Why Julie Andrews Never Dated Her ‘The Sound of Music’ Co-Star Christopher Plummer

By ERIC NOLL and ALEXA VALIENTE via 20/20

 

Julie Andrews gets together with Christopher Plummer at the Roundabout Theatre Company's 2002 Spring Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street, where he was honored with the first Jason Robards Award for Excellence in Theatre.

Richard Corkery/NY Daily News/Getty Images

While Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer admitted to having crushes on each other while filming “The Sound of Music,” they say they were never more than friends.

“[We] should have ended up together. We should have had a huge smashing affair. But there was no time because she had her children with her, which was most inconvenient,” Plummer, 85, told ABC News’ Diane Sawyer in the upcoming Diane Sawyer "20/20" special, “The Untold Story of ‘The Sound of Music,’” which airs on Wednesday, March 18, at 10 p.m. ET. 

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In the 1965 film, Andrews played the nun Maria who fell in love with Plummer’s character Captain von Trapp.

During the movie’s production, both Andrews and Plummer were in dissolving marriages.

“Truthfully, I was not terribly happy at the time. I was quite lonely. Tony was working, and our marriage was a little rocky, my first husband,” Andrews told Diane Sawyer. 

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PHOTO: Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer are seen here in a scene from the 1965 film "The Sound of Music."

With his impending separation from his wife, Plummer’s solution was to go out every night playing piano and drinking in hotels. Andrews, on location without her husband, celebrated set designer Tony Walton, spent her nights in her hotel room alone with her nearly 2-year-old daughter Emma.

“I did have Emma, but I was so busy. I mean, I literally was almost in every shot, just about,” Andrews said.

Though she did have a crush on Plummer, Andrews said their relationship never amounted to anything more than friendship.

“We were never an item, as they say,” Andrews said. “But now we are the best of friends. We became the best of friends, and that's lovely … probably because we weren't an item.”

Tune in to “The Untold Story of ‘The Sound of Music,’” a Diane Sawyer "20/20" special, Wednesday, March 18, at 10 p.m. ET.

"The Sound of Music" full photo credit: THE SOUND OF MUSIC © 1965 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Argyle Enterprises. Renewed © 1993 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Argyle Enterprises. © 1998 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Robert E. Wise. All Rights Reserved