TRIVIA TODAY - Monday, March 9, 2015

Greetings Infomaniacs,

It is hard to believe it's been 50 years since the film version of the musical The Sound of Music was released. In honor of this anniversary, here are some fun facts about the hit musical that will have you twirling your way down memory lane...

Enjoy!
Melissa

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Questions? Comments? Email Melissa


WHO SAID IT?
QUOTE: "Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens."

HINT: (1905-1987), her story served as the inspiration for a 1956 German film that in turn inspired the Broadway musical The Sound of Music (1959) and the 1965 film of the same name.


RANDOM TIDBITS
It's no secret that The Sound of Music was based on a true story, but there were plenty of differences between Maria Kutschera's 1949 memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers and the film. For one thing, Maria was brought to the von Trapp home to care for one child who had scarlet fever and was too ill to walk to school, not all seven children.

The Sound of Music was the eighth and final musical written by Rodgers and Hammerstein, but Hammerstein never saw the movie. He died of stomach cancer nine months after the Broadway premiere.

The original cast recording of The Sound of Music was nearly as popular as the show itself. Recorded just a week after the show's Broadway premiere and released by Columbia Records, the album was number one on the Billboard charts for 16 weeks.

When it came to the movie, Julie Andrews wasn't the first choice for Maria! Producers wanted Grace Kelly or Doris Day to replace her. Mary Poppins (for which Andrews would win an Oscar) hadn't hit screens yet and they didn't know if she had the star power to carry the feature film. (Day ruled herself out as "too American.")

While filming the iconic opening scene, twirling in the hills of Austria, Andrews kept getting knocked down in the mud by the gusts from the helicopter carrying the camera.

One of Maria von Trapp's biggest beefs with the film was with the geography. Not only does Salzburg not border on Switzerland, but taking that route out of Austria would have sent them straight towards Berchtesgaden, Hitler's summer retreat.

(www.broadway.com)


*** Weekly Mind-Scrambler ***
Pronounced as one letter,
And written with three,
Two letters there are,
And two only in me.
I'm double, I'm single,
I'm black, blue, and gray,
I'm read from both ends,
And the same either way.

What am I?

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WHO SAID IT?
QUOTE: "Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens."

ANSWER: Maria Augusta von Trapp.

***
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