Christopher Plummer

Plummer, best known for high-profile films such as The Sound of Music, The Man Who Would Be King and All the Money in the World, was a versatile actor whose career spanned more than six decades.

Born Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer in Toronto on Dec. 13, 1929 to John Plummer and Isabella Abbott Plummer, Plummer was the great-grandson of Sir John Abbott, Canada’s third prime minister. Plummer grew up in Montreal, where he attended the Jennings Private School. He spoke both English and French fluently.

After leaving school, Plummer joined the Montreal Repertory Theatre, making his stage debut in a 1948 production of Cymbeline. Soon thereafter, he landed a role on the CBC television production of Othello.

In the early 1950s, Plummer migrated to New York, where he worked extensively in live television on shows such as Kraft Television Theatre, Hallmark Hall of Fame, Producers’ Showcase, Appointment with Adventure and Omnibus.

His Broadway debut came in 1954’s The Starcross Story, opposite Katharine Cornell. After a short stint on Broadway, Plummer earned his first leading role in 1956 in the Stratford Festival production of Henry V in Ontario, which was highly acclaimed.

More stage roles followed, in Stratford and Broadway, including his first Tony nomination for best actor in Archibald MacLeish’s JB in 1959.

While his film debut came in Sidney’s Lumet’s Stage Struck in 1958, stardom struck after his portrayal of Captain von Trapp in 1965’s The Sound of Music, his most widely seen film.

After The Sound of Music, Plummer was in high demand for high-profile Hollywood films, appearing in such films as Sergei Bondarchuk’s epic Waterloo in 1970, Return of Pink Panther in 1975 and Murder By Decree in 1979. He also had success on stage, winning a Tony award in 1973 for the lead role in the musical Cyrano.

Plummer continued acting through the 1980s and 90s but didn’t receive acclaim again in Hollywood until 2010 when he received his first Oscar nomination for the Tolstoy biopic The Last Situation. Although he lost out to Christoph Waltz, the nomination sparked a flurry of interest in his work. Two years later, Plummer won the Oscar for best-supporting actor for Beginners, a role in which he played a man who comes out as gay in his senior years. At 82, Plummer remains the oldest actor to win an Oscar.

Plummer would then break another age-related Oscar record when he secured his third Oscar nomination in 2018, aged 88, for All the Money in the World, in which he played a billionaire grandfather whose grandson gets kidnapped by the mafia in 1973.

Plummer was appointed Companion of the Order of Canada in 1968 and received a governor general’s award for lifetime artistic achievement in 2001.

Plummer was married three times, first to actress Tammy Grimes, Patricia Lewis and actress-dancer Elaine Taylor.

He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Taylor and daughter Amanda Plummer.