Peter Ostrum was born in Dallas, Texas in 1957, but spent a substantial portion of his childhood in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in Cleveland that 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 confection-based 1964 novel “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
The 12-year-old Ostrum was asked to pose for a few Polaroids and was recorded reading passages from Dahl’s book into a tape recorder. He also sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” as proof of his singing abilities. The pictures and recordings were then flown to New York and shown to the film’s producers. Ostrum was perfect and beat out many, many other children for the role of Charlie Bucket. His experience on stage gave him an edge. “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” (retitled as to highlight the film’s zany chocolatier played by Gene Wilder) was shot in Germany in the late months of 1970 and released in the United Stated on June 30, 1971.
“Willy Wonka” was critically lauded. Roger Ebert gave it four stars, comparing it favorably to “The Wizard of Oz.” It wasn’t a smash success in theaters, however, and actually faded into obscurity for many years. It wasn’t until Paramount’s distribution rights lapsed and Warner Bros. bought the film in the 1980s that it would become more popular. WB showed “Willy Wonka” on TV a lot and, when the VHS market exploded, widely distributed the film. A new generation discovered it and it became a popular cult sensation.
While that counts as a success story, 12-year-old Peter Ostrum likely wasn’t happy that his movie tanked at the box office. Ostrum has given many interviews about his days on “Willy Wonka” and how his career stalled when he was still in high school.
Peter Ostrum was offered a three-picture deal, but he turned it down
In a 2000 interview with NPR, Ostrum said that working on “Willy Wonka” was like being an exchange student, as he had to stick to his studies while living in Germany for about three months. He even got to witness early construction on the Olympiapark, constructed for the then-upcoming 1972 Olympic Games. He kept one of the film’s clapperboards as a souvenir. Overall, filming “Willy Wonka” was a good time. In the 2023 documentary “Remembering Gene Wilder,” Ostrum talked about how working with Wilder was fun, as he bothered to speak to the child actors and treat them as fellow professionals.
Before it was released, “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” looked like a potential hit for Paramount (an odd thought, given how weird the movie is). Ostrum carried the film so well that Paramount’s David L. Wolper offered him a three-picture deal, thinking he had found a bankable new child star. Ostrum, however, turned the offer down. Even at his age, he understood that contracts sealed actors into certain projects and preferred the idea of choosing what films he got to work on and when. Ostrum, instead, went back to school to study.
Ostrum continued to audition for roles on the stage, but he never seemed to get any traction. “Willy Wonka” was kind of a bomb, so it didn’t do a lot for his career. By the time Ostrum was about 17 and no further major opportunities presented themselves, he retired from acting. Ostrum didn’t like the limelight, declined many interviews, and ran from “Willy Wonka,” preferring to talk about anything else. For years, he even told people that it wasn’t him in “Willy Wonka,” but his brother. In the NPR interview, Ostrum admitted that he even kept his role a secret from his wife. It wasn’t until he was about to meet his wife’s mother for the first time that he brought it up. He wanted a normal job.
Dr. Ostrum is now retired from veterinary medicine as well as acting
After Ostrum retired from acting, he pursued a new passion: veterinary medicine. Ostrum’s family bought a horse when he was still a teen, and the young man was very impressed with the vet that came over to look after the animal. After high school, Ostrum took a gap year and moved to Pennsylvania to apply for a job at the Delaware Equine Center, which entailed grooming horses. Ostrum was at a crossroads; he could move back to California and pursue acting as a young adult, or he could go to school and become a vet. He decided to do the latter. In 1984, he got a Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine from Cornell.
Dr. Ostrum spent most of his medical career caring for cows and horses, operating at the Countryside Veterinary Clinic in New York. Now 67, Ostrum has been retired from his practice for a year. He has long cared about animals and lived his true passion. He has two children with his wife, Loretta.
Over the years, Dr. Ostrum occasionally acknowledged his presence in “Willy Wonka in the Chocolate Factory.” In 2013, he and some of his “Wonka” co-stars appeared as judges on an episode of “Top Chef: Just Desserts.” He has spoken on several DVD editions of “Willy Wonka,” making his face more visible now that the film has become a cult phenomenon. He occasionally parlays his fame into lucrative promotional deals; he once helped Dunkin’ Donuts with a promotion involving free train passes in Massachusetts.
Dr. Ostrum, it seems, always lived the life he wanted. And those occasional $10 royalty checks are always going to remind him of that movie he made when he was 12.
