The American actor who played Liesl’s boyfriend Rolfe Gruber in the classic family movie The Sound Of Music says he’s lucky to be alive after suffering two heart attacks.
Daniel Truhitte, now 81, portrayed the Hitler Youth member who danced with Liesl in the gazebo to the song Sixteen Going On Seventeen in the 1965 film starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer which is now 60 years old.
Speaking exclusively from his home in North Carolina, Daniel, who’s on his third marriage and has six children and 13 grandchildren, reveals: ‘I had my first heart attack on Christmas Day of 2019, and the second at a funeral in June of 2022.
‘That second one I had, they couldn’t get my heart started. Then they got it started for a short time and it quit again.
‘It didn’t look like I was gonna make it, but then all of a sudden they got it going. I was in ICU for five days that I can’t even remember. They didn’t expect me to be here, but I am and I’m fine now.’
The American actor who played Liesl’s boyfriend Rolfe Gruber in the classic family movie, (right), The Sound Of Music has said he’s lucky to be alive after suffering two heart attacks
Daniel Truhitte, now 81, portrayed the Hitler Youth member who danced with Liesl in the gazebo to the song Sixteen Going On Seventeen in the 1965 film
Daniel went on to star in stage shows in Las Vegas, but no other movies…until now.
He has cameos in the films Stand In The Gap and One By One, both starring Heather Ricks who narrates the new documentary A Life Of Music: The Daniel Truhitte Story which is available on Amazon Prime.
‘One of the reasons we did this documentary…I wanted to make sure I got this done while I’m still on Earth’ Daniel explains.
‘I am thrilled with it. I can tell you from the bottom of my heart I’ve wanted this so bad. Not just for the public but for my children and grandchildren.’
It’s also given Daniel satisfaction to be properly recognised, having long been excluded from many events involving the actors who portrayed the Von Trapp children in The Sound Of Music.
Charmian Carr who played Liesl died in 2016, and Heather Menzies who played Louisa died in 2017.
Nicholas Hammond (Friedrich), Duane Chase (Kurt), Angela Cartwright (Brigitta), Debbie Turner (Marta), and Kym Karath (Gretl), have very recently been celebrating the film’s 60th anniversary in Austria where it was set and made. But yet again Daniel was not invited to join them.
‘A lot of people have been big fans of mine all these years. But I’ve hardly ever participated in events with the seven children, so I was never really known.
‘Yet I’ve got quite a story with Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer and all the different places I’ve gone. I enjoyed spending time with the children when we made the movie.
Daniel said: ‘I was in ICU for five days that I can’t even remember. They didn’t expect me to be here, but I am and I’m fine now’
‘But pretty much over the last 60 years they’ve done their own type of documentaries. I’ve not been a part of many of those things over the years. They just didn’t have me. I have not been contacted.
‘I don’t know what the particular reason was, if it was the part that I played,’ ponders Daniel whose character Rolfe betrays the Von Trapps in a climactic scene. ‘I try to blame it on being a Nazi! But hey I’m an actor.
‘I and Julie Andrews are the only living principals in the movie, as well as anybody else including producers and directors and Rodgers & Hammerstein. Everybody’s gone, there’s just Julie Andrews and myself. It might be another interest for people that I’m still here.’
Born in Sacramento, California, on September 10th 1943, during World War 2, Daniel describes his young self as ‘a war baby’.
At six, Daniel joined his sister at dance classes, and ‘voice lessons’ led to him becoming a boy soprano – talents that won him scholarships and took him to Los Angeles.
He’d had plenty of stage experience by the time he auditioned for The Sound Of Music.
‘I was told to go to 20th Century Fox and join ‘a little line’, but there were at least 500 blonde guys in line taken 10 seconds at a time to shoot footage to show Richard Rodgers.
‘The first time, I didn’t hear back from them because they were into having a (naturally) blond Rolfe. But the movie went into production and they still couldn’t find someone who could sing and dance and play a Nazi believably.
‘Second time I got to dance, which wasn’t difficult because they wanted us to look like kids having fun in a dancing style. And another time I got to sing Sixteen Going On Seventeen to a room full of people including the director Bob Wise, and it put a smile on everyone’s face.’
Hence Daniel, who beat the likes of Jon Voight (who’d played Rolfe on Broadway) to the part, became the last person cast in the movie.
Daniel, who beat the likes of Jon Voight (who’d played Rolfe on Broadway) to the part, was the last person cast in the movie
‘They sent me to wardrobe and dyed my hair blond because they wanted that arian Hitler Youth look. On my first day, I was taken to the daily rushes in a small theatre where I met the cast.
‘I sat down behind Julie Andrews and practised what I was going to say to her. As soon as the rushes were over, she turned round and said ‘You must be Daniel Truhitte. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Congratulations on getting the part of Rolfe.’ ‘
‘My jaw was on the ground. I couldn’t believe she was talking to me. The sweetest, most wonderful person you could ever want to meet. She was so gracious and we had a wonderful time together.’
The two main scenes involving Rolf – in the gazebo, and in the convent crypt – were filmed in the opposite order from which they are shown.
‘I actually got the part because of that last scene, and that was the first scene I shot. The last thing I shot was the gazebo scene with Liesl, which a lot of people consider THE scene of the whole movie,’ he said.
Many years ago, Daniel sang on Sound Of Music sightseeing tours in Austria and Germany, which included a visit to the gazebo where Rolf and girlfriend Liesl’s duet Sixteen Going On Seventeen was shot. Or was it?
‘I’d usually go along with this, but we never actually filmed in any gazebo in Austria’ he confides. ‘The gazebo we filmed in was back in Hollywood, along with water sprayers and rain machines, and we were singing to playbacks.
‘Charmian (Carr as Liesl) slipped in the water and put a foot through one of the panes of glass, so if you look closely you can see her leg was bandaged…but with modern technology you can’t tell anymore.
‘The food in Austria was excellent, especially the incredible pastries. Everybody put weight on. When I got back to Hollywood before they shot the final gazebo scenes I was told ‘Dan you need to drop a bit of weight!’
These are among many fantasy-destroying confessions Daniel comes up with, sadly including the fact that he and Charmian didn’t have a real-life romance. Oh and they were well past their teens then too.
Daniel won’t reveal much he got for his significant contribution, but says: ‘At the time I thought I was well-paid, and it’s nice to still get residual cheques for something I did 60 years ago’
‘I was 20 and she was 22. I thought she was a beautiful girl and we had good chemistry, but we stayed in different hotels and never spent a lot of time together off-stage. So we never developed a romantic relationship, and we had other boyfriends and girlfriends. Charmian is gone, but I still think of her today and I miss her.’
In fact, Charmian’s stand-in Gabriele became Daniel’s girlfriend and in 1966 his first wife. Amusingly, her parents were named Rolf and Liesl, and Daniel and Gabriele called two of their three sons Rolf (one as a first name, the other as a middle name).
Remembering a scene where Rolfe throws pebbles at a window to attract Liesl’s attention, Daniel confides: ‘The first time I threw one, I broke the window. The second time, a maid stuck her head out and asked what was going on! We laughed and laughed, but that scene took more time than it was supposed to.
Daniel is delighted Rolfe turns traitor at the end of The Sound Of Music.
‘Rolfe turning the (Von Trapp) family in was not in the original Broadway show. He said, ‘They’re not here’, which was a bit anti-climactic. So they went to work on the role and had me blow the whistle on them, so I was the scapegoat!
‘I would like Rolfe to have taken off with Liesl but I didn’t have any say in it. But it was a much better role in the film. After shooting that scene, Christopher Plummer said to me ‘That went really well, excellent!’
‘People always ask about the German Luger I had in that scene, but I don’t have it. I should have just stuck it in my pocket. The only memento I have is my script and a letter from Rogers & Hammerstein’s production company thanking and congratulating me for being a part of the movie.’
