60 years ago The Sound of Music was released into theatres. It was produced and directed by Robert Wise from a screenplay written by Ernest Lehman and starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. The film was an adaptation of the 1959 stage musical composed by Richard Rodgers with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Lindsay and Crouse. It was based on the 1949 memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp. It was set in Salzburg, Austria and filmed in Salzburg and Los Angeles. We visited Salzburg a few years ago and saw some of the sights where the filming took place.
The film received five academy awards. It was popular throughout the world, breaking previous box-office records in 29 countries. It had an initial theatrical release that lasted four and a half years and two successful re-releases. It sold 283 million admissions worldwide and earned a total worldwide gross of $286 million.
Here are the actors, then and now:
