Seven children lined up on a grand staircase and sang “So Long, Farewell” one by one, and the smallest of them sang the last goodnight. That moment has played in living rooms for 61 years now. The Sound of Music premiered on March 2, 1965. It went on to win five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and it became the movie families watched together every time it came back on television.
The people who made it have aged right alongside the audience. Peggy Wood was already in her 70s when the cameras rolled in Salzburg, while the youngest von Trapp was about 5. Below is every main Sound of Music cast member and the answer to the question fans search most: who from The Sound of Music is still alive today? We start with those we have lost and save the living cast for the end.
Is Peggy Wood still alive?
Peggy Wood played the Mother Abbess, the wise head of Nonnberg Abbey who sends Maria back to the von Trapps with “Climb Ev’ry Mountain.” Television viewers already knew her as the star of the CBS family series Mama, which ran from 1949 to 1957.
The Sound of Music was her final screen appearance, and it brought her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Her big number in the film was sung by Margery MacKay.
Peggy Wood died on March 18, 1978, in Stamford, Connecticut, after a stroke. She was 86. Her on-screen sparring partner in Salzburg was a far more comic presence.
Is Richard Haydn still alive?
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Richard Haydn played Max Detweiler, the charming freeloader and music promoter who enters the von Trapp children in the Salzburg Festival. The London-born actor had a voice audiences already knew. He was the hookah-smoking Caterpillar in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland in 1951.
Haydn kept working after the film. Comedy fans spotted him in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein in 1974. He died of a heart attack at his home in Pacific Palisades, California, on April 25, 1985. He was 80. Three of the nuns who helped the family escape had stories of their own.
Are Anna Lee, Portia Nelson and Marni Nixon still alive?
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Anna Lee played Sister Margaretta and Portia Nelson played Sister Berthe. They are the two nuns who confess “I have sinned” to the Mother Abbess before revealing the engine parts they pulled from the Nazi cars. Lee went on to a long run as matriarch Lila Quartermaine on General Hospital from 1979 to 2003. She died of pneumonia on May 14, 2004, at 91.
Nelson wrote the poem “Autobiography in Five Short Chapters,” which became a staple of recovery groups, often printed without her name. She died in New York City on March 6, 2001, at 80, after her cancer returned.
Marni Nixon played Sister Sophia. Her face was new to moviegoers, but her voice was not. She had sung uncredited for Deborah Kerr in The King and I, Natalie Wood in West Side Story and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. Sister Sophia was her first onscreen film role. Nixon died of breast cancer in New York City on July 24, 2016, at 86. Maria’s rival for the Captain was played by a star with three Oscar nominations.
Is Eleanor Parker still alive?
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Eleanor Parker played Baroness Elsa Schraeder, the elegant fiancée who quietly bows out when she sees the Captain’s heart belongs to Maria. By 1965 Parker had already been nominated for Best Actress three times, for Caged, Detective Story and Interrupted Melody.
Parker died of complications from pneumonia on December 9, 2013, at a medical facility near her Palm Springs home. She was 91. Christopher Plummer paid tribute to her in a statement reported by Fox News. “Eleanor Parker was and is one of the most beautiful ladies I have ever known,” he said. Three years later, the eldest von Trapp daughter was gone as well.
Is Charmian Carr still alive?
Charmian Carr played Liesl, the oldest von Trapp child, who danced through “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” in the gazebo. According to Playbill, she won the part over Patty Duke and Mia Farrow.
Carr then left acting after her 1967 marriage and opened an interior design firm in Encino, California. Her best-known client was Michael Jackson, a huge fan of the film. She also wrote two books about the experience, Forever Liesl and Letters to Liesl.
Carr died on September 17, 2016, in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, from complications of a rare form of dementia. She was 73. Little more than a year later, her on-screen sister Louisa followed.
Is Heather Menzies still alive?
Heather Menzies played Louisa, the third von Trapp child and the one who tries to fool Maria by swapping names with Brigitta. As an adult she starred as Jessica 6 in the TV series Logan’s Run from 1977 to 1978. In 1975 she married actor Robert Urich, and they stayed together until his death from cancer in 2002.
After losing him, she founded the Robert Urich Foundation to raise money for cancer research and patient support. She was diagnosed with brain cancer in November 2017. Menzies died in Ontario on December 24, 2017, at 68, as TheaterMania and other outlets reported. The Captain himself lived another three years.
Is Christopher Plummer still alive?
Christopher Plummer played Captain Georg von Trapp, the stern widower who melts when he hears his children sing. For years he kept his distance from the role. He called it “that movie” and even “The Sound of Mucus.” Later he softened and spoke of the terrific memories it left him.
At 82 he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Beginners, which made him the oldest acting winner at that time. He earned another Oscar nomination for All the Money in the World at 88 and charmed a new generation as Harlan Thrombey in Knives Out in 2019.
