The Sound of Music © 1965 by Argyle Enterprises
and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1993, 2017 by Julia Hirsch
Foreword copyright © 1993 by Robert Wise
All rights reserved
Published by Chicago Review Press Incorporated
814 North Franklin Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610
ISBN 978-0-912777-38-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Is available from the Library of Congress.
Cover design: Jonathan Hahn
Cover photos: Photofest
Interior design: Jonathan Hahn
Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 2 1
To Robert Wise
And, as always,
to Lonnie
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Prologue
1
“Let’s Start at the Very Beginning …”
FROM VIENNA TO HOLLYWOOD
DID YOU KNOW …?
2
“When You Read You Begin with ABC …”
SCRIPT AND MUSIC
BIOGRAPHIES
3
“Search High and Low …”
CASTING
CANDID PHOTOS FROM THE CAST AND CREW
4
“With Each Step, I Am More Certain …”
PREPRODUCTION
FINAL SHOOTING SCHEDULE
5
“Climb Every Mountain …”
PRODUCTION
STORYBOARDS
6
“I Must Have Done Something Good …”
THE SOUND OF MONEY
HOW THEY SOLD THE SOUND OF MUSIC
7
“What Will My Future Be, I Wonder …”
LIFE AFTER MUSIC
A VON TRAPP UPDATE
8
“Till You Find Your Dream …”
MUSIC-MANIA
CAST AND CREW
Bibliography
Credits
Acknowledgments
I first wrote this book in 1991, twenty-seven years ago. Yikes!
Yet, despite the millennium, the technical revolution, and the movies almost exclusively dominated by CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery), The Sound of Music has never gone out of style. I like to think it’s because the movie’s humanity reflects the goodness of the people who made the film. I worked in Hollywood a long time, and I had never met more generous individuals than the ones who worked on this picture.
Let’s start with Robert Wise. Bob was a kind and generous boss who became a friend. He was supportive of the book right from the start and devoted many hours of his time for interviews, introductions, and editing. Bob had a Midwestern goodness about him. He was gentle and soft-spoken and was always open and giving to young people searching for their star in the Hollywood firmament.
Ernest Lehman was not only a genius in his field, but also a sympathetic mentor. He had a great memory and was generous enough to share his stories and his immense files from the University of Texas, Austin. I remember visiting “Ernie” at his beautiful home in Brentwood. This was the ’90s, and he scolded me, “You have to get a FAX machine. Every writer needs a FAX.”
Mike Kapan was the marketing guru on the film and became a dear friend, sifting with me through hundreds of boxes at Twentieth Century Fox. “Saulie” Chaplin, Wise’s associate producer, allowed me access to all his memories and his humor. “Zuby” (Maurice Zuberino) was a treasure. Portia Nelson was so enthusiastic about the book, she not only sent me her personal photos, she gave me the sheet music to “Hi Lili, Hi Low,” because I told her my daughter’s name was Lili.
These are just snippets of the people who were involved in The Sound of Music. I also interviewed Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Richard “Dick” Zanuck, Johannes von Trapp, Pia Arnold, Marc Breaux, David Brown, Betty Levin Chaplin, Duane Chase, Orella Houston, Dorothy Jeakins, Kym Karath, Irwin Kostal, Francie La Rue, Anna Lee, Harper MacKay, Marni Nixon, William Reynolds, Jean Seaman, Mort Segal, Larri Thomas, Dan Truhitte, and Dee Dee Wood.
Thanks to them all and to my first editor, Stacy Prince, and my last, Yuval Taylor.
Foreword
What makes a motion picture a hit around the world? Specifically, what made The Sound of Music the most beloved film of its time? It has been almost three decades since the film was released, and I am still being asked that question on an average of twice a week. Frequently I am also asked to explain the continuing heavy sales of the videocassette version. The answer to all these questions is simple: I don’t know. I wish I did, because then I could repeat that success. But to give that simple answer would be to ignore the hard work, the talent, the years of creative effort that were involved—years that stretch back almost four decades to when Mary Martin and Richard Halliday convinced Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II that some German films based on the exploits of the Trapp Family Singers could form the basis of a Broadway musical. The show turned out to be the most successful of all Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals.
That’s why I am delighted that Julia Hirsch has invested the time and effort to interview countless people, dig through the archives of three universities, and go through thousands of photographs at Fox seeking answers to the questions that are always asked of me. Ms. Hirsch has done a marvelous job of capturing the joys and frustrations of putting together a successful film. She has also managed, through her use of anecdotes and photographs, to convey some of the wonder the film evokes in audiences of all ages. Looking at the movie from the distance of three decades and through Ms. Hirsch’s journalistic eyes, I am reminded that some things simply defy explanation—they just are.
Nevertheless, I can tell you what The Sound of Music has meant to me, apart, of course, from the satisfaction that comes from having a big hit. When the project was first proposed, my immediate reaction was one of pleasure mixed with caution. It was an opportunity to do another musical, which I knew I would enjoy. But more than that, a definite challenge was involved—to make a musical so radically different in form and tone from my previous film, West Side Story. That perhaps was one of the first things that drew me to Music. Another was the chance for a reunion with Saul Chaplin and Ernest Lehman, my associate producer and screenwriter, respectively, on West Side Story. Later I discovered still another plus—the joy of working with Julie Andrews, a great talent and a delightful human being who found, as you will discover in the book, ways to make an adventure out of even the most trying circumstances.
But nowhere in this book will you find any mention of the one important element for which none of us connected with The Sound of Music could take credit—timing. It isn’t mentioned because it was the X factor, the one thing that no one could depend on and on which no one even wanted to make a guess. The Sound of Music was released in the spring of 1965. The date was not picked arbitrarily, nor was it selected on the basis of some arcane chart. It was released then because, after all the work and the previews, that is simply when it was deemed ready to be shown to the public. And that, of course, was when the question of timing first came to the fore.
Nineteen sixty-five was a volatile year in the United States and throughout the world. Newspapers carried headlines of the war in Vietnam, a cultural revolution was beginning to spread throughout the country, and people needed old-fashioned ideals to hold on to. The moviegoing public was ready, possibly even eager, for a film like this. Besides an outstanding score and an excellent cast, it had a heartwarming story, good humor, someone to love and someone to hate, and seven adorable children.
There was no question, from the very fi
rst week of its release, that the movie was going to be successful, although even those of us closest to the project never dreamed exactly how popular it would be. And ever since then experts have been dissecting all the elements that Julia Hirsch describes here in an effort to learn if there is a formula for success. I have often been told that if the film had been released two years earlier, or two years later, the public taste would have been different, and we would not have been so successful. I am not prepared to argue the point, though I am pleased to note that the film’s ongoing popularity—even with young audiences—suggests at least a certain timelessness. I am just pleased and proud that we were able to create an entertaining movie that touched so many lives.
Robert Wise
October 28, 1992
Beverly Hills, California
Prologue
According to her book, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, it was in 1933 that twenty-eight-year-old Maria von Trapp, visiting a friend in Tirol, made a fateful wish. The friend, a famous writer, began discussing her profession.
“Isn’t it funny,” her friend confessed, “I never wrote a word in my life until after I was forty!” The next day, as they were hiking in the Alps, the travelers came upon a quaint little chapel that looked down upon an enchanting green valley. Inside the church, Maria, seeing a rope dangling from the opening that led up to the steeple bell, mischievously took hold of the rope and jokingly proclaimed, “I wish I could become a writer, too, after I’m forty!” Maria then pulled the rope, and the sound of the bell echoed throughout the glen.
Her friend stared at her incredulously. “Did you know the story?”
“Which story?” asked Maria.
“Well, the people say that once in a hundred years, it happens that if someone rings this bell while pronouncing a wish, that wish, whatever it may be, will come true…. The people of this valley call it the ‘wishing bell.’”
Fifteen years later, Maria von Trapp wrote her first book, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. Seventeen years after that, a musical film based on that book changed movie history.
1
“Let’s Start at the Very Beginning …”
FROM VIENNA TO HOLLYWOOD
Maria Augusta Kutschera made her grand entrance into the world in a fashion that would later typify her character: in motion. She was born on January 26, 1905, on a train racing toward Vienna. Already displaying signs of a restless nature, she was just too impatient to wait until the train reached the city, where a staff of doctors would surely be waiting at the hospital. Instead, her mother, Augusta, was forced to recruit a train conductor to act as midwife, and just before the stroke of midnight, he helped deliver Augusta’s baby daughter.
Augusta died of pneumonia when Maria was two years old, and her father left the youngster with an elderly cousin’s family so that he could be free to travel throughout Europe. (This seemed to be her father’s pattern; when his first wife died, he had left Maria’s older brother to be raised by the same relatives.) Maria was reared in a family of adults, and she became a lonely and unhappy child. The household she lived in was also so strict and her uncle, who became her legal guardian after her father died, so physically abusive that she developed a rebellious nature as well.
Maria’s guardians had brought her up as a socialist and raised her to be cynical toward all religion, but a visiting Jesuit priest who lectured at her college changed her life. His speech had a powerful impact on the vulnerable young student, though Maria still felt compelled to meet the priest a few days later to “enlighten” him as to all the reasons his beliefs were wrong. But at that meeting the priest’s composure and quiet confidence impressed the romantic young woman, and all her arguments were forgotten. Instead she found his unwavering faith and utter tranquility the perfect medicine to heal her troubled heart.
Maria’s newfound religious beliefs became so strong, in fact, that after graduating from college with a degree in education, the once-devout atheist traveled to Salzburg, Austria, and joined the Nonnberg Abbey as a postulant. Maria was intensely devoted to the convent, but her dedication did not prevent the former tomboy from getting into mischief. The sudden change from her free-spirited college days of mountain climbing to the more sedate life at the abbey also seemed to adversely affect her health.
