Duane Chase, whose parents had wanted him to get involved in acting so he could earn enough money for college, started acting in commercials when he was eleven. His agent arranged for an interview, and he met with the casting supervisor on February 18 so he could be considered for the role of Kurt. He remembered, “Kids were lining the hallway, sort of like a cattle call. I don’t remember who I auditioned for, but it wasn’t Mr. Wise. I read some lines and sang a song, and did a few dance steps. Then I was told to wait in the hall. I thought, ‘Oh great, I have it.’ Then someone came out and told me to go home.”
Duane was called back for a second audition. This time he read for Wise, Saul Chaplin, and Reggie Callow, Wise’s assistant director. Again, he was told to wait in the hall after the audition. But this time someone came out and told him to be back the next day at 8:00 in the morning.
“The next morning, I was directed to go to the stage, and I saw Mr. Wise. He walked up to me and said, ‘How would you like to go to Salzburg?’ I was so hyped up by this time, I said, ‘I’d love to. You don’t even have to pay me!’”
Heather Menzies began her career with the intention of becoming a dancer but was spotted by an agent at a ballet recital and was bitten by the acting bug. She had had no acting experience when she auditioned for the role of Louisa. Later, she recalled in an interview for the British television show This Morning, “I had to stand in front of a piano and sing a song I had prepared. I had never had a singing audition and I have never had one since. It was awful.” But somehow, she made it work, because she was cast right away.
More screen tests, this time in Hollywood.
Nicholas Hammond credits Julie Andrews with being instrumental in his decision to become an actor, way back when he was only nine years old. “The first play I saw was My Fair Lady,” he told interviewer Michael Carmack for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner in 1974. “It was the original staging with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, and from that moment on I decided to be an actor. The fan adulation and magic of the stage excited me.”
Top: Julie Andrews | Middle row: Charmian Carr, Nicholas Hammond, Heather Menzies | Bottom row: Angela Cartwright, Kym Karath, Debbie Turner, Duane Chase
Soon thereafter, Hammond started working as an actor. He had a role in the British film The Lord of the Flies, which led to Broadway, where he played Michael Redgrave’s son in The Complaisant Lover. Hammond and his family lived in Baltimore at the time Wise was casting the part of Friedrich, so Hammond came up to New York to test for the role. He had broken his arm in a skiing accident a few days before the audition, so he was not feeling very confident when he walked into the NBC Studio where Wise was holding the auditions. “In I walk with my two front teeth missing and my arm in a sling,” Hammond told reporter Steven Jay Rubin in a 1981 article for the Los Angeles Times “Calendar” section. “I didn’t think I had a chance because I don’t sing, even in the shower.” But, despite these handicaps, Hammond landed the role.
Charmian Farnon had never had a singing or dancing lesson and was not particularly interested in becoming an actress even though she was from a family of actors and musicians. Her mother, Rita Farnon, was an actress and comedian who had starred in a few westerns; her father, Brian Farnon, was the orchestra leader at Chez Paris in Chicago; and her uncle, Robert Farnon, was a well-known composer in England. Yet, despite her family’s impressive credits, all Farnon was interested in was seeing the world. She had worked occasionally as a model for the Broadway Department Stores and was also working part time in a doctor’s office as an office assistant. Her plan was to save the two dollars an hour that she earned at the doctor’s office and use that for travel money. Then a friend who had heard about the casting search sent Farnon’s picture to Wise’s office. Wise and Chaplin called her, and she came in for an interview.
“She was so pretty and had such poise and charm,” recalled Wise, “that we liked her immediately.” The only problem was that Wise thought she looked too old to play Liesl. So they interviewed others. Still, their thoughts wandered back to Farnon, and they called her in again.
Once more they were torn. She had a lovely, natural voice and could dance well enough, but she didn’t look sixteen. They let her go and saw several more young ladies. Again they were pulled back to Farnon. She came in for a third interview, and this time her charm won them over. She not only got the part of Liesl; she was also signed to a seven-year contract with the studio. Only then did she reveal that Wise’s instincts were accurate. Farnon was twenty-one when she took the role.
Wise might have been satisfied with Farnon’s performing skills, but one lingering problem remained. “It was Mr. Wise who changed my name to Carr,” Carr told a Fox publicist at the time, “because too many people mispronounce even my first name [pronounced Shar-mee-in]. He felt with a complicated first name, I should have a short, uncomplicated last name.” So Charmian Farnon, the office assistant, was transformed into Charmian Carr, the actress.
Charmian Carr.
Another young actor, one who is sometimes forgotten because he did not play one of the seven von Trapp children, is Dan Truhitte. Dan played Rolf, the teenage boy with whom Liesl falls in love and who, in the end, tried to turn the family over to the Nazis. Dan was twenty years old when he did the film but had already had years of experience in show business.
“I’ve been acting since I was six,” said Dan. “I wanted to be another Gene Kelly. I was a singer, a dancer, and a gymnast. At seventeen I won a scholarship to the Pasadena Playhouse, and that’s where I got my start.”
