Christopher Plummer
| Christopher Plummer | |
|---|---|
 Plummer at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival |
|
| Born | Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer December 13, 1929 Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1953–present |
| Spouse | Tammy Grimes (1956–1960) (divorced) 1 child Patricia Lewis (1962–1967)(divorced) Elaine Taylor (1970–present) |
Christopher Plummer, CC (born December 13, 1929) is a Canadian theatre, film and television actor.
In a career that spans over five decades and includes substantial roles in film, television, and theatre, Plummer is perhaps best known for the role of Captain Georg von Trapp in The Sound of Music. His most recent film roles include the Disney–Pixar 2009 film Up as Charles Muntz, the Shane Acker production 9 as 1, The Last Station as Leo Tolstoy, and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus as Doctor Parnassus.
Contents |
Early life
Plummer was born Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the son of Isabella Mary (née Abbott) and John Orme Plummer, who was secretary to the Dean of Sciences at McGill University.[1] His maternal great-grandfather was Canadian Prime Minister Sir John Abbott.[2] Plummer was an only child. His parents were divorced shortly after he was born, and he was raised at the Abbott family home at Senneville, Quebec, outside Montreal.[3][4] 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
Plummer has played most of the great roles in classic repertoire. In 1953, Plummer was the understudy to Tyrone Power in "The Dark is Light Enough (play), in a production by Katharine Cornell in which she also starred. In his biography, Plummer states that Cornell was his 'sponsor.'[5] In 1973, he appeared on Broadway as the swordsman and poet Cyrano de Bergerac in Cyrano, a musical adaptation of Edmond Rostand's 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac by Anthony Burgess (libretto and lyrics) and Michael J. Lewis (music). For that performance, Plummer won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance.
In 1971 he appeared at the National Theatre in the play Amphitryon 38, directed by Sir Laurence Olivier. [6]
In 2004, he 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.[7]
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 returned to the stage at the Stratford (Canada) Shakespeare Festival in August 2008 in a critically acclaimed performance as Julius Caesar in George Bernard Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra" directed by Tony winner Des McAnuff; this production was videotaped and shown in high-definition in Canadian cinemas on January 31, 2009 (with an encore presentation on February 23, 2009) and broadcast on April 4, 2009 on Bravo! in Canada. Plummer is once again returning to the Stratford Festival in the summer of 2010 in The Tempest as the lead character, Prospero.
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, The Fall of the Roman Empire, Jesus of Nazareth, The Return of the Pink Panther, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Battle of Britain, Waterloo, The Silent Partner, Dragnet, Shadow Dancing, Inside Daisy Clover, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Malcolm X, Dolores Claiborne, Wolf, 12 Monkeys, Murder by Decree, Somewhere in Time and Syriana.
One of Plummer's most critically acclaimed roles was that of television journalist Mike Wallace in Michael Mann's Oscar-nominated The Insider, for which he won Boston, Los Angeles, and National Society of Film Critics Awards for 'Best Supporting Actor'; he was also nominated for Chicago and Las Vegas Film Critics Awards, as well as a Satellite Award. Predictions of an Oscar nomination circulated, but such recogniton only came in January 2010 when Plummer received his first Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of author Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station[1]. Speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in an interview that aired on March 7, 2010 [2] Plummer appeared slightly irritated that it had taken so long to receive a personal Academy Award nomination, saying, " Well, I said it's about time! I mean, I'm 80 years old, for God's sake. Have mercy. " Still, on Oscar night, March 7, 2010, Plummer lost the Best Supporting Actor nomination to Christoph Waltz in the Quentin Tarantino 2009 war film Inglourious Basterds[3].
Other recent successes include his roles as Dr. Rosen in Ron Howard's Academy Award winning A Beautiful Mind, 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 (1965), Plummer remains best known for his portrayal of Captain Von Trapp, a role he reportedly disliked.[8] Referring to the film as "the sound of mucus," he declined to attend its cast reunion.
Plummer has also done some voice work, such as his role of Henri the pigeon in An American Tail, the villainous Grand Duke of Owls in Rock-a-Doodle, the antagonistic Charles Muntz in Up and the elder leader 1 in the Tim Burton-produced action/sci-fi film 9.
