A couple of years ago I had what I though would be a great idea: to create a posting on this website where I could periodically add cast members from The Sound of Music that I happened to meet. The hope was that one day I would piece together a complete set of autographs and encounters with them. Not only was The Sound of Music an Oscar winner for Best Picture, but it also holds a degree of sentimental value, having grown up with repeated viewings.
The bad news is that the posting (located here) that I speak of has become obsolete. The good news is that less than a year after I wrote it, I was able to complete the entire set in one fell swoop. If you were to go back and review that posting, you’d see the three photos upon which I had begun to get autographs, plus you’d see my encounters with two of the kids: Nicholas Hammond (Friedrich) and Angela Cartwright (Brigitta).
Understandably, I was excited when I found out that all seven of them would be appearing at the Hollywood Show on April 21, 2012. I also started to section off a wad of cash, as I decided to just go ahead and bite the bullet and have all of the photos completed with signatures.
Fortunately, the pricing wasn’t too outrageous: $20 each. You can do the math on how much the final product was, considering the autographs I already had. Then I put aside another roll of money ($150) to get a photo op with the complete cast. Pretty soon I had renamed the song Do Re Mi to Dough Leave Me. But I figured that this was the opportunity of a lifetime.
The painful part of the day was waiting for the photo op. The ‘kids’ had all gone out to lunch and were supposed to be back at 2:30pm for the scheduled photo. However, they all arrived back at different times. Since they couldn’t do the photo until they were all there, they each sat at the table again as they straggled in, so this was when I got all of them…except Charmian Carr (Liesl). Once she arrived, the photo shoot began over an hour late.
Getting the autographs wasn’t all that painful. They were lined up at a long table, but there was an individual line for each of them (as I had suggested to the event organizers on their Facebook page). Much to my surprise, all of the cast members each posed for individual photos with me as well. Only Kym Karath (sweet little Gretl) put up a fuss about the photo, but I assured her that I was buying a group shot and just wanted an individual photo to honor her…well, individually. I almost regretted paying for the group photo op since I had gotten individual shots with them, but then realized again that this might be a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Here are the indidual photos from youngest to oldest:
Kym Karath as Gretl
Debbie Turner as Marta
Angela Cartwright as Brigitta
Duane Chase as Kurt. God bless Kurt.
Heather Menzies as Louisa
Nicholas Hammond as Friedrich
Charmian Carr as Liesl
After the photo was taken, I went back and got my signatures from Charmian Carr, which completed all three of my photos. Then I waited until my photo was printed. I was quite pleased with the results and it’s something I will always treasure.
As a postscript, the cast did reunite again at the Hollywood Show on October 5, 2013. Carolyn was ecstatic to get her chance for a cast shot. Unfortunately, this time Charmian Carr was more than late…she didn’t show up at all. Carolyn was a good sport about it though, and went ahead and got the cast shot with the six kids who were present (as can be seen here).
Celebrity encounters from the Spring 2012 Hollywood Show will continue…
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