Maria Von Trapp

About

Matriarch of the renowned Trapp Family Singers who inspired the musical The Sound of Music.

Before Fame

She was a schoolteacher at a monastery preparing to become a nun when the father of one her charges asked to adopt her. Later, after his own wife died, he asked Maria to marry him.

Trivia

After her family's singing was heard on the radio, they were invited to perform by the Austrian government and became known after a popular festival performance.

Family Life

She was born on a train on its way to a hospital in Vienna and, by age seven, she had lost both of her parents.

Associated With

Christopher Plummer played the character of her husband, Captain Von Trapp, on Broadway.