In a career spanning seven decades, Plummer's body of work took in everything from musicals to thrillers, highbrow literary adaptations and popcorn blockbusters, voicing animated characters and bringing some of Shakespeare's biggest characters to life on stage. He was equally at home playing a Klingon general as he was playing Sherlock Holmes.
Born in Toronto in 1929, Plummer's maternal great-grandfather was none other than Sir John Abbott (third Prime Minister of Canada). When his parents divorced, Plummer moved to Senneville in Quebec and grew up speaking both French and English. In 1950, he joined the Canadian Rep and his theatre career began, appearing on Broadway and at the Stratford (Ontario) Shakespeare Festival (somewhere he would perform until well into his 80s). He played the leading role in Henry V in 1956 in a production which travelled to the Edinburgh festival. Three years later, he would receive his first Tony nomination for his performance in JB by Archibald MacLeish, a re-telling of the Old Testament book of Job, in which he played Nickles (Satan).
One of Plummer's career-defining roles (whether he liked it or not, and he didn't) was as the strict Captain Georg Von Trapp in The Sound Of Music (1965). Opting out of playing Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File to take the role of the stern widowed naval officer who falls in love with the free-spirited governess (Julie Andrews) who comes to look after his children, Plummer intensely disliked working on the film. He referred to the film as "The Sound Of Mucus" and describing working with Julie Andrews as "like being hit over the head with a Valentine's card" (although they remained close friends afterwards). When asked if he had made his peace with the film, he responded "Oh, God no." although, in 2011, his opinion had softened somewhat, saying: "it's timeless and I'm grateful for it".
For the second half of the 1960s, Plummer's filmography steers shy of any more saccharine musicals and exemplifies the versatile nature of the actor: he went from playing manipulative studio exec Raymond Swan in Inside Daisy Clover (1965) to playing Incan emperor Atahuallpa in the big screen adaptation of Peter Shaffer's The Royal Hunt Of The Sun (1969), via Field Marshal Rommel (The Night Of The Generals, 1967), Oedipus (Oedipus The King, 1968), and Squadron Leader Colin Harvey (Battle Of Britain, 1969)
In 1973, he won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for the title role in the musical Cyrano. He also appeared in The Return Of The Pink Panther (1975), playing gentleman-thief Sir Charles Litton a.k.a. "The Phantom" (replacing David Niven, who declined to return for a second film) and proving to be an admirable straight man for the madcap energy of Peter Sellers. He played Rudyard Kipling in The Man Who Would Be King (1975) opposite Michael Caine and Sean Connery, and appeared as Herod in the acclaimed 1977 mini-series Jesus Of Nazareth. In 1978's The Silent Partner, Plummer plays a sadistic bank robber engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with the bank teller who swindled him. He ended the 1970s by playing Sherlock Holmes in Murder By Decree (1979). Directed by Bob Clark and co-starring James Mason as Watson, Plummer puts in a superb performance as the sleuth who is investigating the murders committed by Jack The Ripper.
During the 1980s, Plummer played Iago opposite James Earl Jones in Othello, receiving his third Tony nomination. On screen, he was seen as Archbishop Contini-Verchese in the TV adaptation of The Thorn Birds (1983), as Leo Argyle in the film adaptation of Agatha Christie's Ordeal By Innocence (1984) and provided the voice of Henri the pigeon in Don Bluth's An American Tail (1986). He also played the villainous Reverend Jonathan Whirley in the big-screen version of 1950s cop show Dragnet (opposite Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd), and returned to Broadway to play Macbeth with Glenda Jackson as Lady Macbeth. He also appeared in the 1988 horror Vampire In Venice, playing the Van Helsing character to Klaus Kinski's Nosferatu.
In 1991, Plummer appeared in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), playing the bellicose Klingon General Chang. Injecting the script with life with each Shakespearean flourish, Plummer is better than the material but makes it work. His other roles throughout the 1990s include a racist prison chaplain in Malcolm X (1992), a ruthless business tycoon in Wolf (1994), a dogged small-town police detective investigating the mysterious death of an old woman in Stephen King adaptation Dolores Claiborne (1995), the virologist father of a mad man (Brad Pitt) in Twelve Monkeys (1995) and as television legend Mike Wallace in Michael Mann's whistleblower drama The Insider (1999). During all this screen work, Plummer still found time for the stage, playing Spooner opposite Jason Robards' Hirst in a revival of Harold Pinter's No Man's Land, and winning a second Tony Award for his performance as legendary stage actor John Barrymore in a play by William Luce, called Barrymore.
