Sound of Music star Christopher Plummer dies aged 91
CHRISTOPHER Plummer, who famously dismissed the iconic Sound Of Music film that made him a star, died yesterday aged 91.
He passed away peacefully at his American home in Connecticut with his wife of 53 years, Elaine Taylor, by his side.
Yesterday stars paid tribute to a man described as “a giant of stage and screen” while his Sound Of Music co-star Julie Andrews said that she had lost “a cherished friend”.
A family statement said: “Chris was an extraordinary man who deeply loved and respected his profession with great old fashion manners, self-deprecating humour and the music of words.
He will forever be with us.”
His bestknown role was probably as Captain von Trapp in The Sound Of Music in 1965.
Adapted from the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage show, his well-known distaste for the feel-good musical mellowed over time: “I’ve made my peace with it,” he said in 2018. “It annoyed the hell out of me at first.”
Julie Andrews said: “The world has lost a consummate actor and I have lost a cherished friend. I treasure the memories of our work together.”
Canadian-born Plummer – the oldest actor to win an Oscar at 82 – made his first film appearance in 1958’s Stage Struck, a backstage drama in which he played a writer in love. His Oscar came in 2012 for the film Beginners.
Others paying tribute included filmmaker Ridley Scott. “What a guy. What a talent.What a life,” he said.
Star Trek actor George Takei said Plummer was a “giant of stage and screen”, and Lord Of The Rings star Elijah Wood tweeted: “So sad.What a legend.”
After The Sound Of Music, he appeared in The Royal Hunt Of The Sun and The Battle Of Britain in 1969, Waterloo in 1970 and Return Of The Pink Panther in 1975. He played Rudyard Kipling in The Man Who Would Be King and Sherlock Holmes in Murder By Decree in 1979. He also had success on the stage, winning a Tony award in 1973 for the title role in the musical Cyrano.
In 2017, he stepped in at short notice to replace Kevin Spacey in the Ridley Scottdirected All The Money In The World, after Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct. For this, aged 88, he was Oscar-nominated as best supporting actor.
He was born Arthur Plummer in Toronto in 1929, the great-grandson of John Abbott, Canada’s third prime minister, and grew up in Quebec. After a short spell on Broadway he achieved his first leading role in HenryV in 1956.
More stage roles followed in Stratford and Broadway including with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
He was married three times, to Tammy Grimes, Patricia Lewis and Elaine Taylor and had a daughter with Grimes, the actress Amanda Plummer.