponsored by Perry Law Office)