LOS ANGELES — Heather Menzies-Urich, a star of The Sound of Music, which continues to win hearts worldwide after more than half a century, died at age 68, an industry source said Monday.

“We… mourn the passing of Heather Menzies-Urich,” the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, which holds the rights to the musical, said on its Web site. “We are all lucky to have known her, and she will happily live on in that beautiful movie. We will miss her.”

Menzies-Urich, then a teenager, had the role of Louisa von Trapp, one of the children of Captain von Trapp played by Canadian actor Christopher Plummer, who starred with English actress Julie Andrews.

Menzies-Urich’s son, Ryan Urich, said she had been diagnosed with brain cancer and died on Christmas Eve surrounded by family, according to celebrity Web site TMZ, as well as Variety magazine’s Web site.

“She was an actress, a ballerina and loved living her life to the fullest,” Ryan Urich said. “She was not in any pain but, nearly four weeks after her diagnosis of terminal brain cancer, she had enough and took her last breath on this earth at 7:22 pm.”

Born in Toronto, Menzies-Urich’s first screen credit came in the TV series The Farmer’s Daughter in 1964. She was 15 when she was cast as the eldest of the seven von Trapp children in The Sound of Music, a box office smash that went on to win five Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Her other feature films credits included Hawaii, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Piranha, and Endangered Species. Her TV credits included Dragnet, Bonanza, Marcus Welby M.D., The Bob Newhart Show, and starring as Jessica 6 in the TV series Logan’s Run.

Her husband Robert Urich died from cancer in 2002. He was a US TV star who shot to fame in the 1970s through his series Vegas and Spenser: For Hire.

After his death, Menzies-Urich founded The Robert Urich Foundation to support cancer research and patient care. On the group’s Web site, she wrote that she tried to live by her late husband’s motto: “Never give up — never, ever give up.” — AFP/Reuters

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