Whenever Christopher Plummer was asked about “The Sound of Music” – and he was asked about it so many times that it made him dyspeptic – he quoted actor Doug McClure, who once gave in: “Watching ‘The Sound of Music’ is like being beaten to death by a Hallmark card. “
If the film appeared on television, Plummer, who died Friday at 91, “took the remote,” he once told me. “I avoid television at all costs during the holidays,” he added, laughing. Plummer became a movie star at age 36, playing Captain Von Trapp in “The Sound of Music”. But, as he reports in his delightfully gossipy memoir “In Spite of Myself”, doing so was a nightmare, despite the beauty of the Alps.
A prominent Shakespeare theater actor at the time, Plummer had never sung before when he was offered the role. He accepted, he confessed, because he secretly wanted to turn “Cyrano de Bergerac” into a Broadway musical, and thought “The Sound of Music” would be good practice. He was horrified to learn that 20th Century Fox wanted him to start recording tracks with Julie Andrews before he even took his first singing class. He wanted to leave the film, but the threat of a $ 2 million lawsuit brought him back to reason.
He arrived in Austria with a grudge, maliciously referring to the musical as “S&M”. By his own admission, he was a pain on the set. “I was an arrogant and spoiled young bastard, spoiled by many important roles in the theater,” he wrote. “I still harbored the theater actor’s old-fashioned snobbery about filmmaking.”
He was also a world-class drinker, going to his hotel bar every night and appearing on the set with a “violent” hangover. “In my day, it was a medal of honor to play Hamlet in the matinee, take two or three bottles of claret at dinner and make an even better performance that night,” he once told me.
He was so dissipated and bloated that director Robert Wise once called him aside and said, “Young man, you better go on a diet now. How will you fit in your clothes? “
“I was,” admitted Plummer, “beginning to look like Orson Welles.”
The only bright spot was Andrews, with whom he had a lasting friendship. He loved watching his rehearsal and film scenes, marveling at his tireless energy, brightness and kindness to everyone on the set. He felt guilty for his own bad behavior, but that only led him to swallow more schnapps at the hotel bar.
As the film ended in Los Angeles, there was a feeling in the studio that “The Sound of Music” had all the pitfalls of a hit. “Do you have a feeling that we might be famous one day?” Andrews asked Plummer. Upon its release in 1965, “The Sound of Music” became the first film to raise more than $ 1 million (not adjusted for inflation). Its worldwide revenue today is $ 1.5 billion.
Plummer’s film career took off. He made memorable performances on “Waterloo”, “The Man Who Would Be King” and “The Silent Partner”. His stage career also flourished, and he won the Tony Awards for “Cyrano” and “Barrymore”.
But, try as he might, he could never shake “S&M”, which he considered an “albatross around my neck”. Your press officer once warned me not to mention the film during an interview. Over time, however, Plummer softened. He stopped drinking and had an extremely happy marriage to his third wife, Elaine Taylor. The last time I saw him, he was as elegant and charming as ever, telling me hilarious stories about working with Peter Sellers on the set of “The Return of the Pink Panther”.
He even came to enjoy “The Sound of Music”. At a children’s Easter party a few years ago, his hosts showed the film. He flinched, but was unable to escape. While watching the movie, he succumbed to its charms. “Suddenly, I could see why it brought so much pleasure to so many people,” he wrote. “Here I was, the old cynic I am, being totally seduced by the damn thing.”