Fifty years after making movie magic with Gene Wilder in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," Peter Ostrum is working in a field that he is passionate about — and it has nothing to do with chocolate, lickable wallpaper, or everlasting gobstoppers. The former actor turned his part-time, hometown job into a full-time career.
During his teen years, Ostrum worked at a horse stable and enjoyed interacting with the veterinarians at said stable. He told Bond LSC that he even worked as a groomer for an equestrian team at the 1976 Summer Olympics that was held in Montreal just five years after his "Willy Wonka" fame. He ultimately went on to become a veterinarian more than a decade after realizing "[t]he film industry just wasn't for me."
According to his bio on The Countryside Veterinary Clinic in Lowville, New York, Ostrum graduated from the prestigious Cornell University with his veterinary degree in 1984. These days, the blonde locks are gone, but the dad of two sports a handlebar mustache reminiscent of that worn by his movie grandpa — Grandpa Joe — who was played by Jack Albertson.
