‘The Sound of Music’ Turns 60 – Shocking Behind-the-Scenes Secrets Revealed

It’s hard to believe, but The Sound of Music — one of Hollywood’s most beloved classics — is turning 60 this year. While the sweeping hills of Austria looked idyllic on screen, the making of this Oscar-winning blockbuster was anything but smooth sailing. From near-drownings and injuries to stars secretly hating their roles, Radar has uncovered all the drama you never knew about the 1965 musical masterpiece.

While the world fell in love with Captain Georg von Trapp, actor Christopher Plummer… didn’t. In his 2008 autobiography, In Spite of Myself, Plummer admitted he called the film “The Sound of Mucus” and nicknamed it “S&M”. He confessed he was bored by the role, saying, “Although we worked hard enough to make him interesting, it was a bit like flogging a dead horse. It’s just not my cup of tea.”

That iconic opening scene of Maria twirling in the mountains came at a price. Andrews revealed that a helicopter was filming overhead, and its powerful downdraft repeatedly knocked her flat into the grass. “Every time the helicopter circled around me, the downdraft just flattened me. I braced myself and thought, ‘It’s not going to get me this time,’ but every single time, I bit the dust,” she recalled.

The tension wasn’t just on screen — it happened behind the scenes too. Kym Karath, who played 5-year-old Gretl, nearly drowned while filming the famous rowboat scene when the boat overturned. Andrews was supposed to save her but fell the wrong way and couldn’t reach her. “I went under, I swallowed a lot of water, which I then vomited all over Heather,” Karath said, crediting co-star Heather Menzies, who played Louisa, for pulling her to safety.

Charmian Carr, who played Liesl, was injured during the romantic Sixteen Going on Seventeen gazebo scene when she slipped through glass and sprained her ankle. Meanwhile, the real Maria von Trapp made a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo, appearing with her daughter and granddaughter in the background as Andrews’ Maria leaves the abbey.

While the film made their story iconic, it wasn’t entirely accurate. In real life, Maria and Georg von Trapp had already been married for 11 years when they fled Austria in 1938. They escaped by train to Italy — not over the mountains to Switzerland — and had two children of their own with a third on the way. Maria even admitted in her memoir, “I really and truly was not in love. I liked him, but didn’t love him. However, I loved the children, so in a way I really married the children.”

Despite all the chaos behind the scenes, The Sound of Music became a global phenomenon. It won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and earned around $286 million at the box office — that’s over $2 billion today.

Sixty years later, audiences still can’t resist singing along to “Do-Re-Mi,” but now you know: those picture-perfect scenes came with some serious drama.