Dan Truhitte.
Dan was the last person in the picture to be cast. In fact, the first day he reported to work production had already begun. Like the others, Dan had to go through a number of auditions before he won the role. “My first audition was a real cattle call. There were twenty-five to thirty people there, and we just had about ten seconds in front of the camera. They were just concerned with the physical look. Then my agent went to a party and saw Pamela Danova. He knew she was working on the picture [as the dialogue coach], so he gave her my photo. She set up another interview with Bob Wise.”
This time Truhitte had to read a scene for Wise and Chaplin. It was the Nazi scene at the end of the picture—a very dramatic scene for a reading. They seemed satisfied with Truhitte and sent him to audition for the choreographers, Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood. Dancing was Truhitte’s forte, but they didn’t really want a dancer. They wanted the “You Are Sixteen” number to look like two kids just having fun. Still, Truhitte got an A on the grading system that they had devised to rate the children. But they weren’t finished with Truhitte yet.
“After the dancing they gave me a personality test. There was no time for a screen test, so I stood in front of the camera, and Bob talked to me for a few minutes. Finally, I asked them if I could sing. I sang ‘You Are Sixteen,’ and it was one of the best experiences of my life. They were all very pleased.”
Wise knew which actors he wanted in each part and, aside from Christopher Plummer, had little trouble getting them. He was a highly talented and successful director who had a reputation for being a sensitive, soft-spoken gentleman as well—a rarity among the Hollywood elite. He, in turn, cast actors who possessed the unusual combination of talent and stability. They were committed individuals who were very serious about their work—even the children. They needed to be serious. With dance and music rehearsals, costume fittings, prerecording sessions, photo sessions, dialogue coaching, and dialect lessons—all this before the first scene was shot—the cast had to have sturdy constitutions and a tremendous amount of patience for all that lay ahead.
Candid Photos from the Cast and Crew
A moment alone.
Enjoying the carriage ride in “Do-Re-Mi.”
Anna Lee.
Waiting for the crew to set up another shot in “I Have Confidence.”
Andrews and on-screen “son,” Duane Chase.
Peggy Wood and Anna Lee begin a day of sightseeing. From the
personal collection of Portia Nelson
Dee Dee Wood with baby, Michael. Julie Andrews walking Emma Kate. From the personal collection of Portia Nelson
A candid snapshot captures Julie Andrews with her daughter, enjoying the view of Salzburg from their hotel room. From the personal collection of Portia Nelson
Portia Nelson taking a coffee break. From the personal collection of Dee Dee Wood
Angela Cartwright. From the personal collection of Portia Nelson
Trying to stay warm.
From left: Marc Breaux, Julie Andrews, Saul Chaplin, and Dee Dee Wood running through a rehearsal of “I Have Confidence.” From the personal collection of Portia Nelson
Relaxing between shots.
Chaplin, Wise, Andrews, and Danova.
“Will the real Julie please stand up?” Julie Andrews and her stand-in, Larri Thomas (background). From the personal collection of Dee Dee Wood
Picking wildflowers. From the personal collection of Portia Nelson
Wise looks on as the children sing.
A breathtaking view.
4
“With Each Step, I Am More Certain …”
PREPRODUCTION
“Don’t they know geography in Hollywood? Salzburg does not border on Switzerland!”
—Maria von Trapp as she watched the final scene in the movie, quoted in Our Sunday Visitor in 1967
“In Hollywood, you make your own geography.”
—Robert Wise on set design, interviewed by author
On November 1, 1963, just a few weeks after he was hired to work on The Sound of Music, Robert Wise flew to Salzburg on a reconnaissance—or “recce” (reck-ee) in film parlance—trip to scout locations. He wanted to get to Salzburg as soon as possible, because he knew if he waited too long there would be too much snow in the city, which would impede his freedom to travel. He took with him Saul Chaplin, his associate producer; Saul Wurtzel, production manager; Maurice Zuberano, sketch artist; and Boris Leven, production designer.
Saul Wurtzel, along with assistant director Reggie Callow, had the job of coordinating the entire production, including devising the shooting schedule and managing the film’s budget. Zuby’s job was to sketch the locations they found or take photographs of the locations and then later turn those images into the storyboards. Boris Leven would design and oversee the construction of all the sets, whether that involved changing an exterior location to fit the needs of the movie or designing a completely original set on the Fox lot.
Pia Arnold, the German production manager on the film, met the group in Salzburg. It was Arnold’s job to hire and coordinate all the technicians from Munich who were going to work on the film, plus handle any other problems or emergencies that might occur in Austria or Germany. Her diplomacy would come in handy many times before the filming was through.
Wise and crew wanted to shoot all the exteriors (outside scenes) in Salzburg; all the interiors would be shot on the Fox lot in Los Angeles. Not only did the group need to find attractive, historically appropriate sites for the many exteriors called for in Lehman’s script, but they also had to bring back ideas that would enable Leven to design realistic and accurate interior sets to be used in California.
