Christopher Plummer dies at the age of 91

 

Photo via @nypost

The Canadian actor, known for roles in The Sound of Music and more recently Knives Out, has died, his family confirmed to Deadline Hollywood.

Christopher Plummer, the dazzlingly versatile Canadian actor whose screen career straddled seven decades, including such high-profile films as The Sound of Music, The Man Who Would Be King and All the Money in the World,  the acclaimed Canadian actor perhaps best known for his role in "The Sound of Music," has died. He was 91.

Born Arthur Plummer in Toronto in 1929, the great-grandson of John Abbott, Canada’s third prime minister, and grew up in Quebec speaking English and French fluently. After leaving school he joined the Montreal Repertory Theatre, and after a short spell on Broadway achieved his first leading role as Hal in Henry V at the 1956 Stratford festival in Ontario. More stage roles followed, in both Stratford and on Broadway, including his first Tony nomination in 1959 for best actor in Archibald MacLeish’s JB, which was directed by Elia Kazan. He also secured roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK, playing Benedick in the 1961 production of Much Ado About Nothing (opposite Geraldine McEwan) and the title role of Richard III in the same year.

Plummer was born in Toronto, the only child of Isabella Mary and John Orme Plummer. His father was secretary to the dean of sciences at McGill University. His mother was the granddaughter of Canadian Prime Minister Sir John Abbott.

Shortly after his birth, Plummer's parents divorced and he was brought up in his mother's family home in Senneville, Quebec, outside Montreal. At Montreal High School, he took on his first dramatic role as Mr. Darcy in "Pride and Prejudice." His performance caught the attention of Herbert Whittaker, a theatre critic and stage director for the Montreal Repertory Theatre, who cast Plummer at age 18 as Oedipus in Cocteau's "The Infernal Machine."

The Sound of Music, released to huge success in 1965, proved Plummer’s breakthrough to stardom. Adapted from the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical about the real-life singing Von Trapp family, Plummer was originally reluctant to take on the role, and in 2018 told the Guardian he was “furious” when he found out his singing voice was going to be dubbed. “I’d worked on my singing for so long, but in those days, they’d have someone trained who would sing through dubbing. I said: ‘The only reason I did this bloody thing was so I could do a musical on stage on film!’”

After The Sound of Music, Plummer was in demand as a character actor in high-profile films, appearing in a wide variety of material, from The Royal Hunt of the Sun and The Battle of Britain in 1969, to Sergei Bondarchuk’s epic Waterloo (1970) and Return of the Pink Panther (1975). He played Rudyard Kipling in The Man Who Would Be King and Sherlock Holmes in Murder By Decree (1979). He also had success on stage, winning a Tony award in 1973 for the title role in the musical Cyrano.

Though he continued to work steadily in the 1980s and 90s, the quality of his screen roles began to tail off. High points included roles in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) as Klingon general Chang, and Spike Lee’s Malcolm X (1992) as a racist prison chaplain; he also played virologist Leland Goines in 12 Monkeys (1995) and TV journalist Mike Wallace in The Insider (1999). His stage work, as before, appeared to sustain him, with another Tony award in 1997 for the title role in Barrymore, about the Shakespearean actor John Barrymore, and a King Lear in 2002, directed by Jonathan Miller, which led to another Tony nomination after its transfer to Broadway in 2004.

His well-known distaste for the film mellowed over time: “I’ve made my peace with it,” he added. “It annoyed the hell out of me at first. I thought: ‘Don’t these people ever see another movie? Is this the only one they’ve ever seen?’ … But I’m grateful to the film, and to Robert Wise, who’s a great director and a gentleman, and to Julie [Andrews], who’s remained a terrific friend.”

That led to an apprenticeship with the Canadian Repertory Company, followed by roles in New York and London. Even after becoming a successful movie actor, Plummer continued performing on stage.

Plummer was married three times. His first, to Tony Award-winning actress Tammy Grimes, produced a daughter, the actress Amanda Plummer. He is survived by his daughter and his third wife, Taylor, a British dancer and actress.

The Oscar winner died at his home in Connecticut with Elaine Taylor, his wife and best friend of 53 years, by his side

“Chris was an extraordinary man who deeply loved and respected his profession with great old fashion manners, self deprecating humor and the music of words. He was a National Treasure who deeply relished his Canadian roots," Pitt said. "Through his art and humanity, he touched all of our hearts and his legendary life will endure for all generations to come."

