Vintage pictures of the real The Sound of Music family
Released in 1965, The Sound of Music is the fifth highest grossing film of all time. It was so popular that it ran on unbroken release at cinemas worldwide for four and a half years.
However, the hit musical only tells a true story up to a point.
The film was an adaptation of the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein II musical of the same name, which itself was based on Maria von Trapp's book The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. Johannes von trap, Georg and Maria’s youngest son was quotes as saying “This was the Hollywood version of the Broadway version of the German film version of the book that my mother wrote”.
There were many alteration and omissions from the movie. For example, there were 10, not seven von Trapp children. The names, ages, and sexes of the children were changed. The family was musically inclined before Maria arrived, but she did teach them to sing madrigals. Also, Maria came to the von Trapp family in 1926 as a tutor for one of the children, Maria, who was recovering from scarlet fever, not as governess to all the children.
Scroll through the gallery to see the vintage images of the real von Trapp family.
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