Biographie
Charmian Carr, born Charmian Farnon on December 28, 1942, was named after a character in William Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra," as her father admired the name. Charmian was the name of one of Cleopatra's attendants. She was the middle of three daughters. Her mother, Rita Oehmen, had a background in vaudeville alongside her brother Eddy, while her father, Brian Farnon, was a musician. Charmian recalls a happy childhood, with her older sister Shannon Farnon looking out for her and their younger sister, Darleen Carr. The family relocated from Chicago to California when she was 13, and a few years later, her father left her mother, leading to limited contact with him thereafter.
Aspiring to travel and explore Europe, Charmian did not anticipate that a film she would star in would partly be filmed there. She initially worked as a doctor's assistant until a friend of her mother's encouraged her to audition for the role of Liesl Von Trapp in the 1965 film The Sound of Music. The fictional family she portrayed became very real to her, and she considers Nicholas Hammond, who played her brother Friedrich Von Trapp, to be like a real sibling. After the film's release, she spent several years promoting it internationally.
During a break from touring, she met and married Jay Brent, with whom she had two daughters. Although she continued acting for some time, she eventually chose to focus on raising her children at home. Once her children were grown, she started a decorating business and counted Michael Jackson among her clients. She also worked with other members of her Sound of Music cast family, including Heather Menzies and her husband Robert Urich, as well as Ernest Lehman.
Charmian divorced Jay Brent in 1991. In the late 1990s, she authored a memoir titled Forever Liesl, sharing her life story and her experiences playing Liesl.
