A gleaming new 4K restoration has brought the cultural touchstone back into the spotlight, but what happened to the children who played the Von Trapps?
‘W
e’re still almost boringly normal,” says Nicholas Hammond, helpfully making an observation that I was still figuring out how to tactfully phrase. “If you sat down with us today, you’re just sitting down with a bunch of people.”
The 75-year-old actor, speaking by Zoom from his home in Sydney, is the oldest living member of the seven-strong youth ensemble who played the Von Trapp children in The Sound of Music 60 years ago. With the indelible musical receiving an anniversary rerelease in cinemas this weekend – in a gleaming new 4K restoration to boot – five of the seven are preparing for another reunion to mark the occasion.
Two are no longer with us. Charmian Carr, who played eldest daughter Liesl, and Heather Menzies, who played Louisa, died in 2016 and 2017. But the other Von Trapp actors, as Hammond says, have otherwise largely been spared any great misfortune. “None of the actors who played the children have really had terrible incidents in their lives of tragedy, chaos, addictions or problems that you hear about so often with child actors. Yes, we’re all identified forever as those characters. But it hasn’t sent anybody’s life off the rails.”
