Last member of the real von trapp family maria franziska dies, aged 99

Maria Franziska, who was the last of seven brothers and sisters from the famous family, passed away in her sleep aged 99 on Wednesday. A family friend said: "It was a surprise that she

was the one in the family to live the longest because ever since she was a child she suffered from a weak heart. It was the fact that she suffered from this that her father decided to hire 

Maria von Trapp to teach her and her brothers and sisters. "That of course then led to one of the most remarkable musical partnerships of the last century." Maria, who was born in

1914, and her family fled their home in Salzburg, Austria when the Nazis arrived in 1938 and ended up performing around America. The family sang and played instruments together having lost

all their fortune in 1935 in the throes of the world economic crisis. After an opera singer heard the children performing in the park, she entered them into a competition, which saw the von 

Trapps embark on a tour as a family choir. Their story eventually went on to inspire the 1965 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical hit The Sound of Music. Maria was the second eldest of the seven

children and inspired the character Louisa.  While The Sound of Music, one of the most successful films ever made, the family thought the war they were portrayed was untrue - especially the

depiction of their father, who was shown as a strict patriarch. In a recent interview, Maria said: "We were all pretty shocked at how they portrayed our father, he was so completely

different. He always looked after us a lot, especially after our mother died." "You have to separate yourself from all that, and you have to get used to it. It is something you

simply cannot avoid."