Which actress played Aunt Em in the 1939 film?

Clara Blandick played Aunt Em in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.

Blandick was an experienced character actress whose career included stage work and dozens of supporting film roles. Her part is small but emotionally important: Aunt Em represents Dorothy Gale’s Kansas home and the family she longs to return to after being swept into Oz.

Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are unusual among the Kansas characters because they do not receive transformed counterparts in Oz. The same performers, Blandick and Charley Grapewin, appear only in the Kansas storyline, unlike Judy Garland’s Dorothy and the actors who portray the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion.

The answer is sometimes confused with Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West, or Billie Burke, who played Glinda the Good Witch. Blandick reportedly filmed all of her scenes in about a week and earned $750 per week for the role. She had also played Aunt Polly in earlier screen adaptations of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer stories.