{"id":2056225,"date":"2025-09-28T21:11:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T21:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2056225"},"modified":"2025-09-28T21:11:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T21:11:20","slug":"the-sound-of-music-star-74-shares-what-it-was-really-like-growing-up-famous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-sound-of-music-star-74-shares-what-it-was-really-like-growing-up-famous\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Sound of Music\u2019 Star, 74, Shares What It Was Really Like Growing Up Famous"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The iconic film <em>The Sound of Music<\/em> was released in 1965 and remains a classic. One of the movie&#8217;s stars, <strong>Nicholas Hammond<\/strong>, recently opened up about the difficulties of being a child actor in a film that became so universally popular.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/sound-of-music-nicholas-hammond-recalls-downside-of-childhood-fame-exclusive-11819267\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Hammond talked with People;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Hammond talked with <em>People<\/em><\/a> about playing the role of Friedrich von Trapp at the age of 14. He shared, &#8220;It was a joyous film to make.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"mb-4 border-l-2 pl-5 italic text-tertiary\">\n<div class=\"\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I&#8217;m enormously proud of having a small part in it and being a part of something that&#8217;s brought so much pleasure to so many, now billions of people over the years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><em>Nicholas Hammond, <em>People<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">As much as Hammond treasures being a part of the iconic film, the experience also came with its downsides. After the movie initially blew up, Hammond recalled that it was difficult to suddenly become &#8220;one of the seven most famous children in the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">When he left to film <em>The Sound of Music<\/em>, Hammond explained, he was attending Williamsburg Junior High School in Arlington, Virginia. He was in ninth grade, and when he returned to school during the movie&#8217;s popularity, he found the stardom was &#8220;a big thing to put on a 14-year-old.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He played Friedrich, the oldest son in the von Trapp family. The movie&#8217;s quick success followed him through his teen years, which Hammond noted &#8220;is always a bit of a challenging time for a lot of reasons.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;It can be a time of great insecurity. It can be a time of you&#8217;re having growth spurts and all that sort of thing,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">During what was an awkward time in life anyway, Hammond recalled the additional weight of experiencing &#8220;what it was like to walk into the school cafeteria and suddenly 500 people just stop eating and turn and stare at you. And it&#8217;s not what you want, but it happens.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Hammond and the other child actors from <em>The Sound of Music<\/em> remained close after filming, and he is glad that was the case. &#8220;We only had each other, really. It was only us seven that knew what that experience was like,&#8221; he explained.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The actor can see how other child actors struggled with fame, and he feels &#8220;so blessed that I had a series of good, positive experiences working with people whom I admired and who treated me respectfully.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">As a result of having a positive experience and good support system, Hammond shared, &#8220;To me, it was just the greatest job in the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Hammon had acted in a couple of projects before landing The Sound of Music, and he successfully continued his career in the years following its release. He even starred in an iconic episode of <em>The Brady Bunch<\/em>, the one where Marcia&#8217;s (<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/entertainment\/tv\/articles\/maureen-mccormick-pays-tribute-co-013148457.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:Maureen McCormick's;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\"><strong>Maureen McCormick&#8217;s<\/strong><\/a>) <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/entertainment\/tv\/articles\/maureen-mccormick-reveals-painful-secret-153053698.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:nose is hit by a football;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\">nose is hit by a football<\/a>, causing Hammond&#8217;s character to lose interest in her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">As much as Hammond struggled with the fame after <em>The Sound of Music <\/em>became a huge hit, he acknowledged that some of the other child actors from the film likely struggled more. He explained that some were &#8220;literally kids off the street of L.A. who had been plucked out by a casting director. And so I think for them it was a lot tougher, is my guess.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Despite feeling uncomfortable with the stardom as a teen, ultimately, Hammond said the overall experience was &#8220;always a good thing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;It was never a bad thing,&#8221; Hammond stated. He shared that he never felt he had lost his childhood by doing the film, nor did he regret it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><i>This story was originally reported by <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/parade.com\/news\/the-sound-of-music-star-74-shares-what-it-was-really-like-growing-up-famous\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Parade;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Parade<\/a> on Sep 28, 2025, where it first appeared in the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/parade.com\/news\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:News;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/google.com\/preferences\/source?q=parade.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Preferred Source by clicking here.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The iconic film The Sound of Music was released in 1965 and remains a classic. One of the movie&#8217;s stars, Nicholas Hammond, recently opened up about the difficulties of being a child actor in a film that became so universally popular. Hammond talked with People about playing the role of Friedrich von Trapp at the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2056226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[382623,382622,362684],"class_list":["post-2056225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-friedrich-von-trapp","tag-nicholas-hammond","tag-the-sound-of-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/\u2018The-Sound-of-Music-Star-74-Shares-What-It-Was.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2056225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2056226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2056225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2056225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2056225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}