Triple Crown-winning performer Christopher Plummer died Feb. 5 at his home in Weston, Conn. Born Dec. 13, 1929, in Toronto, Plummer’s parents divorced soon after his birth, and he was raised by his mother in Montreal. He was studying to be a concert pianist, when he fell in love with theater at the High School of Montreal. As Mr. Darcy in the school’s 1946 production of Pride and Prejudice, he caught the attention of Herbert Whittaker, who cast the 18-year-old actor in Montreal Repertory’s production of La Machine infernale. Plummer continued to apprentice with company instead of attending college.
In 1953, he made his TV debut in the CBC-TV Encounter series presentation of Othello. A year later, he made his Broadway debut in the play The Starcross Story, which closed on opening night, but in 1955, he won a Theatre World Award for the play The Dark Is Light Enough. In 1958, he made his film debut in Stage Struck, appeared in the TV drama Little Moon of Alban (for which he received his first Emmy nomination), and opened on Broadway in the Pulitzer-winning J.B.(for which he received his first Tony nomination).
He found international fame as Captain von Trapp in the 1965 Oscar-winning musical film The Sound of Music, which he publicly despised, although he softened a bit in his 2008 autobiography In Spite of Me. Bill Lee dubbed Plummer’s voice in the released film, but the clip below features Plummer’s own singing voice in “Edelweiss.”
In 1973, Plummer returned to Broadway in his only stage musical appearance, Cyrano, which earned him Tony and Drama Desk awards. Below, you can hear him in the show’s opening song, “Cyrano’s Nose.” Among his other Broadway work, Plummer received a Tony for Barrymore (1997) and nominations for Othello (1982), No Man’s Land (1994), and King Lear (2004). Among his TV work, he won Emmys for The Moneychangers (1976) and The New Adventures of Madeline (1995), out of seven nominations. He also received a 1986 Grammy nomination for the children’s album The Nutcracker.
His later musical work is primarily in animated films, including An American Tale (1986), Rock-a-Doodle (1991), and Babes in Toyland (1997). Below is Plummer as Henri, brightening Fievel’s spirit with “Never Say Never” in An American Tail. His other soundtrack appearances include Lucky Break (2001), singing “There Is Nothing’ Like a Dame” to a group of prison inmates putting on Nelson: The Musical, and Remember (2015), where he shows his piano skills in Mendelssohn’s first Piano Concerto and Wagner’s “Liebestod” from Tristan und Isolde.
Plummer was in four films nominated for the Best Picture Oscars: The Sound of Music (1965), The Insider (1999), A Beautiful Mind (2001), and Up (2009). In 2010, he finally received his own Oscar nod, for The Last Station (2009). Two years later, he became the oldest person to win an Oscar, for Beginners (2010), which also earned him Golden Globe and BAFTA awards. His third and final Oscar nomination was for All the Money in the World (2017).
