Sound of Music - How it came to be

Mary Rodgers Guettel (right) and Alice Hammerstein Mathias — the daughters of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II — stand on the terrace of the Guettel home overlooking Manhattan's Central Park.
Oct 11, 2008 Toronto Star
RICHARD OUZOUNIAN - THEATRE CRITIC
SOUND OF MUSIC THEATRE


Honestly I swear it is pure coincidence that two Toronto newspapers have articles in them on the same day about the SOUND OF MUSIC. I realise this specific article has nothing to do with books, but The Sound of Music is my favourite musical movie. I wonder when Julie Andrews is going to write her autobiography? Christopher Plummer's autobiography review is two posts below this one.

NEW YORK–Yes, the hills are alive with the sound of music, but everybody has a slightly different memory of just how that glorious melody came to fill the air.

This Wednesday night, at the Princess of Wales Theatre, the North American premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Ian's new production of The Sound of Music will be presented by David Mirvish, and it promises to be one of the major theatre events of the year.

The London version of this same production, which opened in 2007, has been a giant hit, which is not surprising for a show that has proved to be internationally the biggest title for Rodgers and Hammerstein productions.

The 1965 film version is also one of the most popular movies of all time and ever since the stage version made its debut in 1959, it's been playing every night somewhere in the world.

But how did it all start? And what made this particular show so durable and endearing?

The original four creators – Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse – are long since gone, but three bright and opinionated women who were there at the time of the show's creation still carry the flame – each in her own particular way.

Two of them – Mary Rodgers Guettel and Alice Hammerstein Mathias, daughters of the songwriters – have gathered for lunch with Bert Fink, the executive vice-president of R&H productions, at the elegant Guettel home overlooking Manhattan's Central Park. Anna Crouse – the widow of one of the librettists – checks in by phone (she's temporarily sidelined by a hip injury).

Mary brings a unique perspective to her examination of the period, because in 1959, for the only time in history, a father and daughter were competing for the Best Musical Tony Award, with her Once Upon a Mattress ultimately losing out to her father's The Sound of Music.

"You know," she says, surprised at the memory, "I don't think we ever discussed the competition. I guess we were too busy at the time to worry about that."

Then she casts a sympathetic look across the table at Alice. "And by then, Ockie was very sick."

Ockie – Oscar Hammerstein II's nickname – had not been feeling well during 1959. Surgery that summer for stomach ulcers was actually for a cancerous tumour, which proved to be inoperable.

"Though they hid the truth from Oscar," wrote Rodgers in his 1975 biography, Musical Stages, "the doctors told his family – and Dorothy and me – that he had cancer."

Actually, the cone of silence was smaller than that, and the truth finally surfaces nearly 50 years later over a polite, sunlit lunch.

"Your mother and father heard about his being ill before we did," says Alice pointedly to Mary.

"Really?" replies Mary, in genuine surprise.

"And it made us angry," says Alice, laying her cards on the table.

There's a long, uncomfortable pause.

Mary tries to redeem the moment with her unique mixture of empathy and wit.

"`I honestly didn't know that,' said Mary with her mouth open.

And in that instant of reconciliation, the difference between the two women becomes clear. To Mary, the period of The Sound of Music is associated with her own greatest hit, Once Upon a Mattress.

Yet to Alice, it represented the loss of a father she loved dearly, but one who she didn't know was leaving until it was almost too late.

"I remember going to a preview performance in New York," says Alice softly, "and he couldn't be there because he was too sick.

"When they sang that song `An Ordinary Couple,' I couldn't stop the tears from flowing down my face. I had friends with me and I couldn't tell them why."

How did the show ever come to happen? That's where Anna Crouse is so useful, not only for her own razor-sharp memory, but also because her husband, Russel, kept impeccable diaries.

"Producer Leland Hayward approached Russel and Howard with three ideas: a musical of Gone With the Wind, a musical based on Gypsy Lee's autobiography and a musical based on the Trapp Family Singers.

"To this day, I think they chose the right one."

At first, the show was going to be a straight play with authentic Austrian folk songs worked in, but Anna recalls Russel feeling "that we needed something a little more Broadway to spice it up."

So they took their idea to Rodgers and Hammerstein, who were so taken with it that Rodgers insisted, "We won't write one song, we'll write them all."

Lindsay and Crouse agreed, the only problem being that R&H were involved with their current show, Flower Drum Song. Everyone, including Broadway supernova Mary Martin, who was committed to playing Maria von Trapp, agreed to wait.

Flower Drum Song opened Dec. 1, 1958, and The Sound of Music followed on Broadway Nov. 19, 1959. That's an amazingly short period of time in which to create one of the major hits of the musical theatre, and even the daughters of the men who wrote the score marvel at it.

