Biography
This page uses content from the Christopher Plummer biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.
Christopher Plummer, CC (born Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer on December 13, 1929 in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian theatrical, film and television actor. He has a daughter Amanda Plummer, who is also an actor.
Early life
Plummer was born in Toronto, Ontario, the great-grandson of former Canadian Prime Minister Sir John Abbott. Following his parents' divorce he moved with his mother to live in Senneville, Quebec, near Montreal. He studied to be a concert pianist but developed a love of the theatre at an early age and began acting in high school. He travelled by train to study with Canadian Repertory Company in Ottawa.
A veteran of stage, film and television
Plummer has enjoyed 50 years as one of the English speaking theatre's most distinguished actors and as a veteran of international renown in over 100 motion pictures.
Theatre
It was in his hometown of Montreal that Plummer began his professional career on stage and radio in both French and English. After Ms. Eva Le Gallienne gave him his New York debut (1954) he performed in two plays with Katharine Cornell, The Constant Wife, and The Dark Is Light Enough by Christopher Fry for which he won a Theatre World Award. Cornell’s husband Guthrie McClintic took him to Paris (1955) to play Jason opposite Dame Judith Anderson in Medea. Then came The Lark, opposite his friend Julie Harris, which enjoyed a huge New York Success.
Plummer went on to star in many celebrated, prize-winning productions on Broadway and London's West End including Elia Kazan's production of Archibald MacLeish's Pulitzer winning play J.B. and the title role in Anthony Burgess' musical Cyrano for which Plummer won his first Tony. A recent Broadway success was as Barrymore for which he won a Tony Award, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Award — The Edwin Booth Award, the Boston Critic's Award, Chicago's Jefferson Award, and Los Angeles' Ovation Award as best actor 1997-1998.
He was also a leading member of Britain's National Theatre under Sir Laurence Olivier, the Royal Shakespeare Company under Sir Peter Hall where he won London’s best actor Evening Standard Theatre Award. In its formative years, he played at the Stratford Festival of Canada under Sir Tyrone Guthrie and Michael Langham. He has played most of the great roles in the classic repertoire.
Plummer's most recent Broadway appearance was as King Lear in Jonathan Miller's production at Lincoln Center, for which he won his seventh Tony nomination.
Film
Plummer's eclectic career on screen began in 1957 when Sidney Lumet provided him his movie debut in Stage Struck. Since then he has appeared in a vast number of notable films which include the Academy Award winning The Sound Of Music, The Man Who Would Be King, Battle of Britain, Waterloo, The Silent Partner,
Dragnet,Inside Daisy Clover,
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Malcolm X, Dolores Claiborne, Wolf, Twelve Monkeys, Murder by Decree, Somewhere in Time and Syriana.
Recent successes include Michael Mann's Oscar-nominated The Insider playing television journalist Mike Wallace, for which he won the Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Las Vegas and the National Critics Awards, and Ron Howard's Academy Award winning A Beautiful Mind as well. He played Arthur Case in Spike Lee's 2006 film Inside Man.
Owing to the box office success and continued popularity of The Sound Of Music, Plummer is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Captain Von Trapp.
Television
Among his television appearances, which number almost a hundred, are the Emmy winning BBC production Hamlet at Elsinore, the five-time Emmy winning The Thornbirds, the Emmy-winning Nuremberg, the Emmy-winning Little Moon of Alban and the Emmy-winning Moneychangers.
He co-starred in American Tragedy as F. Lee Bailey (for which he received a Golden Globe Nomination), and appeared in Four Minute Mile, Miracle Planet, and a documentary by Ric Burns' about Eugene O’Neill. He received an Emmy nomination for his perfromance in Our Fathers, and was reunited with Julie Andrews for a television production of On Golden Pond.
Awards and other achievements
Plummer has also written for the stage, television and the concert-hall. Plummer and Sir Neville Marriner rearranged Shakespeare’s “Henry V” with Sir William Walton’s music as a concert piece. They recorded the work with Marriner's chamber orchestra the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.
He performed it and other works with the New York Philharmonic and symphony orchestras of London, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Ohio, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax. With Marriner he made his Carnegie Hall debut in his own arrangements of Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Aside from many honors in the United Kingdom, United States, Austria and Canada, Plummer has won two Tony Awards (against seven nominations), two Emmy Awards (six nominations), Great Britain's Evening Standard Award, and Canada's Genie Award.
In 1968, sanctioned by Elizabeth II, he was invested as Companion of the Order of Canada, and given an honorary Knighthood. In 2001 he received the Governor General's lifetime achievement award. He was made an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts at New York's Juilliard School and has received honorary doctorate’s from the University of Toronto, Ryerson, McGill, and Western Ontario.
In 2002 he was the first performer to be presented with the Jason Robards Award for Excellence in memory of his great friend. Plummer was inducted into the American Theatre's Hall of Fame in 1986 and into Canada's Walk of Fame in 1997. On June 1 2006 he was given an honorary Doctorate of Letters by McGill University.
Partial list of awards
- Jason Robards Award for Excellence in Theatre (2002)
- Edwin Booth Lifetime Achievement Award (1997)
- Emmy Award (1994), for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for his work on the Family Channel's Madeline children's series
- Emmy Award (1976), as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series for Arthur Hailey's The Moneychangers
- Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play (1997), for his lead role in Barrymore
- Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical (1974), for his lead role in Cyrano
- Genie Award (1980), for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in Murder by Decree
- London Evening Standard Award as Best Actor (1961), for his portrayal of King Henry II in the stage play, Becket
Filmography
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