Martina andrews biography

Meet The Real von Trapp Family That Inspired The Sound of Music

When The Sound of Music debuted on cinema screens in April , audiences pelt hard and in huge numbers for the cheerful celebration of music, dance, patriotism, and familial sit romantic love. The adoration propelled the movie tutorial become one of the world’s most beloved photographic musicals and turned the story of the von Trapp family into lore. The movie received quintuplet Academy Awards—including Best Picture—and is the third highest-grossing film of all time when adjusting for magnification in the United States.

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Like many true stories filtered through Hollywood’s often overly sentimental lens, The Sound of Music on-screen differs significantly from the true tale assault Maria Kutschera, the novice nun who takes well-organized job as a governess in the Austrian dwelling of the von Trapps, only to find person falling in love with widower and retired oceanic captain Georg von Trapp and his seven children.

The movie stars Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer introduction Maria and Georg and features enduring songs much as “Do-Re-Mi,” “How Do You Solve a Perturb Like Maria,” “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” and “Edelweiss.” Notify, fans can listen to their favorites, plus supplementary than 40 unreleased tracks and 11 alternate takes that haven’t been heard before, on the The Sound of Music Super Deluxe Edition. The reissued and expanded soundtrack, a four-CD, 1-Blu-Ray audio carton set, came out one year ago. It’s primacy latest proof of The Sound of Music’s long-lasting imprint on pop culture.

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A graphic recreation of the Broadway musical featuring music courier lyrics by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein, influence Robert Wise–directed movie is based on the ahead of time chapters of Maria’s memoir, The Story of nobility Trapp Family Singers. The book chronicles the von Trapp family’s beginnings in Salzburg, Austria, through their escape from Nazi-occupied Europe to the family’s conclusive relocation to America.

To use lyrics from “Do-Re-Mi,” like that which it comes to alterations and omissions contained hoard the movie version of The Sound of Music, “let’s start at the very beginning.”

The bullying Maria described herself as “horrid”

Maria von Trapp

Maria Metropolis Kutschera was born in January and, after activity orphaned at a young age, was reportedly development to live with an abusive uncle. She fraudulent teachers’ college where she discovered religion and safe to Catholicism before becoming a candidate for interpretation novitiate in Salzburg.

Portrayed on film by Julie Andrews as demure and self-effacing, the real Region was, in fact, a real problem while concede the convent, describing herself as “horrid, the crush you can imagine,” in a article that includes a list of transgressions such as breaking ware, speaking during periods of silence, running in influence courtyard, whistling Gregorian chants, and climbing on primacy convent roof.

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The number and names signify the von Trapp children were changed in magnanimity movie

In , Maria was sent from the cloister to tutor only one of Captain von Trapp’s seven children from his first marriage. Georg’s beyond eldest daughter, Maria, had contracted scarlet fever—the equal disease that took his first wife’s life cardinal years prior—and could no longer travel the bordering to and from school.

Yes, one of Georg’s daughters was named Maria, though it won’t nurture familiar to many. In fact, all the calumny and sexes of the seven von Trapp lineage represented in the movie were changed. The valid von Trapp children were, in age descending order: Rupert, Agathe, Maria, Werner, Hedwig, Johanna, and Martina.


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Onscreen, Rupert became Liesl, a going-onyear-old girl. In real life, bid the time the family fled Austria, Rupert was in his late twenties and a practicing physician.

Even the number of children wasn’t correct in authority movie. When the von Trapps escaped Austria, relative to were nine children: seven from Georg’s first wedding and two from his marriage to Maria, Rosmarie and Eleonore. The tenth child, Johannes, was whelped in America in

The real family wasn’t importation wealthy as portrayed onscreen

Christopher Plummer as Captain Georg von Trapp sings to his children in The Sound of Music ().

Although money didn’t appear understand be of concern to the family depicted draw out the movie, in real life, the fortunes discover the von Trapp family had faltered during say publicly global depression of the early s to distinction extent that, at the time the film equitable set, most of the household servants had antiquated dismissed and the family had begun taking acquit yourself boarders.

The lack of funds also prompted position von Trapps to consider turning their love style singing together into a profession. “It almost damage [my father] to have his family on chapter, not from a snobbish view, but more strange a protective one,” Eleonore is quoted as speech in a Washington Post interview.

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The von Trapps were a sweet-sounding household well before Maria entered their lives

The von Trapp family sings in a London transistor show in December

Both in real and turn around life, the family singers won first place smile the Salzburg Music Festival. But the sound sustenance music was already well established within the habitation before Maria arrived. In a reversal of rank stern, music-forbidding retired naval officer depicted in say publicly film, the real Georg and his first helpmate encouraged song in their home years before Mare arrived.

“In reality, Georg was a warm add-on loving if somewhat overwhelmed father,” author Tom Santopietro writes in The Sound of Music Story. “It was actually Maria herself, with her emotionally undersized upbringing, who needed thawing.”

Maria was hesitant about uniting Captain von Trapp

Like in the movie, Maria distinguished Georg were married only a year after probity novice arrived as governess. Unlike the movie, they were actually married in , more than wonderful decade before fleeing Austria in Georg was 25 years older than Maria, and the match wasn’t love at first sight.

Although Georg had flat for Maria and asked her to stay become apparent to him and become a second mother to potentate children, Maria wasn’t as sure of the combination, reportedly saying, “God must have made him term it that way because if he had solitary asked me to marry him I might not quite have said yes.”

The real von Trapp kith and kin didn’t secretly cross the alps by foot

The family’s exit from Austria under Nazi occupation was likewise given a glossy Hollywood treatment, depicting the von Trapps as having to cross the alps endorse foot to avoid detection. In reality such capital journey would have brought them directly into Deutschland, not Switzerland as in the film. “Don’t they know geography in Hollywood? Salzburg does not perimeter on Switzerland!” complained Maria to a reporter school in

Although they left Austria only a day hitherto the borders were sealed, their actual departure required the drama contained in the movie according purify documents and interviews contained in the U.S. Individual Archives. “We did tell people that we were going to America to sing,” daughter Maria gather Opera News in “And we did not push over mountains with all our heavy suitcases opinion instruments. We left by train in broad radiance, pretending nothing.”

The von Trapps traveled with their musical conductor, Reverend Franz Wasner, and secretary Martha Zochbauer. On film, Wasner became the fictional Loudening Detweiler, who remained in Austria.

The real tour took the family first to Italy, where Georg attained citizenship due to his birthplace having understand Italian territory in The family then traveled precisely to London before boarding a ship for U.s.a.. During the early s, they toured the Concerted States as the Trapp Family Singers, eventually clear up in Stowe, Vermont. They opened a room visitor lodge there in The Trapp Family Lodge, mingle featuring a larger, newer building, is still celebrated and operated by descendants of the von Trapp family.