"I don't know if father was aware he was racing against time," wonders Alice, "or if this was just something he felt he had to say." Hammerstein passed away Aug. 23, 1960.

"The songs were so good," recalls Mary.

"When I heard them, coming after those shows of theirs that didn't make it, like Me and Juliet and Pipe Dream," says Alice, "I remember thinking `Oh, thank God, they've got a hit!'"

But why does this sentimental show, never a favourite of critics, hit the right chords with audiences every time? Mary shakes her head sagely. "That was what our fathers did so well. To take romances and make them into something that you so desperately wanted to have come true."

"We were watching a run-through in Toronto the other week," volunteers Fink, "and we got to the scene where the Baron finally reconnects with his children. I heard this loud sniffling sound, and I turned around to realize it was David Mirvish, weeping openly."

"A lot of people are just touched by it," says Alice simply. "The fact that it was set during the Anschluss (the Nazi annexation of Austria) adds another even more powerful dimension to it."

Her eyes seem very far away. "My father sent me to Austria in the 1930s to go to boarding school. And everyone gave us these little spidery pins to wear. We did. They were swastikas. At the time, we had no idea what they meant.

"And they would tell us all to say `Heil, Hitler!' when we met each other on the street. And we did it, but we never knew why. Oh God, we never knew."

"When the Nazis took over," explains Fink, "the von Trapps took a while to reach the breaking point. One of their sons declined the opportunity to be a Nazi doctor, Baron von Trapp turned down a military commission.

"But when they refused to sing at Hitler's 50th birthday celebration, their friends suggested they leave the country as soon as possible."

And that was the true beginning of a show that still has power over us nearly 50 years after its creation.

Christopher Plummer - Autobiography

Christopher Plummer: In Spite of Myself
Globe and Mail
Saturday October 11, 2008
Christopher Plummer @ IMDB



Christopher Plummer's Quebec boyhood included genteel family get-togethers, pretty debutantes and repeat appearances by at least one inebriated visitor.

Teatime, daily at 5, was a splendid affair – the women bustling, the food plentiful. Hot buttered crumpets by the fire, scones, tomato and cucumber sandwiches, two cakes, one with icing, one without, and always gingerbread.

… There was always a scattering of flappers about and numerous lounge lizards doing very little of anything and, of course the usual “piranha fish” and attendant eccentrics. One such was a very posh-looking colonel, who paid the occasional abortive visit to my grandmother's house – I don't know quite why as he never uttered. One day, he arrived in immaculate blazer and white flannels; he was only in his late 40s but already boasted a “companion,” who took him by the hand and literally pulled him toward the house where we were all waiting to greet him. It took almost five minutes to get him from the car to the front door (a distance of several feet only) as my grandmother advanced and held out her hand for him to shake. The colonel extended his very slowly and then suddenly with a great deal of warmth and vigour shook the doorknob instead! An explosion erupted inside me and got strangled somewhere in my throat as my grandmother wheeled on me and hissed – “Behave yourself at once! Don't you realize that Uncle Fred is blind?!”

“Blind? Blind drunk, you mean!” I thought as a waft of dragon breath from Uncle Fred hit my mother and me at one and the same time, which sent us reeling into the next room, where, collapsing on separate sofas, we buried our faces in the cushions to silence our uncontrollable hysteria!

Acclaimed actor Christopher Plummer.






Several years later I had a mad crush on Uncle Fred's 18-year-old daughter. It happened at her “coming out” dance. The average age that evening was from 16 to 19. Suddenly the doors were flung open and Uncle Fred, this time in white tie and tails, was being pulled in by yet another “companion” who led him to the centre of the dance floor, where she promptly deserted him. Very red in the face, he rocked back and forth on his pins and gazed lustfully at the fair young maidens around him with a leer that would have made Humbert Humbert look like a choirboy, and then, without warning, plunged forward onto the dance floor flat on his face! That was the last I ever saw of Uncle Fred. To this day, I don't believe he ever got up! A t a run-through of Tennessee Williams's Sweet Bird of Youth , Geraldine Page wows Helen Hayes, Lillian Hellman and Ruth Gordon – but not the playwright himself.

After we had opened [Archibald MacLeish's play] J.B., [Elia] Kazan began rehearsals for Tennessee Williams's new play Sweet Bird of Youth. Just before their out-of-town opening they held their last full run-through without costumes at the New Amsterdam Roof. Gadge [Kazan's nickname] invited our entire cast. Also in attendance that afternoon were most of theatre's top brass – the usual suspects – Josh Logan, Helen Hayes, the Lunts, Lee Strasberg, Cheryl Crawford, Lillian Hellman, Ruth Gordon, Garson Kanin, etc., etc. Not a large group but mighty potent. Gadge got up and announced that they would have to wait to begin because Tennessee had not yet arrived. “Tennessee, as you know, has his own rhythm,” he quipped, not without edge.

