Oldest Sound of Music Daughter Dead at 73

Charmian Carr, the actress best known for sweetly portraying the eldest von Trapp daughter in Rogers & Hammerstein's The Sound of Music, has died. She was 73. Carr died Saturday of complications from a rare form of dementia in Los Angeles, a spokesman tells the AP. At age 21, the actress portrayed Liesl von Trapp in the beloved 1965 movie. She famously performed the song "Sixteen Going on Seventeen." After The Sound of Music, Carr's only other major Hollywood role was starring with Anthony Perkins in the Stephen Sondheim television musical Evening Primrose. She went on to become an interior designer in southern California.

"It's always sad when a member of the family passes away—and in the case of the 'family' of the movie The Sound of Music, it's especially sad when it is the first of the group to go," said Rogers & Hammerstein president Ted Chapin. Carr "played the oldest von Trapp child, and in some ways she maintained that role in real life—guiding, cheering, supporting, and generally being there for the rest of her 'sisters' and 'brothers.'" Carr is survived by her four siblings, her two children, and four grandchildren. She is also survived by the six other actors who became part of cinematic history when they were cast as the von Trapp children. (The last of the real von Trapps died in 2014.)