Christopher Plummer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christopher Plummer (2007)

Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer CC (born December 13, 1929 in Toronto , Ontario , † February 5, 2021 in Weston , Connecticut ) was a Canadian actor in film, television and theater. He was considered one of the outstanding character actors of his generation and was honored with two Emmy Awards , two Tony Awards and for his role in Beginners (2010) with an Oscar and a Golden Globe .

Life

Career

Plummer was born in Toronto to Isabella Mary and John Plummer, then secretary at McGill University . However, some internet sources give Montreal as the place of birth .

Plummer was considered one of the most respected actors in classic roles in North America. He began his career on the Canadian stages as well as on radio and television. From 1954 Plummer was seen on Broadway and developed there into a theater star. The versatile actor made a name for himself primarily in Shakespeare roles, for which he has received multiple awards both in the United States and in Europe.

Plummer in 1959
photograph by Carl Van Vechten , from the Van Vechten Collection of the Library of Congress

Sidney Lumet made Plummer's big screen debut in 1958 in One Day The Door Opens . One of his most famous roles is that of Baron von Trapp in the classic musical My Songs - My Dreams (1965) by Robert Wise . The film brought Plummer the big breakout in Hollywood, although he distanced himself for a long time. The most important of his well over 80 cinema parts also include those of the Duke of Wellington in Sergej Bondarchuk's historical film Waterloo (1970), Sir Charles Litton in the comedy The Pink Panther Returns (1975) and that of an unscrupulous bank robber in The Silent Partner (1978 ). In John Huston's The Man Who Wanted to Be King (1975) he played the Nobel Prize winner for literature Rudyard Kipling , on whose story of the same name the film is based.

In 1971 Plummer played alongside other artists and celebrities living in Ibiza at the time, such as Erwin Bechtold , Robert Graves , Princesa de Borbón y Parma , Camilo José Cela , Leslie Grimes , Leonard Slater and Charles Orloff in the film Impromptu Balear by director Francisco Rovira Beleta .

He became known to the Star Trek fan base through the portrayal of the evil Klingon general Chang in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Land . His achievements in the Stephen King film version Dolores (1994), in which he tries to quit Kathy Bates as the cop "Mackey", and his Dr. Leland Goines in Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys (1995). In 1999 Plummer was in Michael Mann's thriller Insider and a year later as Doctor van Helsing in Wes Craven presented Dracula . In 2009 he played the writer Lev Tolstoy in A Russian Summer in the latter's last days.

Plummer has been connected to television for many years and has been seen on screen well over a hundred times, for example in the now legendary BBC production Hamlet at Elsinore , in Man and Superman, After the Fall, Die Dornenvögel, Jesus of Nazareth, Counterstrike or in Nuremberg on TNT. The workaholic Plummer made successful stage appearances in Cymbeline, Nina, The Starcross Story, Henry V, Medea, Julius Caesar, The Lark, Arturo Ui, JB, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, The Good Doctor, Danton's Death, Amphytrion, Othello, Macbeth and in No Man's Land .

For his role in the film Beginners as the family man Hal, who only confesses to his homosexuality as an old man after the death of his wife, he received the Oscar for best supporting actor in 2012 ; at age 82, he became the oldest acting Academy Award winner in Academy history. He also won a Golden Globe . In 2015 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . At the end of 2017, Plummer got into Ridley Scott's film drama Alles Geld der Welt , in which he played the role of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty , whose grandchild is kidnapped. He replaced the actual actor Kevin Spacey , whose scenes had already been shot, but who was considered untenable due to allegations of sexual abuse and was removed from the film. Plummer received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for All the Money in the World , which at 88 years of age makes him the oldest actor to date to be nominated for an Oscar, ahead of Gloria Stuart . In 2019, Plummer appeared in the successful detective film Knives Out , in which he played the family patriarch, who died under mysterious circumstances.

The numerous awards he has received over the course of his long career include the Evening Standard Award (for Becket ), the Tony Award (for Cyrano ), the Emmy Award (for The Moneychanger ), the Drama Desk Award , the Theater World Award , the Drama League Award , the Outer Critics Circle Award , the Genie Award (for Murder By Decree ), the Golden Decoration of Honor of Austria, the Maple Leaf Award for Arts and Letters and the honorary doctorate in fine arts from the Juilliard School in New York . In 1986, Christopher Plummer was elected to the American Theater Hall of Fame .

Private life

Plummer was a great-grandson of Canadian Prime Minister John Abbott . He was married to actress Tammy Grimes from 1956 to 1960 . Their daughter, actress Amanda Plummer , was born in New York on March 23, 1957. From 1962 to 1964 he was married to the journalist Patricia Lewis; the marriage was also divorced. His third marriage was in 1970 with the former actress and dancer Elaine Taylor . The couple lived in a 100-year-old farmhouse in Connecticut, USA . Plummer's autobiography In Spite of Myself was published in 2008.

Plummer died on February 5, 2021 at the age of 91 from complications from a fall.

Filmography (selection)

Awards and nominations (selection)

theatre

  • 1955: Theater World Award for The Dark Is Light Enough
  • 1959: Tony nomination for JB (Best Actor in a Play)
  • 1973: Drama Desk Award for Cyrano
  • 1974: Tony Award for Cyrano (Best Actor in a Musical)
  • 1982: Drama Desk Award for Othello
  • 1982: Tony nomination for Othello (Best Actor in a Play)
  • 1994: Tony nomination for No Man's Land (Best Actor in a Play)
  • 1997: Drama Desk Award for Barrymore
  • 1997: Tony Award for Barrymore (Best Actor in a Play)
  • 2004: Tony nomination for King Lear (Best Actor in a Play)
  • 2007: Tony nomination for Inherit the Wind (Best Actor in a Play)

Movie and TV

Web links

Commons : Christopher Plummer  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Christopher Plummer | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos | AllMovie. Retrieved March 4, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Prisma.de
  3. ↑ tagesschau.de: Mourning the Canadian actor: Christopher Plummer is dead. Accessed February 6, 2021 .
  4. ^ Felix Kessler: Christopher Plummer, Oldest Oscar Winner in His 80s, Dies at 91. In: bloomberg.com . February 5, 2021, accessed February 6, 2021 .
  5. ↑ Anita Bush: Christopher Plummer's Replacement Role Earns Him Supporting Actor Nomination And Place In Oscar History. In: Deadline . January 23, 2018, accessed March 4, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Bruce Weber: Christopher Plummer, Actor From Shakespeare to 'The Sound of Music,' Dies at 91. In: The New York Times . February 5, 2021, accessed February 5, 2021 .
personal data
SURNAME Plummer, Christopher
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Plummer, Arthur Christopher Orme (full name)
SHORT DESCRIPTION Canadian actor in film, television and theater
DATE OF BIRTH December 13, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Toronto , Ontario
DATE OF DEATH February 5, 2021
Place of death Weston , Connecticut