Daniel won’t reveal much he got for his significant contribution, but says: ‘At the time I thought I was well-paid, and it’s nice to still get residual cheques for something I did 60 years ago, but when you think of the greatness of the movie it was not much. It’s still in the thousands, but you’d think hundreds of thousands when you think of what maybe some of the others get.’
Most juvenile leads in major movies would make themselves very available for subsequent interest, particularly in Hollywood. However, Daniel did nothing of the sort.
‘After I did The Sound Of Music, I went with friends from my hometown into the Marine Corps. I didn’t even go to the Premiere as I was in boot camp. The first time I saw the movie I was in uniform at a theatre in New York. My marine buddies were beside themselves that I was in this film and I was very happy that it had come together as it did. After that the drill instructors called me Private Hollywood!’
The Sound of Music starred Julie Andrews as Maria Von Trapp
Although Daniel remained in the US and wasn’t called to combat, he says: ‘I was on six months active duty and five year reserve. I always tell everybody ‘If you don’t like me as a Nazi, the greatest punishment I could have had was to join the Marine Corps!’
On quitting the Marines, Daniel toured with dance legend Juliet Prowse (who was best-known for being engaged to Frank Sinatra and co-starring in GI Blues with Elvis Presley), and in 1977 he played Gene Kelly in the MGM Grand’s Las Vegas production of Hallelujah Hollywood.
‘It gets a little old doing the same show night after night. But I got to hang with The Rat Pack in Vegas, and the one I liked the best was Sammy Davis Jr.’
Since 1982 Daniel, who has three sons, has lived in North Carolina, and since 1992 he’s been wed to wife No.3, Tarealia, who has three daughters he considers his own.
‘We live in a gorgeous two-storey house on 14 acres with the room I teach in (on a big white grand piano) deliberately shaped like a gazebo, and there’s a beautiful pool in front.’
Daniel has been teaching ‘voice’ for several decades, during which his performing life has largely comprised Sound Of Music related projects, including playing Captain Von Trapp in a local production when he was 50.
‘I’ve had a wonderful life with The Sound Of Music’ he says. ‘It’s been a constant part of my life and an endless blessing. We knew at the time of making it that we had something wonderful, but we didn’t know it was going to have longevity. It plays three times a year in the United States. They love it everywhere, including China.
‘I’ve heard thousands of stories of how the film has had an affect on people’s lives. Like no other, the following is incredible. I get lots of messages a year from fans all over the World, and a large per centage is from Britain.
‘How many people have that to take with them through their life? If you’re going to only do one film, you couldn’t do better than The Sound Of Music. Somebody recently posted online a picture of Rolfe and Liesl and it got 2 million hits – that shows the following this movie still has.’
You can’t help but wonder if Daniel feels he should have done a lot better than feature prominently in only one film, no matter how great it was.
‘I don’t think so. At my age, there are more important things than how much you did in terms of film and television. This is the life that I chose and I’m content with how things worked out.’
Having said that though, Daniel later adds: ‘When I look back on my career, on the one hand I’m very satisfied and on the other I’m not satisfied at all. I’m very satisfied with being the juvenile lead in the greatest film of all time.
‘But on the other hand, I probably should have spent more time socialising with the rest of the cast, especially the main players. That would probably have made things better for me in terms of future jobs.
‘And maybe joining the Marines wasn’t the best career move at that time. But I wasn’t trying to be a big Hollywood star. I didn’t pursue it, and I didn’t stay in LA. Maybe I should have stayed in LA and tried harder to break more into the business.
‘But I’m now going on 82 and I can still sing and perform. I’d even put on tap shoes if I had to. I’m a very blessed man in my golden age to be in the position that I’m in with what’s happening.
‘I really appreciate that this documentary has come along for me at this time. And I got to be in the most wonderful film a person could ever hope to be in, I’ve never grown tired of it, I’m proud of the part I played, and I’m a part of it forever.’