Peter Gardner Ostrum is an American veterinarian and former child actor, whose only film role was as Charlie Bucket in the 1971 motion picture Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Ostrum was 12 years old when selected by talent agents for Willy Wonka.
Is Peter Ostrum still alive?
Peter is currently 63 years old, happily married, and has two children. So congrats to him on all that accomplishments in 50-odd years.
In his senior year, Ostrum was involved in film class and, at the interest of one of his instructors, looked back into theater and acting. After auditioning for, but not landing, several roles (including for Alan Strang in Equus on Broadway), Ostrum decided not to pursue it further.
After putting his short film career behind him, Ostrum declined reporters and interviews, preferring not to speak on the subject; “I wanted people to judge me on who I was, not what I’d done”. For some time, Ostrum even lied and told people that his brother, and not he, had starred in the film.
It took Ostrum years after moving to Lowville before he told anybody there about his one-time stardom; even his wife Loretta did not know about his role until he warned her about it just before she met his mother.