It is one of the great Hollywood ironies that Christopher Plummer did not like the film that made him a legend. He was an actor’s actor and had started doing Shakespeare. The Sound of Music, he thought, was a sentimental shlock. And he was not alone – the criticism at the time was terrible. Then, as a personal curse, it would become a universally loved classic. He played Henry V and Hamlet, but Captain von Trapp, he said in 1982, followed him “like an albatross”
But even Plummer, who died Friday at 91, lived long enough to soften a little. And why wouldn’t he go? He also liked something few actors do: a genuine third act with fantastic roles like “60 Minutes” correspondent Mike Wallace in Michael Mann’s “The Insider”, a widower who later appears in Mike Mills’ “Beginners” and , most recently, a mystery writer killed in Rian Johnson’s detective novel, “Knives Out”. He received three Oscar nominations in a decade and, at 82, would become the oldest actor to win an Oscar (for “Beginners”). He still holds that title.
“You are only two years older than me, dear. Where have you been all my life? “He told Oscar in 2012.” When I left my mother’s womb for the first time, I was already rehearsing my Academy thank you speech. But it was a long time ago, fortunately for you, me. forgot it.
Dapper and bold with an aristocratic air, Plummer could have been a protagonist without the talent. With that, he was a star with an actor spirit, to which he would later attribute his longevity.
“I am thrilled to have become a character actor early on. I hated being a poncey protagonist, ”he told Vanity Fair in 2015.“ You really start to worry about your chin. Please.”
Born in Toronto in 1929, Plummer was the great-grandson of Canadian Prime Minister John Abbott and fell in love with the theater at a young age. Classically trained, he self-proclaimed himself a snob in relation to the stages and resisted the fascination of the big screen for a while. As if to prove his own point, his first films are not well remembered. Then came “The Sound of Music”. It didn’t help that he received the additional blow that his voice would be dubbed in the final film.
“The only reason I did this damn thing was to be able to do a musical on stage in the film!” he said. But he achieved a lifelong friendship with Julie Andrews with the deal.
He retired to the theater for a while, which would be a chorus in his life. He won the Tony Awards for Cyrano and Barrymore and would even return to Shakespeare, as King Lear, later in life.
Throughout his six-decade career, his on-screen credits would prove to be extremely diverse. He participated in “Malcolm X” and “Must Love Dogs”. He was a Klingon in “Star Trek” and Tolstoy in “The Last Season”, Rudyard Kipling in “The Man Who Would Be King” and Captain Newport in “The New World”.
“For a long time, I accepted pieces that would take me to attractive places in the world. Instead of filming in the Bronx, I prefer to go to the south of France, a crazy creature than I am, ”he told the Associated Press in 2007.“ I sacrificed a lot of my career for better hotels and more attractive beaches. “
Plummer was also a legendary “hard fist” drinker, alongside friends with similar inclinations, such as Jason Robards, Richard Harris and Peter O’Toole.
“Our intention was that we should do it if we were called men. We should drink as much as we can. And if we can still get through Hamlet the next day without a problem, that made you a man, my son, “he told Terry Gross in 2008.” You were worthless unless you could. “
A little bit of Fernet-Branca mixed with mint cream was his favorite pick me up before going on stage after an especially heavy night. But, he warned, keep one. Two or three and “you’re drunk again”.
He has slowed down in recent years and would write about his own antics in his acclaimed memoir “In Spite of Myself”. Plummer decided he would “keep cracking”, since “retirement in any profession is death”. And he did, marking his turning point in 1999’s “The Insider” as a turning point.
“Then the scripts improved. I’ve been updated! Since then, they have been first-class scripts, ”he told the AP at the time. “Not all are successful, but it’s worth it.”
In 2017, in the midst of #MeToo’s first revelations, he made headlines when he replaced disgraced Kevin Spacey as J. Paul Getty in Ridley Scott’s “All the Money in the World”, just six weeks before the movie hit theaters . The race not only reminded him of the energy of the theater for him, but it also proved to be professionally fruitful: the role earned him his third Oscar nomination.
And although he maintained some of that charming arrogance to the end, Plummer was also a man capable of evolving, even when it comes to “The Sound of Music”.
“As cynical as I’ve always been about ‘The Sound of Music’,” Plummer told Vanity Fair, “I respect that it’s a bit of a relief from all the car shots and chases you see today. It is a kind of wonderful and old-fashioned universal. “
Plummer entered his 80s worried about what he would be able to accomplish, but a few years later he put those concerns aside.
“I’m having a lot of fun. And in my 80s, I had another career. I am very happy with that. It was better than most other decades, “he said in 2018. “I played everything in the theater. I would still like to do something else in the theater, of course. But I played all the big roles. And not so stingy. Now I want the same fantastic pieces, if I can, on the screen. And so far, yes. I played wonderful characters. “
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Follow AP film writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr