“The Hills Are Alive” with the sound of f-bombs.
The much-anticipated TV show “The Baroness” about the famous “The Sound of Music” von Trapp family has been plunged into drama after a writer allegedly tried to stage a coup and take over the production.
Myles von Trapp, the scion developing the show, claims that writer Jaclyn Alexis Cruz insisted that the family fire their head writer and hire her wife Ana Marie Cruz as the show’s head writer and runner.
Then, according to Myles von Trapp, the couple demanded the von Trapp family sign over the full rights of their story to their production company.
That caused massive drama, particularly as the von Trapps gave over their rights years, culminating in the 1965 movie starring Julie Andrews as Maria and Christopher Plummer as Georg von Trapp.
Maria, who died in 1987, aged 82, sold her memoir to German producers in the 1950s for $9,000 and inadvertently signed away all of the rights to the family story going forward.
Rodgers and Hammerstein then purchased the story to turn it into a Broadway show, and sold the movie rights for the show to 20th Century Fox.
The von Trapp family didn’t have much of a say in “The Sound of Music,” although Maria did receive royalties.
The alleged attempted “Baroness” coup led to a massive blow-up with writer Jaclyn texting Myles von Trapp Derbyshire — Georg and Maria’s great-great-grandson — “Like I need a failed von Trapp family to give me media or publicity. You’re a nobody. A broke nobody. Your level of projection is hilarious.”
Von Trapp – who says he then fired Jaclyn as a writer on the project – replied, artfully, “The von Trapp family says f–k you.” And, “Good luck in business. You will fail miserably.”
He told us, “The von Trapps will not be selling away our lives and our story again. We are incredibly proud of our history, how the family has overcome so much to be where it is today.”
Family members own the Trapp Family Lodge and von Trapp Brewing in Stowe, Vermont, the nearby cheese-making von Trapp Farmstead. None now perform like their ancestors.
“Their intentions of taking over the family rights….and their retaliation has been mind-blowing,” he added.
Page Six first revealed in January that the famed von Trapp family was developing a dramatic TV series about their lives, billed as “The Crown” meets “This Is Us.”
The scripted drama is being developed by Myles, who is the New York City-based grandson of Georg’s eldest child Rupert and is an executive in the fashion industry.
Rupert was actually depicted as Liesl in the beloved Oscar-winning movie “The Sound of Music.”
The series will follow three characters from three generations of von Trapps: Myles’s grandmother Henriette von Trapp, who married an older man and contracted polio at the age of 22, then Myles’s mother, Stephanie von Trapp Derbyshire, who escaped an abusive relationship, and finally Myles himself. And no, there won’t be any singing nuns.
The legendary Maria, Henriette’s mother-in-law, will be a supporting character. Her depiction, Myles insists will be “a departure” from the Julie Andrews version. He previously said, “It’s very well known that she was a tough cookie.”
Jaclyn Alexis Cruz, whose credits include visual effects and assistant coordinator on 2021’s “Snake Eyes” and a writer on the soapy series “Revenge,” said, “It was a major misunderstanding. I am no longer working on the project, but I wish them the absolute best.”
The show is still being developed under head writer Rebecca Eskries, known for 2020’s “What Breaks the Ice” and 2013”s “Inequality for All.” She has not been involved in the drama and declined to comment.
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