If Mary Poppins introduced Julie Andrews to film audiences, The Sound of Music made her a worldwide household name.
The Sound of Music was released in 1965, directed by Robert Wise and based on the stage musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Andrews played Maria, a young woman training to become a nun in Austria who is sent to work as governess to the seven children of Captain Georg von Trapp, played by Christopher Plummer. The story was inspired by the real von Trapp family, although the film, like the stage musical, reshaped their story for the screen.
Maria’s arrival changes the household. The Captain has run his home with military discipline since the death of his wife, and music has been silenced. Through Maria, the children sing again, and the Captain himself rediscovers music. The film’s songs include Do-Re-Mi, My Favorite Things and Edelweiss, and its Alpine locations gave the story a scale that matched its emotional sweep.
Andrews’s performance is at the centre of that success. She played Maria with energy and directness, without turning her into a simple figure of innocence. Maria is headstrong, often late and often in trouble, and Andrews made those faults part of her charm. Her singing, clear and unforced, carried the film’s most famous sequences, from the opening on the mountainside to the family’s escape over the Alps as Austria faced annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938.
The film became one of the most successful releases of its time and has remained in regular circulation ever since, through cinema revivals, television broadcasts and stage productions. For Andrews, it confirmed that Mary Poppins had not been a single success. Within two years she had played two roles that would define her public image, and The Sound of Music remains the film most often cited when her name is mentioned.