The 1965 film The Sound of Music won five academy awards, and along with a popular Broadway musical, made Maria and Georg von Trapp and their children household names.
This year, Maria Franziska von Trapp, the last surviving sibling of the original singers, died at her home in Stowe. She was 99.
In the film and musical, Maria's character was renamed Louisa. And, if you remember, she was the mischievous one who liked to hide spiders in the governess's bed.
Hollywood and Broadway also took other liberties; in the film, Louisa is about 13 years old when her family flees Nazi Europe, hiking over the Alps. But in real life, Maria, who was the third oldest of the children, was 24 when the family fled – by train.
After they escaped from Austria in the 1940s, the von Trapp family settled in the hills of Vermont. They continued to tour as the Trapp Family Singers, and opened a ski lodge in Stowe.
Vermont Edition's Nina Keck talks with Elisabeth von Trapp about her aunt’s life and the legacy of the family here in Vermont. William Anderson, author of The World of the Trapp Family, joins the conversation.
Also on the show, we hear from Vermont screenwriter John Fusco, who was inspired to write about Marco Polo when his son insisted they ride on horseback through Mongolia. Fusco's TV series about the Italian explorer premiered on Netflix earlier this month.
