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Christopher Plummer

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Christopher Plummer photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1959

Christopher Plummer CC (born Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer on December 13, 1929), is a British-Canadian theatrical, film and television actor. He is one of his country's most prominent and respected actors and viewed by many as one of the world's finest stage performers.

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 went on to train for the theater with the Canadian Repertory Company in Ottawa.

From his marriage to Tony Award winning actress Tammy Grimes he has a daughter, Amanda Plummer, who is an actress in her own right.

Christopher Plummer, whose latest Broadway appearance was as King Lear in Jonathan Miller's much lauded production, at Lincoln Center, for which he won his 7th Tony Nomination, 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.

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. Apart from "King Lear," his most recent Broadway success was as "Barrymore" for which he won the Tony, 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, and in its formative years, Canada's Stratford Festival under Sir Tyrone Guthrie and Michael Langham. He has played most of the great roles in the classic repertoire.

Plummer's eclectic career on screen began in 1957 when Sidney Lumet gave 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 (which he dismisses as "Sound of mucus" [1]), The Man Who Would Be King, The Battle of Britain, Waterloo, The Silent Partner, Dragnet, Daisy Clover, Star Trek VI, Malcolm X, Dolores Claiborne, Wolf, Twelve Monkeys, Murder by Decree, Somewhere in Time, and a host of others. Plummer's latest successes are 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 Critic's Awards, and Ron Howard's Academy Award winning A Beautiful Mind as well as Atom Egoyan's Ararat. His latest films are Douglas McGrath's Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Stone’s Alexander, Terrence Malick’s The New World, Spike Lee’s Inside Man, Must Love Dogs with Diane Lane, Syriana, The Lake House, and Michael Schroeder’s The Man in The Chair.

Among his television appearances, which number almost a hundred, are the Emmy winning BBC 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. More recently, On Golden Pond co-starring with Julie Andrews, American Tragedy as F. Lee Bailey (Golden Globe Nomination), “Our Fathers (Emmy Nomination), Four Minute Mile, and Rick Burns' documentary film on Eugene O’Neil.

Plummer has also written for the stage, television and the concert-hall. Sir Neville Mariner and he rearranged Shakespeare’s “Henry V” with Sir William Walton’s music as a concert piece. They recorded this for Cadam Records with Sir Neville’s own orchestra Saint Martin in the Fields. He performed it and other works with the New York Philharmonic and the symphony orchestras of London, Washington, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax. With Mariner he made his Carnegie Hall debut in his own arrangements of Mendelssohn’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Aside from many honors in the UK, USA, Austria and Canada, Plummer has won two Tony Awards (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, 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 Julliard School and has received honorary doctorate’s from the universities of Toronto, Ryerson 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.

Partial list of Awards

Filmography

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