Finally it began. The exceptional cast included Paul Newman, Rip Torn, Sidney Blackmer, my Montreal friend Madeleine Sherwood and, of course, Geraldine Page in the leading role of Princess. They were each in his or her own right first class, but that afternoon belonged to Geraldine, for before our lucky eyes we were watching her, for the first time, discover her own performance. Gerry was flying! God knows Tennessee was a marvellous writer and there was fine writing in this, but Gerry lifted the whole thing to another level – she was transcendent! When it was over you could hear a pin drop – we were not just transfixed; we had been seduced.

Gradually we pulled ourselves together and began to shuffle out. No one spoke. Just then from the balcony in that rasping voice of his, Tennessee started shouting. I couldn't quite make out his gist but it seemed to convey that we had all just witnessed the total destruction of Sweet Bird of Youth, and it was all Gerry's fault. Gerry was the sole culprit. “She's ruined mah play! She's ruined mah play,” he kept yelling. He must be drunk, I thought, or ill. No one seemed to take much notice, or pretended not to, and as Gadge passed me in the aisle I tugged at his sleeve.

“What's the matter with Tennessee?” I asked. “My God! It's been such a glorious afternoon.”

“Oh, don't worry,” Gadge replied, “she's just taken his play away from him. It's hers now – it doesn't belong to him any more and he knows it.”

In the early 1960s, Plummer finesses his own British invasion, thanks to Peter O'Toole's Saharan immersion.

I shall always be grateful to Peter O'Toole for ditching the Royal Shakespeare Company in favour of a camel on the Sahara Desert. He was to have played King Henry that year, but now, bless his heart, he was playing Lawrence [of Arabia] and so Henry was mine! The London premiere of Becket at the Aldwych in the Strand proved the success of the season and my Henry is probably one of the best things I've ever done. With the help of Eric Porter, who splendidly partnered me as Becket, Peter Hall's free and sweeping production and a cast that represented the very finest in British acting, my modest invasion of the Sceptred Isle was at last justified. I won London's Evening Standard Award for Best Actor of the Year. (“Big Van” [Vanessa Redgrave] won best actress.) I was in damn good company!

… I loved Becket. It is still one of my favourite plays. Fictitious in most respects, it remains, however, a witty and passionate story of an extraordinary relationship between two demigods who, in their separate ways, ruled a great part of the medieval world. As many scenes take place on horseback, the use of hobbyhorses fully caparisoned, controlled by ourselves the actors wearing built-up boot-like hooves hidden under our robes, was an inspired piece of imagination and served to give the evening much added theatricality and panache. In the film, made some years later in which O'Toole marvellously reclaimed his role of Henry, it was, of course, necessary to use real horses so that much of the story's originality and style went by the wayside.

… All sorts of celebrated people came backstage to compliment me: the Oliviers, the Nivens, Ralph Richardson, even Donald Wolfit, who had finally got himself a ticket. I now felt most welcome in England. One night a rather posh group had assembled in my dressing room when suddenly O'Toole himself burst in. “What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought you were in the desert.”

“I have a week off from the bloody camels. They made me ride the buggers bareback.” As he said this, he proceeded in front of the speechless, po-faced group, to pull down his pants and show us his ass. It was absolutely raw and riddled with welts. “Look at this,” he screamed. “It's all your fault, you colonial prick. You're playing my part and this is the thanks I get!” The horrified little posse quickly dispersed and Peter and I went to the nearest pub and got pie-eyed.

In the late 1950s, Plummer enjoyed hanging out – and rearranging furniture – with buddies Jason Robards, Jason Robards Sr. (“an old naval salt,” as Plummer remembers him, who got dubbed “the Admiral”) and Max Helpmann.

Running out of things to do in the brief spare time there was, our dreaded little quartet (the Admiral, the Commander, the Captain and me – the ship's doctor) had arrived at a dead impasse. We needed new inspiration; we craved new blood. We found both in a young man called Peter Hale who was playing small parts that season and doubling as an assistant stage manager. We at once detected great promise in the youth. He had a completely natural and unaffected penchant for deviltry, a real down 'n' dirty glint in his eye and a talent for improvising wickedness that was prodigious in the extreme. Because he was ASM on The Winter's Tale we christened him “Winters Hale.” Winters boasted a large two-wheel motorbike which could fit three, so two of the “fraternity” would take turns and jump on behind Winters as he madly drove that devil bike through the black night in search of trouble.

