Christopher Plummer, actor of ‘The Sound of Music’ fame, dies at 91

Christopher Plummer, whose various movie, tv and theater performing profession spanned seven a long time, died Friday.

He was 91.

Plummer died at his house in Connecticut along with his spouse of fifty years, Elaine Taylor, by his aspect, mentioned Lou Pitt, his longtime good friend and supervisor of 46 years.

“Chris was a unprecedented man who deeply beloved and revered his career with nice outdated trend manners, self deprecating humor and the music of phrases. He was a Nationwide Treasure who deeply relished his Canadian roots,” Pitt mentioned. “By his artwork and humanity, he touched all of our hearts and his legendary life will endure for all generations to come back.”

Plummer, it appeared, may deal with any function from Oedipus to Othello. Audiences of various ages would possibly acknowledge him because the antagonist outdated man in “Up” to, extra just lately, the rich patriarch within the comedic thriller film “Knives Out.”

However it was his function as Captain Georg von Trapp reverse Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music” that catapulted him to fame.

Whereas the movie — a couple of strict single father of seven who falls in love with a nun-in-training earlier than the whole musically gifted household has to flee Austria to keep away from his serving within the Nazi Navy — is hailed as a traditional, he lengthy regarded the function as “humorless and one-dimensional.”

“We tried so onerous to place humor into it,” Plummer advised The Related Press in 2007. “It was nearly unimaginable. It was simply agony to attempt to make that man not a cardboard determine.”

Plummer had a exceptional movie renaissance late in life, which started along with his acclaimed efficiency as Mike Wallace in Michael Mann’s 1999 movie “The Insider” and continued in movies such 2001’s “A Stunning Thoughts” and 2009′s “The Final Station,” by which he performed a deteriorating Leo Tolstoy and was nominated for an Oscar, and 2011’s “The Lady with the Dragon Tattoo.”

He gained a greatest supporting actor Oscar in 2012, making him the oldest Academy Award performing winner in historical past on the age of 82, for his function in “Newcomers” as Hal Fields, a museum director who turns into overtly homosexual after his spouse of 44 years dies.

“Too many individuals on the planet are sad with their lot. After which they retire and so they change into greens. I believe retirement in any career is loss of life, so I’m decided to maintain crackin’,” he advised AP in 2011.

Plummer was nominated for a 3rd greatest supporting actor Oscar in 2017, when he changed Kevin Spacey as J. Paul Getty in “All of the Cash within the World,” solely six weeks earlier than the movie was to be launched.

His work additionally earned him two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, a Golden Globe Award and a Display screen Actors Guild Award.

Plummer started his profession on stage and in radio in Canada within the Forties and made his Broadway debut in 1954 in “The Starcross Story.”

Whereas nonetheless a relative unknown, he was solid as Hamlet in a 1963 efficiency co-starring Robert Shaw and Michael Caine. It was taped by the BBC at Elsinore Fort in Denmark, the place the play is ready, and launched in 1964. It gained an Emmy.

He went on to carry out many of the main Shakespeare roles, together with Cyrano, Iago, Othello, Prospero, Henry V and a staggering “King Lear” at Lincoln Heart in 2004. He was a frequent star on the Stratford Shakespeare Competition in Canada.

Plummer married Tony-winning actress Tammy Grimes in 1956, with whom he had his solely little one, actress Amanda Plummer, in 1957. Amanda Plummer additionally gained a Tony, in 1982, for “Agnes of God. Plummer and Grimes divorced in 1960.

A five-year marriage to Patricia Lewis resulted in 1967. Plummer married his third spouse, dancer Taylor, in 1970.

He was given Canada’s highest civilian honor when he was invested as Companion of the Order of Canada by Queen Elizabeth II in 1968, and was inducted into the American Theatre’s Corridor of Fame in 1986.

Tributes to Plummer started filling social media Friday afternoon.

“‘Blossom of snow, could you bloom and develop, bloom and develop ceaselessly.’ RIP Christopher Plummer. You lit up display screen and stage over a lifetime of artwork. My ideas are with your loved ones and pals,” journalist Dan Relatively wrote on Twitter, quoting “The Sound of Music.”

“Relaxation in everlasting music, Captain Von Trapp,” wrote George Takei.

“I used to be fortunate sufficient to direct Christopher Plummer in my first movie. He was absolutely the BEST,” wrote screenwriter Dan Fogelman. “He was a unprecedented expertise, and an awfully type man … and people two issues not often are available in the identical package deal.”