What happened to Willy Wonka and Charlie in the Chocolate Factory?

Peter Ostrom was born in Dallas, Texas in 1957, but spent a large portion of his childhood in Cleveland, Ohio. In Cleveland, he began acting professionally, appearing in children’s theater productions at the Cleveland Play House. The story goes that talent scouts from Paramount, sometime in 1970, were scouring children’s theaters looking for potential actors to play the five central children in a film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1964 candy-based novel “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

The 12-year-old Ostrom was asked to pose for a few Polaroid pictures and was recorded reading passages from Dahl’s book into a tape recorder. He also sang the song “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” as a testament to his singing abilities. The photos and recordings were then transported to New York and shown to the film’s producers. Ostrom was perfect and beat out many other kids for the role of Charlie Bucket. His experience on stage gave him an advantage. “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (retitled to highlight the film’s obsessed chocolatier played by Gene Wilder) was filmed in Germany in the late 1970s and released in the United States on June 30, 1971.

“Willy Wonka” received critical acclaim. Roger Ebert gave it four starsIt is compared favorably to “The Wizard of Oz”. However, it was not a huge success in theaters, and in fact faded into obscurity for many years. The film did not become more popular until Paramount’s distribution rights expired and Warner Bros. purchased the film in the 1980s. WB showed “Willy Wonka” on television often, and when the VHS market exploded, they distributed the film widely. He was discovered by a new generation and became a cult sensation.

While this is considered a success story, 12-year-old Peter Ostrom likely wasn’t happy about his film failing at the box office. Ostrom has given many interviews about his “Willy Wonka” days. And how his career stopped when he was still in high school.

In a 2000 interview with National Public RadioOstrom said working on “Willy Wonka” was like an exchange student, as he had to commit to his studies while living in Germany for about three months. He even witnessed early construction work on the Olympic Park, which was created for the 1972 Olympics that were taking place at that time. Keep one of the film’s panels as a souvenir. Overall, filming “Willy Wonka” was a fun time. In the 2023 documentary Remembering Gene Wilder, Ostrom spoke about how enjoyable it was to work with Wilder, as he took care to talk to the child actors and treat them as professional colleagues.

Before it is released, “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” seemed like a potential hit for Paramount (a strange idea, given how weird the movie was).. Ostrom carried the film so well that Paramount’s David L. Wolper offered him a three-picture deal, believing he had found a bankable new child star. But Ostrom declined the offer. Even at his age, he was aware that contracts required actors to participate in certain projects, and he preferred the idea of ​​choosing which films to work on when. Instead, Ostrom returned to school to study.

Ostrom continued to audition for stage roles, but received no interest at all. “Willy Wonka” was a bomb, so he didn’t do much for his career. By the time Ostrom was around 17 years old and no other big opportunities were arising, he retired from acting. Ostrom did not like the spotlight, declined numerous interviews, and shied away from “Willy Wonka”, preferring to talk about anything else. For years, he’d been telling people that it wasn’t him in “Willy Wonka,” but his brother. In an interview with NPR, Ostrum admitted that he kept his role a secret from his wife. It wasn’t until he was about to meet his mother-in-law for the first time that he brought it up. He wanted a normal job.

After Ostrom retired from acting, he pursued a new passion: veterinary medicine. Ostrom’s family bought a horse when he was still a teenager, and the young man was very impressed with the veterinarian who came to care for the animal. After high school, Ostrom took a year off and moved to Pennsylvania to apply for a job at the Delaware Equine Center, which involved caring for horses. Ostrom was at a crossroads. He could return to California and pursue acting as an adult, or he could go to school and become a vet. He decided to do the latter. In 1984, He received his doctorate in veterinary medicine from Cornell University.

Dr. Ostrom spent most of his medical career caring for cattle and horses, working at Countryside Veterinary Clinic in New York. Now 67, Ostrom has been retired from his practice for a year. He has long been interested in animals and lived out his true passion. He has two children with his wife, Loretta.

Over the years, Dr. Ostrom has occasionally acknowledged his presence in the film “Willy Wonka in the Chocolate Factory.” In 2013, He and some of his “Wonka” co-stars. They appeared as judges on an episode of “Top Chef: Just Desserts.” He has spoken on several DVD releases of “Willy Wonka,” making his face more visible now that the film has become a cult phenomenon. He sometimes parlays his fame into lucrative promotional deals. He once helped Dunkin’ Donuts with a promotion involving free train tickets in Massachusetts.

Dr. Ostrom seems to have always lived the life he wanted. And those $10 checks will always remind him of that movie he made when he was 12 years old.