The latest sport we had invented was to visit our actor friends in their rental houses or flats, complain bitterly about the quality of their furniture (“How can you expect decent men to drink amongst all this Swedish G Plan?”) and proceed to throw every chair and table out the window. This would occasion a kind of desperate and hysterical laughter from our hosts, especially when after the last piece had disappeared we followed suit and threw ourselves out. Needless to say, the Admiral did not participate in the acrobatics, he just observed, drink in hand, an expression of total satisfaction painted all over his face.

As we got more confident, these feats became all the more daring, especially when the windows were four storeys high. One of us always had to gather up the poor unfortunate who had landed on his back in a small tree or bush. We got to be quite expert, however, and Winters was clearly the most nimble for he executed it all with the dexterity of a stuntman and his timing was superb. After a while, he didn't even bother with the furniture gag any more. The moment he entered a room he simply threw himself out the window. We gave him a new nickname, “Windows Hale.”


Excerpted from In Spite of Myself: A Memoir , © 2008 by Christopher Plummer. Published by Alfred A. Knopf Canada. Reproduced by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved. The book will be in stores Tuesday (14th October)

Forever Liesl by Charmian Carr - Book Review

Forever Liesl: A Memoir of The Sound of Music
by Charmian Carr and Jean A.S. Strauss
Viking Penguin Books 2000

Charmian Carr's Website
Charmian Carr - Wikipedia
IMDB Sound of Music




Like most people I love The Sound of Music, I know all the words to all (well most) of the songs and I have my favourite child. So when I found this book on the shelf yesterday at the Goodwill shop, I snapped it up. And like everyone else, I too want to know what it was REALLY like on the set of The Sound of Music while it was being filmed.

Charmian Carr was 21 when she was cast in the Sound of Music to play a 16 year old teenage girl.

The Sound of Music was filmed in Los Angeles and Salzburg, Austria during 1964. I was born in 1964. My favourite songs are So Long Farewell, Do-Re-Mi and The Sound of Music (The Hills are alive). This book is Charmian's memories of the year, she and the other children spent in Los Angeles and Austria making the movie.

Even today - 40 years later - Charmian still keeps in touch with her co-stars. It is unusual that none of the children from this movie have been involved with drugs or died (committed suicide) due to their fame as a "child actor". I think that says a lot for the "family" feeling that they developed amongst themselves, and that they could call on each other if they ever needed any personal help.

Charmian (pronounced Shar_me_an, NOT Shar_mane) answers a number of questions such as the following.

What was Julie Andrews really like? (she was wonderful, a good friend and still professional)

What was Christopher Plummer really like? (he was somewhat distant - he only agreed to do the movie so that he could sing - but his song Edelweiss eventually had to be dubbed.)

Did everyone do his or her own singing? (All the children did, yes, but several other childrens voices were added just to add strength. These extra children were uncredited. One of them was Darleen Carr - Charmian's younger sister)

Who gained so much weight that in one scene she required a body double? (Hint: It wasn't Charmian.) The youngest child Kym Karath who played Gretl. By the time the mountain scenes (at the end) were filmed, Kym had grown taller and weighed quite a bit more, so Christopher Plummer had trouble carrying her on his back while they were walking over the mountains to freedom. In the distance shots, the blonde girl on Christopher's back was a double who weighed a lot less).

Why did Charmian leave motherhood and start a new career in interior design? (After her marriage fell apart - because her husband of 24 years resented the fact that he was ignored and fans always only ever wanted to speak to "Liesl" - Charmian turned to interior design because they reminded her of the old architecture of Austria.).

What was Charmian's real surname? Farnon - her father was Canadian music conductor Brian Farnon. Darleen was also born Darleen Farnon, and later changed her name to Carr as well.

And Charmian also tells the REAL story of the Von Trapp family. Yes they were real singers, and yes the Captain did marry the Governess, but not right before the Anschluss. In fact Maria married the Captain in 1926, and they had 2 daughters born in Austria before the Anschluss occurred. The youngest von Trapp son (Johannes) was born in America in 1939 after the family fled Austria and arrived in USA. Did you know that the REAL eldest Von Trapp child was a boy? His name was Rupert. The second child was the eldest daughter Agathe.

I stayed up until 1 oclock this morning reading this book. I LOVED it. If you want to know the real story of the making of the Sound of Music, then this is the book to read. Oh yes, and I read this for the Memoirs "In their Shoes" Challenge.

One last trivia question - Do you know where the name Charmian comes from?
Charmian was a character in William Shakespeare's play - Anthony and Cleopatra. She was one of Cleopatra's servants.