TIWH: February 11th

February 11, 2010 | by Tia Ayers

February 11, 1940
Bert Lahr & Mildred Schroeder

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Today in wedding history, actor Bert Lahr, who is most famous for playing the Cowardly Lion in the movie The Wizard of Oz, married Mildred Schroeder a Ziegfield Follies dancer.

While living in New York Lahr met Schroeder who went by the stage name Mildred Twain in the theater. According to the Miami Daily News, the two appeared in plays and sketches together in the Big Apple.

Schroeder was a friend of Lucille Ball’s, and when Ball moved to California in the 1930s, she wrote to Schroeder, urging her to come out to Los Angeles and try her hand at film acting. Schroeder chose love over a potential career and stayed in New York. She and Lahr eloped on February 11, 1940.

Though known as the cowardly lion in film, Lahr had the courage of love in life. He and his wife raised three children and their marriage lasted until his death in 1967.