The Sound of Music (film) of the film; the actor accepted after being assured that he could work with Lehman to improve the character; Plummer later described himself as having become quite arrogant at the time, "spoiled by too many great theater roles". Wise also spent considerable time and effort on casting the secondary characters. For the role of Max Detweiler, Wise initially considered Victor Borge, Noël Coward, and Hal Holbrook among others before deciding on Richard Haydn. For the character of Baroness Elsa Schraeder, Wise looked for a "name" actress—Andrews and Plummer were not yet widely known to film audiences—and decided on Eleanor Parker.
The Sound of Music (film) New York City and ran on Broadway for 1,443 performances, winning six Tony Awards, including Best Musical. In June 1960, Twentieth Century Fox purchased the film adaptation rights to the stage musical for $1.25 million () against ten percent of the gross. For the film, Richard Rodgers added two new songs, "I Have Confidence" and "Something Good", for which he wrote the lyrics as well as the music (Hammerstein having died in August 1960), while three of the original stage songs were omitted, "How Can Love Survive", "No Way To Stop It" and "An Ordinary Couple". Arranger and conductor Irwin