Plummer died at his home in Weston, Connecticut, on February 5, 2021. He was 91. According to TVLine and other reports, his wife Elaine Taylor was by his side, and she told The New York Times he had struck his head in a fall. Everyone in the rest of this list is still with us.
Is Daniel Truhitte still alive?
Yes. Daniel Truhitte played Rolf, the telegram boy who sings “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” with Liesl before choosing the Nazi party over the family. He was born September 10, 1943, which makes him 83 today. After the film he served in the U.S. Marine Corps, then settled in North Carolina, where he has taught young performers for decades.
He has even played Captain von Trapp in local productions. He has also survived two heart attacks, a story he shared in recent years. For the film’s 60th anniversary in 2025, he told Spectrum News that he lives in Concord with his wife, and the couple has six children and 13 grandchildren. “Sixty years, yeah, 17 going on 82,” he joked. The von Trapp children have aged into grandparents too, starting with Kurt.
Is Duane Chase still alive?
Yes. Duane Chase played Kurt, the younger of the two von Trapp sons. He was born December 12, 1950, so he is 75 today. He left acting after a few more credits, including Disney’s Follow Me, Boys!
He earned a geology degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1976 and a master’s in geology from the University of Alabama. He has lived in Washington State. According to Parade, Chase joined three of his film siblings at Schloss Leopoldskron this fall, 62 years after filming there. One of them was Marta.
Is Debbie Turner still alive?
Yes. Debbie Turner played Marta, the second-youngest, who told Maria she wanted a pink parasol for her birthday. She was born September 5, 1956, which makes her 70 today. She left the film business soon after the movie and went back to school.
By 1985 she had moved to Chanhassen, Minnesota, where she and her husband Rick raised four daughters. She built a career as a floral and event designer, and Parade reports she has run her company, Debbie Turner Originals, for about 30 years. You can read more about why she walked away from Hollywood in our story on Debbie Turner’s life after the film. Turner was part of both Salzburg reunions, in November 2025 and again this fall. So was the little girl who sang the last goodnight on that staircase.
Is Kym Karath still alive?
Yes. Kym Karath played Gretl, the youngest von Trapp, who was about 5 during filming. She was born August 4, 1958, so she is 68 today. She kept acting into her 20s, with guest roles on The Brady Bunch and The Waltons.
Her son Eric suffered severe brain damage from viral meningitis when he was three weeks old, and he lives with her today. “I have not gone back to acting quite honestly because my son is really the center of my life,” she said in remarks reported by Parade. She founded the Aurelia Foundation, whose Creative Steps Program serves young adults with disabilities.
She told Fox News Digital in 2025 that the secret to their bond is “staying close, loyal, and being there for one another.” Of their famous governess, she added, “There is never a bad moment with Julie Andrews.” Brigitta, the sister who saw through everyone, came next.
Is Angela Cartwright still alive?
Yes. Angela Cartwright played Brigitta, the bookish daughter who tells Maria she is in love with the Captain before Maria will admit it. She was born September 9, 1952, in Altrincham, England, which makes her 74 today. Right after the film she became Penny Robinson on Lost in Space from 1965 to 1968.
Cartwright later turned to photography and has run a studio in Studio City, Los Angeles, for about 30 years. She joined Turner and Karath in Salzburg in November 2025, as covered in our story on the Salzburg reunion. In March 2026, Parade ran photos of her on an errand in Los Angeles, her hair now completely white. That leaves the eldest son and the woman who taught them all to sing.
Is Nicholas Hammond still alive?
Yes. Nicholas Hammond played Friedrich, the oldest von Trapp son. He was born May 15, 1950, so he is 76 today. Fame arrived fast for a ninth-grader. He told People in 2025 what it was like “to walk into the school cafeteria and suddenly 500 people just stop eating and turn and stare at you.” Still, he added, “it was always a good thing. It was never a bad thing.”
Hammond became the first live-action Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man from 1977 to 1979. In 1986 he went to Australia to film The Challenge, stayed, and became an Australian citizen. He has worked there as an actor and writer ever since. Hammond was part of this fall’s return to Salzburg with Chase, Turner and Karath. One cast member has outlasted everyone else on this list.
Is Julie Andrews still alive?
Yes, and she is still winning awards. Julie Andrews played Maria, the postulant who could not stop singing on the mountaintop. She was born October 1, 1935, in Walton-on-Thames, England, and turned 91 just over two weeks ago. You can read about her remarkable life in our Julie Andrews birthday story.
Her voice found a new audience as Lady Whistledown, the unseen narrator of Netflix’s Bridgerton. In September 2025 she won an Emmy for the role at 89, making her the oldest woman to win a Primetime Emmy. On September 6, 2026, she won it again. According to Geo News, she did not attend, and she has never met the Bridgerton cast in person because she records her lines separately.
She has also made peace with the end of her on-screen career. Asked in August about appearing in another Princess Diaries film, she told The Hollywood Reporter, “I think the absolute truth is that I think I’m really past all that now.” So the governess is 91, and five of her seven film children are still here. Four of them returned to Salzburg together just weeks ago.
