The Sound of Music became one of the world’s most enduring and beloved movie musicals following its release in March 1965.
Legendary director Robert Wise’s adaptation of a hit 1959 stage musical — which itself was based on the lives of the real von Trapp Family singers — cemented Julie Andrews as an international superstar and shined light on a moment of hope during a dark period in history. Set in the run-up to World War II, The Sound of Music follows the talented von Trapp family as they flee the Nazi war machine encroaching into their native Austria. The Sound of Music was hugely successful with its release in 1965, as it ultimately made more than $280 million at the box office and garnered five Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture).
Keep scrolling for a look at what happened next to the cast of The Sound of Music:
Julie Andrews
Andrews was showered in awards praise for her portrayal of cheerful governess (and eventual von Trapp family matriarch) Maria.
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Having already won the Best Actress Oscar in 1964 for Mary Poppins, Andrews was nominated again the following year for The Sound of Music. A third Best Actress nod followed in 1982 for another musical role, as Victoria Grant in Victor/Victoria.
In 1997, Andrews was forced to quit the Broadway revival of Victor/Victoria in order to undergo surgery to remove a lesion on her vocal cord. Unfortunately, the surgery caused permanent damage to Andrews’ vocal cords and, despite undergoing four more procedures, she was never able to regain her four-octave range.
Andrews told The Hollywood Reporter in 2015 that she was “in denial” after learning that her vocal cords would never fully heal.
“It was devastating. A loss of myself,” she conceded. “And I had to finally come to the conclusion that [my voice] wasn’t only [the thing] that I was made of. I mean, I thought my voice was my stock-in-trade, my talent, my soul.”
The legendary actress went on, “I’m over it, really. I always will regret the operation. I wish I’d been strong enough to say no. But I have to forgive myself for doing [the surgery] because I felt such an obligation to have it done.”
Andrews has continued to act in non-musical roles, most notably playing Queen Clarisse Marie Renaldi in the Princess Diaries movies and voicing Lady Whistledown in Netflix’s hit show Bridgerton. She reunited with the cast of The Sound of Music in 2022 when they took part in an AFI Life Achievement ceremony in her honor.
The actress was married to director Blake Edwards from 1969 until his death in 2010 and they shared two children, daughters Amy and Joanna Edwards. She had another daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, from her first marriage to set designer Tony Walton, to whom she was married from 1959 to 1968.
Christopher Plummer
The Canadian actor had a wealth of experience by the time he made The Sound of Music, as he’d made his screen debut seven years earlier opposite Henry Fonda in 1958’s Stage Struck.
Plummer’s heroic portrayal of Captain Georg von Trapp established him as a leading man, and he’d go on to star in 1975’s The Man Who Would Be King, 1999’s The Insider and 2001’s Best Picture Oscar winner A Beautiful Mind.
Plummer won Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the 2010 romantic drama Beginners, making him the only Canadian to receive the Triple Crown of Acting, as he’d previously earned two Emmy Awards and two Tony Awards for his television and stage work, respectively.
Perhaps Plummer’s most notable late-career role was as industrialist J. Paul Getty in 2017’s All the Money in the World. The film had already been shot when misconduct accusations about Spacey came to light (which Spacey denied), so all of his scenes were reshot with Plummer taking over the role.
Plummer died at age 91 in February 2021 at his Connecticut home, two weeks after suffering a blow to the head.
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“Chris was an extraordinary man who deeply loved and respected his profession with great old fashion manners, self deprecating humor and the music of words,” Lou Pitt, his manager of 46 years, said in a statement to Us Weekly at the time. “He was a National Treasure who deeply relished his Canadian roots. Through his art and humanity, he touched all of our hearts and his legendary life will endure for all generations to come. He will forever be with us.”
Plummer was married three times, first to Tony Award-winning actress Tammy Grimes, between 1956 and 1960, and later to Patricia Lewis, between 1962 and 1967. His third marriage to Elaine Taylor lasted from 1970 until his death in 2021.
His daughter, actress Amanda Plummer, followed in her parents Christopher and Tammy’s footsteps by winning a Tony Award in 1982 for the religious drama Agnes of God. Her screen appearances include playing Wiress in 2013’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and the villainous Vadic in Star Trek: Picard.
Richard Haydn
As the von Trapp family’s trusted friend Max Detweiler, Haydn came to The Sound of Music with nearly 30 years in Hollywood. He got his start on radio in the 1940s, playing Edwin Carp on The Charlie McCarthy Show.
Haydn voiced the Caterpillar in Disney’s 1951 animated classic Alice in Wonderland and made a memorable appearance in a 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone. He became a prolific TV actor with notable roles in Bewitched and Bonanza as well as reprising his radio role as Edwin Carp on The Dick Van Dyke Show in 1964.
He died at age 80 from a heart attack in April 1985.
Charmian Carr
Carr made her screen debut at age 23 playing the eldest von Trapp child, Liesl, in The Sound of Music. She came to the role with no previous professional acting or singing experience.
She told Coast to Coast with Heather Dawson in 2013 that The Sound of Music’s production started without anyone cast as Liesl before the producers reached out to her mother.
“My mother just [told them], ‘Well, Charmian looks young and she sings and dances,’” the actress recalled. “I went on the interview and that was that.”
Carr moved away from acting after the 1960s and opened her own interior design firm in Encino, California. She was married to Jay Brent from 1967 to 1991 and they shared two daughters.
The actress died at age 73 in September 2016 from complications related to frontotemporal dementia.
Nicholas Hammond
Hammond started his career at age 13 with the 1963 film version of Lord of the Flies, before winning the role of Friedrich von Trapp in The Sound of Music. He parlayed the success of both projects into steady work in the 1970s, including playing Peter Parker in the 1977 TV version of The Amazing Spider-Man.
He was later picked by director Quentin Tarantino to depict real-life actor and filmmaker Sam Wanamaker in the Oscar-winning 2019 blockbuster Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Hammond was married to first wife Laura Soli between 1980 and 1984, and later moved with longtime partner Robyn Nevin to Australia in the mid-1980s.
Heather Menzies
Cast as Louisa von Trapp at age 15, Menzies had been a child star throughout the early 1960s with regular appearances in ABCs sitcoms The Farmer’s Daughter and My Three Sons.
Menzies landed a main role in 1977’s TV spin-off of the science fiction movie Logan’s Run and was a horror genre ‘Scream Queen’ in 1978’s Piranha. She continued acting until the early 1990s.
She was married for four years to John Cluett, between 1969 and 1973, and later tied the knot with actor Robert Urich in 1975 after they played a newlywed couple in a TV commercial. She founded the Robert Urich Foundation following her husband’s death in 2002 from cancer.
Menzies died at age 68 in December 2017 from terminal brain cancer. She was survived by her three children.
Duane Chase
The then-14-year-old actor’s portrayal of Kurt von Trapp in The Sound of Music came before a cameo in Disney’s Follow Me, Boys! in 1966.
Chase left acting behind to devote his life to wildlife and forestry work. He married wife Petra Maria in 1987.
Angela Cartwright
Cartwright spent 7 years on The Danny Thomas Show before she even turned 10 years old, so she was a relative pro when cast in The Sound of Music as Brigitta von Trapp.
She shared in an interview decades later that she “really wasn’t nervous” for her Sound of Music screen test because of her wealth of acting experience at such a young age.
“I felt very comfortable in front of a camera,” Cartwright remembered. “But there’s always that little rush of energy because you want to do the best job you can!”
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Cartwright carried on after The Sound of Music by playing space-traveling 11-year-old adventurer Penny Robinson in the 1960s TV series Lost in Space. Her legacy in the sci-fi classic was recognized with cameos in both the 1998 film version of Lost in Space and Netflix’s 2018 streaming reboot.
Now a photographer, Cartwright married husband Steve Gullion in 1976 and they share two children.
Debbie Turner
Turner briefly continued acting after playing Marta von Trapp. Following a role in 1979’s North Dallas Forty, Turner relocated to Chanhassen, Minnesota in 1985 and worked as a floral designer. The former actress and husband Richard Larson share four daughters.
Kym Karath
Karath played the youngest von Trapp child, Gretl, but moved on to modeling and studying art history in Paris later in life. She shares a son with first husband Philippe L’Equibec and married Jeff Apple in 2016.