Plummer, who began his career on stage, made his film debut in 1958's "Stage Struck" and went on to a successful movie career that spanned more than six decades. He starred in a vast variety of films, including "The Return of the Pink Panther," "Murder by Decree," "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country," "A Beautiful Mind," "Up," "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," "All the Money in the World," "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and "Knives Out."

Plummer, it seemed, could handle any role from Oedipus to Othello. Audiences of varying ages might recognize him as the antagonist old man in "Up" to, more recently, the wealthy patriarch in the comedic mystery movie "Knives Out."

Accepting the award, he famously quipped, "You're only two years older than me, darling. Where have you been all my life?"

In addition to his Oscar, Plummer won two Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a SAG Award and a BAFTA Award.

But it was his role as Captain Georg von Trapp opposite Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music" that catapulted him to fame.

While the film — about a strict single father of seven who falls in love with a nun-in-training before the entire musically talented family has to flee Austria to avoid his serving in the Nazi Navy — is hailed as a classic, he long regarded the role as "humorless and one-dimensional.”

But Plummer remained best known to film audiences as the patriarch of the singing von Trapp family, starring alongside Julie Andrews in the 1965 hit musical "The Sound of Music."

"I'm still remembered for it, much to my chagrin -- only because I've done so much more serious and interesting work. But at least it got me some of the best tables in restaurants all over the world," he told McGill University graduates in 2006.

“We tried so hard to put humor into it,” Plummer told The Associated Press in 2007. “It was almost impossible. It was just agony to try to make that guy not a cardboard figure.”

Plummer had a remarkable film renaissance late in life, which began with his acclaimed performance as Mike Wallace in Michael Mann’s 1999 film “The Insider" and continued in films such 2001’s “A Beautiful Mind” and 2009′s “The Last Station,” in which he played a deteriorating Leo Tolstoy and was nominated for an Oscar, and 2011's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."

“Too many people in the world are unhappy with their lot. And then they retire and they become vegetables. I think retirement in any profession is death, so I’m determined to keep crackin’,” he told AP in 2011.

Plummer was nominated for a third best supporting actor Oscar in 2017, when he replaced Kevin Spacey as J. Paul Getty in “All the Money in the World,” only six weeks before the film was to be released.

His work also earned him two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Plummer began his career on stage and in radio in Canada in the 1940s and made his Broadway debut in 1954 in “The Starcross Story.”

While still a relative unknown, he was cast as Hamlet in a 1963 performance co-starring Robert Shaw and Michael Caine. It was taped by the BBC at Elsinore Castle in Denmark, where the play is set, and released in 1964. It won an Emmy.

He won a best supporting actor Oscar in 2012, making him the oldest Academy Award acting winner in history at the age of 82, for his role in “Beginners” as Hal Fields, a museum director who becomes openly gay after his wife of 44 years dies.

ncluding Cyrano, Iago, Othello, Prospero, Henry V and a staggering “King Lear” at Lincoln Center in 2004. He was a frequent star at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada.

Plummer married Tony-winning actress Tammy Grimes in 1956, with whom he had his only child, actress Amanda Plummer, in 1957. Amanda Plummer also won a Tony, in 1982, for “Agnes of God. Plummer and Grimes divorced in 1960.

A five-year marriage to Patricia Lewis ended in 1967. Plummer married his third wife, dancer Taylor, in 1970.

He was given Canada’s highest civilian honor when he was invested as Companion of the Order of Canada by Queen Elizabeth II in 1968, and was inducted into the American Theatre’s Hall of Fame in 1986.

Tributes to Plummer began filling social media Friday afternoon.

"'Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow, bloom and grow forever.' RIP Christopher Plummer. You lit up screen and stage over a lifetime of art. My thoughts are with your family and friends," journalist Dan Rather wrote on Twitter, quoting "The Sound of Music."

"Rest in eternal music, Captain Von Trapp," wrote George Takei.

"I was lucky enough to direct Christopher Plummer in my first film. He was the absolute BEST," wrote screenwriter Dan Fogelman. "He was an extraordinary talent, and an extraordinarily kind man ... and those two things rarely come in the same package."

Plummer’s first film appearance was in 1958’s Stage Struck, a backstage drama in which he plays a writer in love with Susan Strasberg’s ingenue. His biggest hit, and arguably best-known role, was as singing anti-Nazi Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music in 1965. More recently, in 2017, he stepped in at short notice to replace Kevin Spacey in the Ridley Scott-directed All the Money in the World, after Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct.