'Willy Wonka' Actor Visits Pleasantville Third Graders

From the Oompa Loompa songs to the Wonka Fizzing Lifting Drinks, the actor who portrayed Charlie Bucket in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory shared movie secrets with Bedford Road School third graders last week.

Forty-one years after the film hit the nation's movie theaters, Dr. Peter Ostrum has held onto a single item from the Munich set—a clapperboard.

Today, Ostrum is now a large animal veterinarian based out of upstate New York who hasn't acted in a movie before or since the 1971 classic.

"That was my one and only film," Ostrum reflected during a visit with Bedford Road School third graders in Pleasantville last week. "We didn't have a clue it would be successful at all."

But decades later, the film is still popular and was remade in 2005, starring Johnny Depp. The newer film took on the same name as the original Roald Dahl novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Ostrum's local visit came right as Ann Brown's third grade class prepped to put on their own production of the story.

"We are preparing for our class play," she said. "And in order to prepare for our class play, we first read the book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl and it was written in 1964. And today in 2013, it's still a favorite book amongst many, many children. So after we read the book together as a class, we then watched the movie Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory."

After Ostrum oversaw students' simulation of shooting a scene from the film on Wednesday, he answered questions.

One student asked Ostrum, "What was your favorite part about making the movie?"

He replied, "My favorite part about making the movie was probably working with Jack Albertson [Grandpa Joe] and doing the songs with Jack."

Ostrum told students that, unfortunately, not everything on the factory set was as edible as it looked.

He also revealed that while he wasn't a trained singer at age 12, his voice was used during the film's songs. In fact, the only time his voice isn't used in the film is during the Fizzy Lifting Drink scene with Grandpa Joe.

"That is not me burping," he shared, to the students' delight.

Click the video to the right to see more from Ostrum's visit.