Television
Among his television appearances, which number almost a hundred, are the Emmy-nominated 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 reunited with Julie Andrews for a television production of On Golden Pond. He also played Herod Antipas in the miniseries, Jesus of Nazareth and was the narrator for The Gospel of John. He also co-starred with Gregory Peck in The Scarlet and The Black.
He narrated the animated television series Madeline as well as the animated television series David the Gnome.
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, Minneapolis, Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax. With Marriner he made his Carnegie Hall debut in his own arrangements of Mendelssohn's incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Honors and awards
Plummer has won many honours in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Austria. He was the first winner of Canada's Genie Award, for Best Actor in Murder by Decree (1980) and has received three other Genie nominations. Plummer has won two Tony Awards (from seven nominations), and two Emmy Awards (six nominations) in the United States, and Great Britain's Evening Standard Award.
In 1968, he was invested as Companion of the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honour. In 2001, he received the Canadian 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, the University of Ottawa, and most recently the University of Guelph. Plummer was inducted into the American Theatre's Hall of Fame in 1986 and into Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto in 1997.
His awards include the following:
- London Evening Standard Award as Best Actor (1961), for his portrayal of King Henry II in the stage play, Becket
- Genie Award (1980), for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in Murder by Decree
- Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical (1974), for his lead role in Cyrano
- Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play (1997), for his lead role in Barrymore
- Emmy Award (1976), as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series for Arthur Hailey's The Moneychangers
- Emmy Award (1994), for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for his work on the Family Channel's Madeline children's series
- Edwin Booth Lifetime Achievement Award (1997)
- Jason Robards Award for Excellence in Theatre (2002)
- Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award (1999) for The Insider
- Boston Society of Film Critics Award (1999) for The Insider
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, but (as he mentions in his autobiography) he had no contact with her whatsoever during her early and teenage years. They now maintain a friendly relationship. Plummer was married to journalist Patricia Lewis from May 4, 1962 until their divorce in 1967. He and his third wife, British dancer and actress Elaine Regina Taylor, have been married since 1970 and live in a 100-year-old converted farm house in Connecticut.[9]
In a 2005 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Plummer 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 twelve, I think, when I was drinking wine with dinner. I'm glad I had fun and lived in a fun time."
Plummer's memoir, In Spite of Myself,[10] was published by Knopf Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in November 2008.
Filmography
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1958 | Stage Struck | Joe Sheridan | |
| Wind Across the Everglades | Walt Murdock | ||
| 1959 | A Doll's House | Torvald Helmer | |
| 1961 | Playdate | Host | |
| 1962 | Cyrano de Bergerac | Cyrano de Bergerac | |
| 1964 | The Fall of the Roman Empire | Commodus | |
| Hamlet at Elsinore | Hamlet | ||
| 1965 | The Sound of Music | Captain von Trapp | |
| 1966 | Inside Daisy Clover | Raymond Swan | |
| Triple Cross | Eddie Chapman | ||
| 1967 | The Night of the Generals | Field Marshal Rommel | |
| Oedipus the King | Oedipus | ||
| 1968 | Nobody Runs Forever | Sir James Quentin | |
| 1969 | Battle of Britain | Squadron Leader Colin Harvey | |
| The Royal Hunt of the Sun | Atahualpa | ||
| Lock Up Your Daughters! | Lord Foppington | ||
| 1970 | Waterloo | Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington | |
| 1971 | Don Juan in Hell | Don Juan | |
| 1973 | The Pyx | Dt. Sgt. Jim Henderson | |
| 1974 | After the Fall | Quentin | |
| The Happy Prince | The Happy Prince | ||
| 1975 | The Spiral Staircase | Dr. Joe Sherman | |
| The Return of the Pink Panther | Sir Charles Litton | ||
| Conduct Unbecoming | Maj. Alastair Wimbourne | ||
| The Man Who Would Be King | Rudyard Kipling | ||
| The Day That Shook the World | Archduke Ferdinand of Austria | ||
| 1976 | Aces High | Capt. 'Uncle' Sinclair | |
| Arthur Hailey's the Moneychangers | Roscoe Heyward | Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie | |
| 1977 | Jesus of Nazareth | Herod Antipas | |
| Uppdraget | Captain Behounek | ||
| The Disappearance | Deverell | ||
| Silver Blaze | Sherlock Holmes | ||
| 1978 | The Silent Partner | Harry Reikle | |
| International Velvet | John Seaton | ||
| 1979 | Starcrash | Emperor | |
| Murder by Decree | Sherlock Holmes | Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role | |
| Riel | John A. Macdonald | ||
| Hanover Street | Paul Sellinger | ||
| 1980 | Desperate Voyage | Burrifous | |
| The Shadow Box | Brian | ||
| Somewhere in Time | William Fawcett Robinson | ||
| 1981 | When the Circus Came to Town | Duke Royal | |
| Dial M for Murder | Tony Wendice | ||
| Eyewitness | Joseph | ||
| The Amateur | Professor Lakos | Nominated — Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role | |
| 1982 | Little Gloria... Happy at Last | Reggie Vanderbilt | |
| 1983 | The Scarlet and the Black | Col. Herbert Kappler | |
| The Thorn Birds | Archbishop Vittorio Contini-Verchese | Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor – Miniseries or a Movie | |
| Prototype | Dr. Carl Forrester | ||
| 1984 | Lily in Love | Fitzroy Wynn/Roberto Terranova | |
| Dreamscape | Bob Blair | ||
| Highpoint | James Hatcher | ||
| Terror in the Aisles | Archival appearance | ||
| Ordeal by Innocence | Leo Argyle | ||
| 1985 | Játszani kell | ||
| The World of David the Gnome | |||
| Rumpelstiltskin | Narrator | ||
| 1986 | The Boy in Blue | Knox | |
| Crossings | Armand DeVilliers | ||
| The Boss' Wife | Mr. Roalvang | ||
| An American Tail | Henri | ||
| Spearfield's Daughter | Lord Jack Cruze | ||
| Vampire in Venice | Professor Paris Catalano | ||
| 1987 | Dragnet | Reverend Jonathan Whirley | |
| A Hazard of Hearts | Sir Giles Staverley | ||
| The Man Who Planted Trees | Narrator | ||
| The Gnomes' Great Adventure | Narrator | ||
| 1988 | Light Years | Metamorphis | |
| Shadow Dancing | Edmund Beaumont | ||
| The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind | Narrator | ||
| I Love N.Y. | John Robertson Yeats | ||
| 1989 | Souvenir | Ernst Kestner | |
| Nabokov on Kafka | Vladimir Nabokov | ||
| Mindfield | Doctor Satorius | ||
| Kingsgate | |||
| 1990 | Where the Heart Is | Jerry | |
| A Ghost in Monte Carlo | The Grand Duke Ivan | ||
| Red Blooded American Girl | Dr. John Alcore | ||
| Money | Martin Yahl | ||
| Madeline | Narrator | ||
| Counterstrike | |||
| 1991 | Firehead | Col. Garland Vaughn | |
| Young Catherine | Sir Charles | ||
| A Marriage: Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz | Alfred Stieglitz | ||
| Rock-a-Doodle | Grand Duke | ||
| Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country | General Chang | ||
| Berlin Lady | Wilhem Speer | ||
| The First Circle | Victor Abakumov | ||
| 1992 | Secrets | Mel Wexler | |
| Impolite | Naples O'Rorke | Nominated — Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role | |
| Malcolm X | Chaplain Gill | ||
| Liar's Edge | Harry Weldon | ||
| 1993 | Sidney Sheldon's A Stranger in the Mirror | Clifton Lawrence | |
| The Little Crooked Christmas Tree | |||
| Madeline | Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance | ||
| 1994 | Wolf | Raymond Alden | |
| Crackerjack | Ivan Getz | ||
| 1995 | Dolores Claiborne | Det. John Mackey | |
| Harrison Bergeron | John Klaxon | ||
| 12 Monkeys | Dr. Goines | ||
| 1996 | We the Jury | Wilfred Fransiscus | |
| Skeletons | R. Carlyle | ||
| The Conspiracy of Fear | Joseph Wakeman | ||
| 1997 | The Arrow | George Hees | |
| Babes in Toyland | Barnaby Crookedman | ||
| 1998 | Winchell | Franklin D. Roosevelt | |
| Hidden Agenda | Ulrich Steiner | ||
| The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow | Narrator | ||
| The Clown at Midnight | Mr. Caruthers | ||
| 1999 | Celebrate the Century | ||
| Madeline: Lost in Paris | Narrator | ||
| The Insider | Mike Wallace | Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated — Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Drama |
|
| 2000 | Nuremberg | Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe | |
| The Dinosaur Hunter | Hump Hinton | ||
| Possessed | Archbishop Hume | ||
| American Tragedy | F. Lee Bailey | Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film | |
| Dracula 2000 | Abraham Van Helsing | ||
| Star Trek: Klingon Academy | General Chang | ||
| 2001 | Leo's Journey | Narrator | |
| On Golden Pond | Norman Thayer | ||
| Lucky Break | |||
| Blackheart | Holmes | ||
| A Beautiful Mind | Dr. Rosen | Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture | |
| Full Disclosure | Robert Lecker | ||
| 2002 | Night Flight | 'Flash' Harry Peters | |
| Ararat | David | Nominated — Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role | |
| Agent of Influence | John Watkins | ||
| Nicholas Nickleby | Ralph Nickleby | National Board of Review Award for Best Cast | |
| Tma | |||
| 2003 | Blizzard | Santa Claus | Nominated — Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role |
| The Gospel of John | Narrator | ||
| Cold Creek Manor | Mr. Massie | ||
| 2004 | National Treasure | John Adams Gates | |
| Alexander | Aristotle | ||
| 2005 | Our Fathers | Cardinal Bernard Law | Nominated - Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor – Miniseries or a Movie Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie |
| Must Love Dogs | Jack | ||
| Syriana | Dean Whiting | ||
| The New World | Captain Newport | ||
| 2006 | Inside Man | Arthur Case | |
| The Lake House | Simon Wyler | ||
| 2007 | Man in the Chair | Flash Madden | |
| Closing the Ring | Jack | ||
| Emotional Arithmetic | Nominated — Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role | ||
| Already Dead | Dr. Heller | ||
| 2008 | The Summit | P.J. Aimes | |
| 2009 | Caesar and Cleaopatra | Caesar | |
| Up | Charles Muntz | ||
| My Dog Tulip | |||
| 9 | 1 | ||
| The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus | Doctor Parnassus | ||
| The Last Station | Leo Tolstoy | Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture Nominated — Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role |
References
- ↑ "Christopher Plummer Biography". filmreference. 2008. http://www.filmreference.com/film/14/Christopher-Plummer.html. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
- ↑ http://www.cbc.ca/lifeandtimes/plummer.html
- ↑ Witchel, Alex (2008-11-19). "Christopher Plummer's legendary life, wonderfully retold". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/arts/21iht-IDSIDE20.1.18821148.html. Retrieved 2009-12-16.
- ↑ Hartigan, Patti (1997-01-19). "STARRING AS THE STAR-CROSSED ACTOR WHO WAS ALSO A RAKE AND REBEL, CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER DOES BARRYMORE BY THE BOOK". Boston Globe. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=BG&p_theme=bg&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EADDC8B6EB6EACF&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved 2009-12-16.
- ↑ Plummer, "In Spite of Myself: A Memoir", Alfred A. Knopf (2008)
- ↑ "Olivier at Work: The National Years", Lyn Haill ed. (1989), p 105
- ↑ Ben Brantley (5 March 2004). "A Fiery Fall Into the Abyss, Unknowing And Unknown". The New York Times. http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9B02E1D7133FF936A35750C0A9629C8B63. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
- ↑ New York Times, 12/19/08
- ↑ Steve Daly (18 November 2005). "Captain, Our Captain". Entertainment Weekly. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1128481,00.htm. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
- ↑ http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780679421627
External links
- Christopher Plummer at the Internet Movie Database
- Christopher Plummer at the Internet Broadway Database
- Christopher Plummer at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
- Christopher Plummer at Allmovie
- Christopher Plummer at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
- Christopher Plummer at the Canadian Film Encyclopedia
- Confessions of Captain Von Trapp: An Interview With Christopher Plummer
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||