Christopher Plummer
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| Christopher Plummer | |
 Christopher Plummer photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1959 |
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| Birth name | Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer |
| Born | December 13, 1929 (age 77) Toronto, Ontario |
| Spouse(s) | Elaine Taylor (1970 to present) Patricia Lewis (1967-1970) Tammy Grimes (1956-1960) |
| Notable roles | Captain Georg von Trapp in The Sound of Music (1965) Rudyard Kipling in The Man Who Would Be King (1975) Sherlock Holmes in Murder by Decree (1979) Mike Wallace in The Insider (1999) |
Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer, CC (born on December 13, 1929 in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian theatre, film and television actor.
In a career that spans over five decades and includes substantial roles in film, television, and theater, Plummer is perhaps known for the iconic role of Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music.
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[edit] Early life
Plummer was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada His parents were John Plummer and Isabella Abbott; his maternal great-grandfather was former Canadian Prime Minister Sir John Abbott. Following his parents' divorce he moved with his mother to live with her family at Senneville, Quebec, near Montreal. He studied to be a concert pianist but developed a love of the theatre at an early age and began acting in high school. He travelled by train to study with Canadian Repertory Company in Ottawa.
[edit] 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, the Royal Shakespeare Company under Sir Peter Hall where he won London’s best actor Evening Standard Theatre Award. 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 appeaed in a lauded production of King Lear, directed by Jonathan Miller and performed at Lincoln Center. Plummer's performance as Lear garnered him his seventh Tony nomination. [1]
[edit] Film
Plummer's eclectic career on screen began in 1957 when Sidney Lumet provided him his movie debut 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.
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.
[edit] 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 Thornbirds, 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 perfromance in Our Fathers, and was reunited with Julie Andrews for a television production of On Golden Pond.
[edit] Personal life
Plummer has been married three times. His first marriage, to actress Tammy Grimes, was in 1956 and lasted for four years. The couple's daughter, Amanda Plummer, has become an acclaimed actress in her own right. He and third wife Elaine Taylor have been married since 1970. [2]
[edit] Awards and other achievements
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, and the University of Western Ontario.
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.
[edit] Partial list of awards
- Jason Robards Award for Excellence in Theatre (2002)
- Edwin Booth Lifetime Achievement Award (1997)
- Emmy Award (1994), for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for his work on the Family Channel's Madeline children's series
- Emmy Award (1976), as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series for Arthur Hailey's The Moneychangers
- Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play (1997), for his lead role in Barrymore
- Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical (1974), for his lead role in Cyrano
- Genie Award (1980), for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in Murder by Decree
- London Evening Standard Award as Best Actor (1961), for his portrayal of King Henry II in the stage play, Becket
| Preceded by Ben Vereen for Pippin |
Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical 1974 for Cyrano |
Succeeded by John Cullum for Shenandoah |
[edit] Filmography
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[edit] External links
Categories: Articles lacking sources from November 2006 | All articles lacking sources | 1929 births | Canadian film actors | Canadian stage actors | Canadian television actors | Canadians of Anglo-Irish descent | Companions of the Order of Canada | Canada's Walk of Fame | Genie Award winners for Best Actor | Living people | People from Toronto | Shakespearean actors
