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Christopher Plummer

Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer, CC (born December 13, 1929) is a Canadian theater, film and television actor. In a career that spans over five decades and includes substantial roles in film, television, and theater, Plummer is perhaps best known for the iconic role of Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music and General Chang in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Biography

Early life

Plummer was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the son of Isabella Mary (née Abbott) and John Plummer, who was secretary to the Dean of Sciences at McGill University. His maternal great-grandfather was former Canadian Prime Minister Sir John Abbott. Married in February 1929, Plummer's parents were divorced shortly after he was born and he was raised an only child at the Abbott family home at Senneville, Quebec outside Montreal. He studied to be a concert pianist but developed a love for the theatre at an early age and began acting in high school. He travelled by train to gain experience with the Canadian Repertory Theatre (the CRT) in Ottawa.

Theatre

It was in Montreal that Plummer began his professional career on stage and radio in both French and English. After Eva Le Gallienne gave him his New York debut (1954), he performed in two plays with Katharine Cornell, The Constant Wife, and The Dark Is Light Enough by Christopher Fry, for which he won a Theatre World Award. Cornell’s husband Guthrie McClintic took him to Paris (1955) to play Jason opposite Dame Judith Anderson in Medea. Then came The Lark, opposite Julie Harris. Plummer went on to star in many celebrated, prize-winning productions on Broadway and London's West End including Elia Kazan's production of Archibald MacLeish's Pulitzer winning play J.B. and the title role in Anthony Burgess' musical Cyrano for which Plummer won his first Tony. A recent Broadway success was as Barrymore for which he won a Tony Award, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Award — The Edwin Booth Award, the Boston Critic's Award, Chicago's Jefferson Award, and Los Angeles' Ovation Award as best actor 1997-1998.

He was also a leading member of Britain's National Theatre under Sir Laurence Olivier, and the Royal Shakespeare Company under Sir Peter Hall where he won London’s best actor Evening Standard Theatre Award for his performance in Becket. In its formative years, he played at the Stratford Festival of Canada under Sir Tyrone Guthrie and Michael Langham. He has played most of the great roles in the classic repertoire. He also appeared in a lauded production of King Lear, directed by Jonathan Miller and performed at Lincoln Center. Plummer's performance as Lear garnered him his sixth Tony nomination. He returned to Broadway in 2007 as Henry Drummond in a revival of Inherit the Wind, winning a Drama Desk Award nomination as well as his seventh Tony nomination.

Plummer returns to the stage for a turn at The Stratford Festival of Canada in August 2008. He will be staring in George Bernard Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra" directed by Tony winner Des McAnuff.

Film

Plummer's eclectic career on screen began in 1958 when Sidney Lumet cast him as a young writer in Stage Struck. Since then he has appeared in a vast number of notable films which include The Man Who Would Be King, Battle of Britain, Waterloo, The Silent Partner, Dragnet, Inside Daisy Clover, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Malcolm X, Dolores Claiborne, Wolf, Twelve Monkeys, Murder by Decree, Somewhere in Time and Syriana. Recent successes include Michael Mann's Oscar-nominated The Insider playing television journalist Mike Wallace, for which he won the Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Las Vegas and the National Critics Awards, and Ron Howard's Academy Award winning A Beautiful Mind as well. He played Arthur Case in Spike Lee's 2006 film Inside Man, and the philosopher Aristotle in Alexander, alongside Colin Farrell. In 2004, Plummer played John Adams Gates in National Treasure.

Owing to the box office success and continued popularity of The Sound Of Music, Plummer is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Captain Von Trapp. As this role largely typecast him, he has variously referred to the production as 'The Sound of Mucus' or 'The Sound of Money', depending on his mood.

Television

Among his television appearances, which number almost a hundred, are the Emmy winning BBC production Hamlet at Elsinore, the five-time Emmy winning The Thorn Birds, the Emmy-winning Nuremberg, the Emmy-winning Little Moon of Alban and the Emmy-winning Moneychangers.

He co-starred in American Tragedy as F. Lee Bailey (for which he received a Golden Globe Nomination), and appeared in Four Minute Mile, Miracle Planet, and a documentary by Ric Burns' about Eugene O’Neill. He received an Emmy nomination for his performance in Our Fathers, and was reunited with Julie Andrews for a television production of On Golden Pond. He also played Herod Antipas in the miniseries, Jesus of Nazareth (miniseries).

He narrated the animated television series Madeline as well as the animated television series David the Gnome

Personal life

Plummer has been married three times. His first marriage, to Tony-Award-winning actress Tammy Grimes, was in 1956 and lasted for four years. The couple's daughter, Amanda Plummer (born 1957), is an acclaimed actress in her own right. Plummer was married to journalist Patricia Lewis from May 4, 1962 until their divorce in 1967. He and third wife, former British dancer and actress, Elaine Reginia Taylor have been married since 1970 and live in a 100-year-old converted farm house in Connecticut.

In a 2005 interview with Entertainment Weekly Plummer unpretentiously maintained that in their early days he and his fellow actors didn't drink "because we had problems. We drank 'cause we adored it! We adored getting drunk, you a--holes! Don't tell me that it isn't fun! I can't bear that. Oh, you must have had some awful childhood, that you drank like that. Nonsense! Actually, I was taught as a child to drink. I came from a family that loved wine. I was 12, I think, when I was drinking wine with dinner. I'm glad I had fun and lived in a fun time."

Honours and awards

Plummer has also written for the stage, television and the concert-hall. Plummer and Sir Neville Marriner rearranged Shakespeare’s “Henry V” with Sir William Walton’s music as a concert piece. They recorded the work with Marriner's chamber orchestra the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

He performed it and other works with the New York Philharmonic and symphony orchestras of London, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Ohio, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax. With Marriner he made his Carnegie Hall debut in his own arrangements of Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Aside from many honors in the United Kingdom, United States, Austria and Canada, Plummer has won two Tony Awards (from seven nominations), two Emmy Awards (six nominations), Great Britain's Evening Standard Award, and Canada's Genie Award.

In 1968 he was invested as Companion of the Order of Canada. In 2001 he received the Governor General's Lifetime Achievement Award. He was made an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts at New York's Juilliard School and has received honorary doctorates from the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, McGill University, the University of Western Ontario, and the University of Ottawa.

In 2002 he was the first performer to be presented with the Jason Robards Award for Excellence. He was also a great friend of Robards. Plummer was inducted into the American Theatre's Hall of Fame in 1986 and into Canada's Walk of Fame in 1997. On June 1 2006 he was given an honorary Doctorate of Letters by McGill University, and on October 21, 2007, Plummer received an honorary degree from the University of Ottawa.