Christopher Plummer 1929 - 2021

 Actor Christopher Plummer has passed away at 91. 

 

Born Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer in Toronto, Canada…he made his stage debut in a 1948 production of Cymbeline at the Canadian Repertory Theater in Ottawa, followed by a CBC TV production of Othello. After moving to New York in the early 1950’s, he worked in live television before his Broadway debut in The Starcross Story. In 1956 he earned acclaim when he became the first Canadian to lead a production, when he was cast in Henry V in the Strafford Festival. 

 

His film debut came in STAGE STRUCK in 1958, but it was in 1965 when he was cast as Captain von Trapp in Robert Wise’s Best Picture winner, THE SOUND OF MUSIC…opposite Julie Andrews, where he reached wider audiences and international fame. 

 

While continuing to work on the stage and in several Shakespeare productions, he continued to appear in films for the next five decades. He would appear as Rudyard Kipling opposite Sean Connery and Michael Caine in the epic THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING (1975), and other notables such as WATERLOO (1970), THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER (1975), ACES HIGH (1976), SOMEWHERE IN TIME (1980), AN AMERICAN TALE (1986), DRAGNET (1987), STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (1991), MALCOLM X (1992), 12 MONKEYS (1995), THE INSIDER (1999), A BEAUTIFUL MIND (2001), NATIONAL TREASURE (2004), A NEW WORLD (2005), INSIDE MAN (2006), Pixar’s UP (2009), THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (2011), and KNIVES OUT (2019). In 2010, he became the oldest person to win an acting award when he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his part in BEGINNERS, at the age of 82. In 2018, at the age of 88, he became the oldest person to be nominated when received a nod for Best Supporting Actor for his part in Ridley Scott’s ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD. 

 

His accolades would include his Oscar, two Primetime Emmys, two Tony’s, a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a British Academy Film Award. He is one of the few performers to receive the Triple Crown of Acting, and the only Canadian. 

 

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Christopher Plummer has been described as an imposing presence on the screen, with a voice that resonated and had the ability to polish mirrors. From the stage to the small screen to the silver screen, Plummer made impressions by way of villains, hard-men, and men of deep honor. He stretched his talent into zany comedy (DRAGNET), to animation (UP), to science fiction (STAR TREK), to serious drama (BEGINNERS), showing his deep range over the course of 60 years. For most of us, he has been there our entire lives…and his parting will be like the absence of music in our houses. Perhaps his character’s line in THE SOUND OF MUSIC of, “you brought music back into the house” sums up the effect he has on us when he appears on screen.