Danko moved to
Hollywood with her family in 1927. The Dankos had relatives living in Los Angeles and her father was convinced by their description of the city to sell their home and other real estate he owned in
Elizabeth and move across the country. Danko intended to stay in California for a year earning money to pay for tuition at a chiropractic school back in New Jersey. In her first week in Los Angeles, she was approached in a store by a woman who asked her to accompany her to an outdoor film shoot that evening. At the shoot, one of the actors came over to the two and asked if they worked in film. The woman replied that they did. The man told Danko she would make "a good college type" for their next film and asked for her phone number. A few weeks later, Danko received a call to report for work on a film playing a member of a girls' basketball team. Someone on that film suggested she apply for more work at
Hal Roach Studios, and her career as a stunt double began. Among the actresses she doubled for were
Jean Arthur,
Binnie Barnes,
Joan Crawford,
Irene Dunne,
Madge Evans,
Jean Harlow,
Patsy Kelly,
Elissa Landi,
Myrna Loy,
Maureen O'Sullivan,
Marie Prevost,
Thelma Todd,
Marie Windsor, and
Blanche Yurka. Danko referred to her stunts as "bump work", and received the standard studio fee of $11 per day as a
stand-in, and $35 per day as a
stunt double. In 1938, she was one of 25 stunt performers selected as "good risks" by
Lloyd's of London, allowing her to purchase annual coverage against
accidental death and dismemberment—a policy which also lowered insurance expenditures for the studios. Her best-known job was doubling for
Margaret Hamilton as the
Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film
The Wizard of Oz. For the Wicked Witch's fiery entrance into
Munchkinland, a catapult had been rigged up under the
sound stage and the opening through which the Witch would spring out was covered by a thin aluminum cover, painted the same color as the
yellow brick road. While Danko waited in the pit, the choreographer was instructing the actors playing the
Munchkins how to avoid the circular piece of metal, and fell through the opening onto Danko's shoulders. She was treated by a chiropractor at the studio's expense. Danko sustained a more serious injury while enacting the Witch's
skywriting scene, where she flies on her broomstick spelling out "
Surrender, Dorothy!". Hamilton had refused to do the scene after suffering serious burns from descending into the opening in the stage floor amid fire and smoke. The production crew rigged up a broomstick suspended from wires, with a steel saddle for Danko to sit on. Underneath the saddle lay a pipe that emitted smoke when she pushed a button. At first, Danko's cape was pinned down to hide the pipe, but the director wanted the cape to blow in the wind, so the pipe was concealed under Danko's body. Danko noticed that the crew coated the pipe with
asbestos. On the first two takes, the pipe emitted smoke perfectly, but on the third take, the pipe exploded. Danko was blown off the broomstick and sustained a -deep gash around the circumference of her leg, landing her in the hospital for eleven days. According to Scarfone and Stillman, damage to her internal organs from the explosion required a
hysterectomy. Her total earnings from her work on the film came to $790 (approximately $18,175.63 in 2025 adjusted for inflation) plus an extra $35 bonus ($805.25 in 2025) for the broomstick stunt. In interviews, Danko said she plied her career as a Hollywood stuntwoman in order to support herself and her mother. Danko received thirteen stitches and permanent scarring. Danko's career was permanently cut short by an accident outside of her stunt work, when she was struck by a car that jumped the curb while she stood at a bus stop. ==Later life==