Christopher Plummer was a prolific actor whose decades-long career included a star turn as Captain Georg von Trapp in the classic 1965 movie musical “The Sound of Music.”
- Died: February 5, 2021 (Who else died on February 5?)
- Details of death: Died at his home in Connecticut after a fall at the age of 91.
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Award-winning acting career
Plummer became the oldest actor ever to win an Academy Award for acting when he won Best Supporting Actor for “Beginners” in 2010 at age 82; he then became the oldest actor nominated when, in 2018, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at age 88 for “All the Money in the World.” Plummer was also a renowned stage actor on Broadway, at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, and elsewhere. He was the only Canadian actor ever to win the Triple Crown of acting: an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony. Plummer won two Emmys, for miniseries “Arthur Hailey’s the Moneychangers” in 1977 and for voice work in “Madeline” in 1994, and two Tonys, for “Cyrano” in 1974 and “Barrymore” in 1997.
Other notable credits
Plummer’s film career began in 1958 with his film debut, Sidney Lumet’s “Stage Struck.” He went on to appear in more than 100 films, including “The Return of the Pink Panther” (1975), “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” (1991), “The Insider” (1999), “A Beautiful Mind” (2001), “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2011), and “Knives Out” (2019). He provided voices for a number of animated films, including “An American Tale” (1986) as Henri le Pigeon and “Up” (2009) as Charles Muntz. On Broadway, he had leading roles in plays including “The Good Doctor,” “Othello,” and “Macbeth.”
“The Sound of Music”
Plummer was most frequently associated with “The Sound of Music,” much to his chagrin. He considered his character boring and the movie “so awful and sentimental and gooey,” as he told the Hollywood Reporter in a 2011 interview. He was known to refer to the film as “The Sound of Mucus,” but he did soften on it over the years. Though the film became a classic, when it was released, plenty of reviewers tended to agree with Plummer, calling it “icky sticky” and “romantic nonsense.”
Notable quote
“As cynical as I was about ‘The Sound of Music,’ I do respect that it is a bit of relief from all the gunfire and car chases you see these days. It’s sort of wonderfully, old-fashionedly universal. It’s got the bad guys and the Alps; it’s got Julie and sentiment in bucketloads. Our director, dear old Bob Wise, did keep it from falling over the edge into a sea of treacle.” —from a 2015 interview with Vanity Fair
Tributes to Christopher Plummer
Full obituary: The Guardian