One day, the Reverend Mother called Maria to her office. Maria’s headaches had worried the abbey’s doctor; he thought she needed exercise and fresh air. So the Mother Abbess had decided to send Maria to the home of retired naval captain Georg von Trapp, to be governess to one of his young daughters. The child, also named Maria, had developed rheumatic fever and was forced to spend much of her time in bed. The young postulant accepted her new post only after she received the Reverend Mother’s promise that in nine months she could return to the abbey for good.
But, as we all know, Maria never did come back to stay. She married the Captain on November 26, 1927, and had three children to add to the seven from his first marriage. The family, whose members seemed to have a natural talent for music and whose voices blended beautifully, began to perform professionally—at the Salzburg Festivals, on the radio, and even touring Europe. When Hitler invaded Austria and the Captain was called back into service for the navy of the Third Reich, the family, violently opposed to the Nazi regime, decided to escape. They climbed over the mountains to Italy; from there they traveled to England, then crossed the ocean to America, where they continued to perform as the famous Trapp Family Singers.
When the young Maria rang that steeple bell, she had had no inkling that her innocent wish to become a writer would come true or that her life would eventually be the subject of two German motion pictures, a Broadway play, and the most successful American musical film of all time. But had she known, Maria would not have been surprised. She was a strong personality and a powerful promoter of her family.
Maria at State Teachers School of Progressive Education.
Mary Martin, who starred as Maria in the Broadway musical, wrote in her autobiography, My Heart Belongs, “I came to the conclusion that perhaps the family didn’t just climb that mountain to escape. She pushed them, all the way up.”
Promoting her family was one of the reasons Maria wrote The Story of the Trapp Family Singers in 1948. Soon after the book was published, Hollywood beckoned. But the producers wanted to buy only the title of her book, and Maria turned them down flat. They’d have to buy the whole story or nothing.
According to Maria’s autobiography, Maria, in 1956, German producer Wolfgang Reinhardt, son of the famous film director Max Reinhardt, approached Maria with a contract for $10,000 to buy the rights to her entire story. That was a tidy sum to a widow with ten children (the Captain had died in 1947), but Maria’s lawyer suggested that she also ask for royalties.
Maria on her wedding day.
Heeding his advice, Maria met again with the producer’s agent and asked for a share of the movie’s profits. The agent hesitated and said he’d have to call Germany and ask Reinhardt’s permission. He came back shortly and said, “I am sorry, I have to inform you that there is a law in existence which forbids a German film company from paying royalties to foreigners.” (Maria was now an American citizen.) Maria took the man at his word and didn’t even verify his story with her lawyer. She signed the contract and, at the same time, unknowingly signed away all film rights, including all profit participation, to her story. Not only had the agent misled her (no such law existed), but he actually called her a few weeks later and suggested that if she would agree to take $9,000 instead of the full $10,000, he could give the entire amount to her immediately. She needed the cash and made the deal.
Die Trapp Familie was produced in Germany in 1956 and became a big hit. It did so well that Reinhardt followed it up in 1958 with a sequel titled Die Trapp Familie in Amerika. Both movies starred Ruth Leuwerik as Maria and Hans Holt as the Captain and were directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner. They soon became the most successful films produced in Germany since World War
II and subsequently became hits in Europe and South America as well.
Paramount Pictures in Hollywood purchased the US film rights to the two movies, hoping to produce an English-language version as a vehicle for its young star, Audrey Hepburn. At the time, Paramount had just signed Broadway and television director Vincent Donehue to a contract with no specific project in mind. One of the first things they showed him was the film Die Trapp Familie. Donehue sat watching the picture in Paramount’s projection room, and when the lights went up, he turned to John Mock, story editor at Paramount, and said, “I think this would make a great vehicle for Mary Martin!”
Donehue had directed Mary Martin in the national tour of Annie Get Your Gun along with the television version of the musical. He’d also worked with Martin in the stage and television versions of The Skin of Our Teeth and two other television specials. Donehue, Martin, and Martin’s husband, producer Richard Halliday, had been looking for another project to work on together for the Broadway stage. Donehue flew the film back to New York and screened it for Martin and her husband. They fell in love with the idea and began working on the project.
Mary Martin and the children from the stage version of The Sound of Music.
By the time they went to buy the rights, however, Paramount had dropped its option and no longer owned the rights to the German films. So Halliday, unaware of Maria’s deal with the German producers, thought he had to go through Maria to get permission. Maria, who was involved in missionary work in New Guinea at the time, soon began receiving strange notes from an American producer saying he wanted to turn her story into a Broadway play starring Mary Martin. Maria received three of these notes, and each time she got one she tore it up. She didn’t know who Mary Martin was, and she thought the whole idea of a play based on her book was preposterous!
When Maria returned from New Guinea, an undaunted Richard Halliday was waiting to meet her ship in San Francisco. He invited her to see his wife’s performance in Annie Get Your Gun that evening. Maria loved the show and afterward went backstage to meet Mary Martin.
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