When Wise and company traveled to Salzburg for the recce trip, they took along Wyler’s location list from the trip he, Lehman, and Edens had taken six months earlier.
They began their search as soon as they arrived in the city. “Every morning we got up at 6:30 and began going around the town,” remembered Arnold. “Saul Chaplin was having such a hard time getting up that early. It was very funny. Musicians are always used to getting up later.”
Since she could not very well go around town introducing her entourage as film people, especially when meeting the priests and nuns at the abbeys (moviemaking was not a highly respected profession in Austria at the time), Arnold found herself explaining the presence of the crew in a unique way. “I told the nuns they were all famous architects,” she recalled laughing.
Wise checked off the spots he was interested in seeing.
Before they left the United States, Wise, Chaplin, and Leven had gone over the list of locations already found during the scouting trip Willy Wyler had taken six months earlier and checked off the sites they wanted to reinvestigate. It was quite an extensive list, and they ended up using many of the locations that Wyler and Lehman had originally discovered. Upon viewing some of the areas, Wise again realized how different his approach was from Wyler’s. Wise, of course, wanted to cut down on the frills, even to the last detail.
“I didn’t want the von Trapp house to look like a Disney castle,” Wise said.
Wyler, on the other hand, had wanted excess. “Wyler wanted to do the movie like the von Trapps were the Habsburgs,” said Zuberano. “He wanted to do everything on such a grand scale. Bob didn’t see it that way. Von Trapp was only a captain. Wyler wanted to do it as if they were the royal family!”
Wise on location hunting.
One of the first places Wise and his associates checked out when they arrived in Salzburg was the original von Trapp home. Villa Trapp was located in Aigen, a pleasant old market town in a peaceful wooded setting. Despite its idyllic locale, Wise found the villa unusable. After the family escaped in 1938, the Gestapo had taken over the home to use as its headquarters and had built a high wall around the entire estate. So Wise went looking for another villa to use as the family’s home. They found the perfect spot.
Leopoldskron is a large castle located on a small artificial lake outside the city of Salzburg. It was once used by German film director Max Reinhardt and, at the time of the filming, was leased out to the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, an American school based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, designed to teach Europeans about American culture. Wurtzel was put in charge of convincing the administrators at the Salzburg Seminar to allow the crew to film on their property. He contacted the business manager at the seminar, Frank Dickerson, and explained that the shooting would be limited to the exterior of the building—no one would need to go inside—and that the company would be filming May 3 to 11, when no seminars were scheduled at the school. He added that the crew would restore his terrace and garden to their pre-filming condition when the shooting was completed. Wurtzel’s offer of $1,500 for the use of the villa was turned down flat.
The production manager then increased the offer to $5,000. Dickerson took the proposal to his home office in New York, and again the seminar declined. In a letter to John Shepridge at Twentieth Century Fox, Wurtzel described the situation. “It was evident they were trying to hold us up for a considerable amount of money with talk of royalties on the picture and an endowment by 20th. [We] told them that this was out of the question.”
Villa Trapp.
A view of the front entrance to Leopoldskron as taken by Roger Edens on their scouting trip.
Wurtzel asked for a counteroffer. Once more the seminar denied the crew permission, claiming that the filming would cause too much disturbance at the school. But, Wurtzel wrote, Dickerson “indicated that if a very attractive offer had been made in New York, the board might have found differently.”
Wurtzel then called Pia Arnold in Germany, and Arnold took the matter to the mayor of Salzburg and even the governor of Salzburg State! The mayor was anxious to placate the American film company because he knew how much money would be brought into his city if the film was shot there. Yet even the mayor and the governor could not convince the seminar to allow the company on its property.
Setup and shooting in the back of Frohnburg.
But the seminar’s board of directors finally acquiesced a bit and allowed the company to shoot on another property the seminar owned next door to Leopoldskron. This property also bordered the lake and could work just as well. Wise and company grabbed it. (For point of reference, the production reports refer to the property as Leopoldskron, but research shows that the property that appears in the movie could actually have been an estate called Bertelsmann.)
Before Wise began filming, Boris Leven would re-create Leopoldskron’s garden at Bertelsmann. He would also design a mock-up of the lower terrace with the gate and create a glass summer house next to the lake. Wise and his director of photography, Ted McCord, planned to shoot all the nighttime lake scenes on the actual set built at Bertelsmann. These scenes included the “You Are Sixteen” number and the scene where the Captain meets Maria near the water and tells her he has called off his engagement to Elsa. But, as Wise and McCord found out later, their plans would have to be changed at the last minute.
Though Bertelsmann’s grounds were ideal, the actual building was not right for the entrance to the von Trapp estate. Wise and associates had to search for another location to use for the house. They found what they needed at Schloss Frohnburg, a country house built in the seventeenth century. At the time Wise and company came to shoot the picture, it was being used by the Mozarteum Music Academy. Leven fell in love with the villa. It had the simple, classic style that he and Wise were looking for, and they had no trouble getting permission to shoot there.
The Sound of Music Page 8