Nicholas Hammond

Hammond was 11 years old when he made his acting debut in the Broadway play The Complaisant Lover, in 1961. At the same time, he began to shoot for the 1963 film Lord of the Flies, which marked his film debut. After this, Hammond played what was to be his most visible screen role for many years as Friedrich von Trapp (the elder of the two boys) in the 1965 hit The Sound of Music.

Hammond's next acting role came in 1970, when he appeared in Conduct Unbecoming. This was his first role as an adult. In 1972, Hammond appeared as Peter Linder in Skyjacked. In 1973, he made a guest appearance on The Brady Bunch, in season 4, episode #090, "The Subject Was Noses", as the high school hunk, Doug Simpson, who loses interest in Marcia after her tragic football accident. That year, he also appeared The Waltons episode, "The Townie", as Theodore Claypool, Jr.

From 1977 to 1979, Hammond played the role for which he is perhaps best known, as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the television series The Amazing Spider-Man. Hammond described his approach to the character: "I liked the idea of taking a fantasy hero and making him believable as a person. I made it clear going into it that I wasn't interested in doing something that was just a camp joke."

Hammond married Laura Soli in 1980, and the couple were divorced in 1984. He moved to Australia in the mid-1980s and now lives in Sydney, with the Australian actress Robyn Nevin.

After being cast as yachtsman Dennis Conner in the 1986 Australian TV miniseries The Challenge, about the 1983 America's Cup challenge, Hammond liked the country so much that he decided to stay. He later became an Australian citizen and has since then appeared in several television miniseries filmed in Australia.

In 2005, Hammond portrayed television producer Aaron Spelling in Dynasty: The Making of a Guilty Pleasure, a fictionalized television movie based on the creation and behind the scenes production of Dynasty.

Hammond is a writer for Australian television, having written both the miniseries A Difficult Woman and the TV movie Secret Men's Business. In 2009, he made his directing debut with Lying Cheating Bastard, a play he co-wrote with magician James Galea.

In 2019 he portrayed director Sam Wanamaker in the Quentin Tarantino film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Original Sound of Music Tour

Happy 70th birthday to Nicholas Hammond To us, always Friedrich von Trapp . by Wolfgang Seifert