The course of Plummer's career throughout the 2000s, whilst impressive and varied as always, could have been very different; he turned down the role of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (which would later be played by Ian McKellen). When asked about making such an extraordinary decision, Plummer said "I don't know why I turned it down. I think it had to do with spending four years in New Zealand. There's other countries I want to visit before I croak."
Plummer worked steadily throughout the 2000s, appearing in such varied fare as Dracula 2001 (2000) as Van Helsing, A Beautiful Mind (2001), Nicholas Nickelby (2004), Cold Creek Manor (2003), National Treasure (2004), Alexander (2004) as Aristotle, Syriana (2005), The New World (2005), Inside Man (2006), The Lake House (2006), and as the title character in The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus (2009), which would be Heath Ledger's final film. He also continued to do voice acting, playing the antagonist Charles Muntz in Up (2009) and elder #1 in 9 (2009).
However, it would only be another two years before Plummer was back at the Dolby Theatre and in contention for an Oscar again. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Mike Mills' romantic comedy-drama Beginners (2010). In it, Plummer plays Hal Fields, father to main character Oliver (Ewan McGregor), who- after his wife passes away- comes out of the closet and embarks on a relationship with a much younger man, before being diagnosed with terminal cancer. It's no surprise that Plummer's Best Supporting Actor nod was the film's only Oscar nomination: the film is imbued with rare vitality whenever Hal is on screen.
At the age of 82, Plummer became the oldest winner of a competitive Oscar in an acting category, surpassing Jessica Tandy (who was 80 when she won for Driving Miss Daisy). His acceptance speech is a masterclass on how to do it: from his opening quip to the statuette-"You're only two years older than me, darling. Where have you been all my life?"- to his gracious roll-call of thanks, it's a perfect example of a classy, dignified speech. In addition to the Oscar, Plummer also won the Golden Globe, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild, and Independent Spirit Award for this nuanced and quite brilliant turn.
Plummer returned to Stratford, Ontario, to play Prospero in The Tempest, and also appeared in a film version of Barrymore, recreating his Tony-winning performance. He appeared as Henrik Vanger in David Fincher's version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011). He also provided the voice of Arngeir, an elder spokesman for the Greybeards, in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. He also appeared in Hector And The Search For Happiness (2014), Danny Collins (2015), The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017) [as Ebenezer Scrooge], and once again played Herod, this time in animated Christmas film The Star (2017).
In November 2017, it was announced that Plummer would be taking the role of billionaire oil magnate J. Paul Getty in Ridley Scott's All The Money In The World, a crime thriller dramatising the kidnapping of Getty's grandson John Paul in Rome in 1973. He would be replacing Kevin Spacey who was being removed from the film due to multiple allegations of sexual harrassment against him. The decision to replace him was made with just over a month to go before the film's release. Plummer had two weeks to memorise his lines before jetting to Rome. It took eight days to reshoot all of Getty's scenes (twenty-two in total) and cost approximately $10m.
Plummer's performance is superb: he infuses Getty with an odd kind of familial warmth yet is absolutely steadfast in his refusal to pay the ransom money for his grandson's return. It's an interesting dichotomy to see a man who has seemed to have a genuine concern for the boy blithely dismiss the request as if it's a mere trifle. Plummer received his third Oscar nomination- again for Best Supporting Actor- for his performance (like Beginners, his was the only Oscar nod the film got); at 88, he became the oldest Academy Award nominee for acting (although lost out to Sam Rockwell for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri).
In 2019, Plummer reunited with Daniel Craig, his co-star from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, for Knives Out, a mystery drama written and directed by Rian Johnson. In it, Plummer plays renowned crime writer Harlan Thrombey, patriarch to a dysfunctional family, who gather to celebrate his 85th birthday. Thrombey's death is the catalyst for the investigation, but Plummer appears throughout in flashbacks, showing that more than one person at the house might have had reason for wanting to off the old man. Knives Out is a particularly good puzzle-box mystery and the casting is part of that. Plummer's last screen role was in The Last Full Measure (2019), but his voice will be heard in Heroes Of The Golden Masks (2021).
Whether playing sci-fi or Shakespeare, Christopher Plummer always brought a dignity and a gravitas to the role. He was a superb character actor and will be missed. Our thoughts are with his friends and family at this time.
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