Charmian Carr: Sang ‘Sixteen Going on Seventeen’ in ‘The Sound of Music’

The actor Charmian Carr, (Charmian Anne Farnon) who has died aged 73, was a supporting player who appeared in only one feature film. But that film was the perennially popular, five-Oscar-winning The Sound of Music (1965), which has attracted obsessive devotion from legions of fans.

Radiating youthful charm, Carr played Liesl, the slightly rebellious oldest daughter of the Von Trapp children, all seven of whom sang and danced to Do-Re-Mi, The Lonely Goatherd and So Long, Farewell. However, it was in the duet Sixteen Going on Seventeen that Carr had a chance to shine. Liesl makes a play for Rolfe (Daniel Truhitte), the blond telegram delivery boy, singing "I need someone older and wiser, Telling me what to do. You are 17 going on 18. I'll depend on you." When a storm breaks out, the couple shelter in a gazebo, where they dance romantically, ending with Rolfe giving Liesl a quick kiss, to her obvious delight. Carr later reprises the song in a duet with Maria (Julie Andrews), the governess.

‘Sixteen Going on Seventeen’

Carr was 21 going on 22 when she got the role of Liesl. She was a student attending San Fernando Valley State College, California, studying speech therapy and philosophy, and working in a lab for a doctor, as well as modelling on the side, when her mother arranged for her to audition for a role in

The Sound of Music

, although she had never sung or danced professionally. Yet the producer-director Robert Wise chose her over several other beginners, including Mia Farrow, Geraldine Chaplin and Teri Garr, and changed her surname from Farnon to Carr.

She was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Rita Oehmen, a vaudeville performer, and Brian Farnon, a musician. Her winning the role of Liesl came after a four-month search by Wise. She could never have imagined how popular The Sound of Music was to become. With its catchy Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, the film, set in spectacular Tyrolean scenery, grossed $200 million worldwide on its first release.

Since 1999, it has engendered an interactive entertainment in which audiences dress up as characters from the film, and sing the songs. Carr, who attended many a cast reunion, felt that singing along was a perfect therapy for people’s woes.

Musical

In 1966, she co-starred with Anthony Perkins in

Evening Primrose

, a 60-minute musical written by Stephen Sondheim. The haunting work takes place after closing in a department store inhabited by night people, including Carr as a 19-year-old who has lived in the store since she was six.

She and Perkins, as a poet seeking refuge, fall in love and attempt to escape. Carr's poignant performance, which included singing Take Me to the World and I Remember, makes one wonder why she did not become a star.

Perhaps one reason was her marriage, in 1967, to a dentist, Jay Brent, with whom she had two daughters. (They divorced in 1991.) However, she later ran an interior design firm, Charmian Carr Designs, in Encino, California. Among her faithful clients was Michael Jackson, who became a friend.

She wrote two books (co-written by Jean Strauss), Forever Liesl (2000) and Letters to Liesl (2001), a candid reminiscences of the shooting of The Sound of Music and its aftermath. In the memoirs, Carr revealed that she had a "huge crush" on Christopher Plummer, 13 years her senior, who played Capt von Trapp, her handsome widower father in the film.

Carr is survived by her daughters, Jenifer and Emily.