When They Knew

Wanting to Be Captain von Trapp

Television writer Kate Nielson says she first realized she liked girls in 1965. "I was sitting next to my mother watching The Sound of Music, munching on popcorn," she says. "I remember wondering in my little 5-year-old brain if it was wrong wanting to be Christopher Plummer, a.k.a. 'Captain Von Trapp.' It was the only way I could imagine, as a girl, being able to be with the beautiful Julie Andrews. I made my mom take me back to see the movie several times that summer. She just assumed it was because I wanted to be a nun—not that I wanted to be with a nun."