Posted on 07/25/2008 11:55:12 AM PDT by 300magnum
SALZBURG, Austria (Reuters) - Maria von Trapp has taken a trip down memory lane to see her old family home just before it opens as a new hotel.
Staying in the house for the first time since the von Trapps fled the Nazi regime in the late 1930s has been a deeply moving experience for the second-eldest daughter of Baron von Trapp, whose story was made famous by the "Sound of Music" film.
"Our whole life is in here, in this house," the 94-year-old told Reuters in an interview. "Especially here in the stairwell, where we always used to slide down the railings."
Von Trapp smiles as she recalls the memory of her and her six siblings clambering and playing in the villa in the leafy suburbs of Salzburg in Austria and spending nights in hammocks in the park surrounding the family home.
"My youngest sister built herself a tree house. Of course, then we all had to have one as well, we loved to climb the trees," she said.
Following the death of Baron von Trapp's first wife, aspiring nun Maria Kutschera joined the family to teach the children, fell in love with the baron and married him in 1927.
The family always sang and played instruments together, and having lost all their fortune in 1935 in the throes of the world economic crisis, their musical talent proved a saviour.
An opera singer heard the children sing in the park and entered them for a competition. Soon the von Trapps started to tour Europe and the United States as a family choir.
"We sang a lot and we sang all the time. We didn't even want to go for a walk alone, because we wanted to sing all the time together," recalls von Trapp.
"My father played the
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Leni
“I have confidence in sunshine. I have confidence in rain...” My second all-time favorite film next to Gone With the Wind.
The movie wasn’t based on the historical record but on the Broadway musical of the same name which made things more compact and dramatic.
She is indeed alive and 95.
The first rule of movie making is to make it entertaining. If you want accuracy make a documentery.
FWIW it's one of my favorite movies of all time. I just loved it.
Link to slideshow of photos.
cool story.
Welcome home Maria!
Christopher Plummer — so incredibly sexy in that movie.
No, this was quite a bit later; I'd guess early 90's.
Edwards always looked inebriated and emaciated, and she was always bubbly, ready with a genuine hug even in the parking garage...funny - even though they might arrive about the same time, they always drove separately: Julie in her black (tricked out, overly nigrafied by somebody) Mercedes, and Blake in his black Bentley. Their assigned tandem parking spot for the building was right next to mine, so we all had quite a bit of interaction.
Since my office was a handful of seafood importers, we'd drop some succulent samples of Australian lobster tails off at their office and she'd always be thrilled and follow up with proper "thank you" notes.
I'd have hit it, if hitting had been proffered...
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