| Christopher Plummer  AKA Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer
Born: 13-Dec-1929
Birthplace: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor Nationality: Canada
Executive summary: A Beautiful Mind Christopher Plummer is a longtime film actor, best known for singing "Edelweiss" as Baron von Trapp in The Sound of Music, with Julie Andrews and a fleet of singing children, but ironically Plummer abhors that film, and derisively refers to it as The Sound of Mucus.
Plummer was born into a family of well-off actors. His great-uncle, Nigel Bruce, played Dr Watson opposite Basil Rathbone in numerous Sherlock Holmes films, and Plummer's great-grandfather, Sir John Abbott, was the mayor of Montreal and later Prime Minister of Canada. Plummer's parents were divorced mere weeks after he was born, and the boy was raised by his mother and several aunts.
He knew from an early age he wanted to be an actor, and began working with the Canadian Repertory Company in his mid-teens, often appearing on stage and eventually radio roles alongside his fellow Canadian and friend William Shatner. Plummer made his professional debut at 17, and long before either man was famous, he starred in a Montreal production of Henry V, with Shatner as his understudy. By his mid-20s, Plummer was well-known in theater circles as a heavy drinker and suave ladies' man, a reputation he still relishes. "To be known as a rake at twenty-two or twenty-three was so much more satisfying than any career move."
He worked his way to Broadway by 1954, debuting in a bomb, The Starcross Story with Mary Astor, which closed on its opening night. His luck improved, and he was eventually nominated for six Tonys, winning the award in 1974 for the title role in a musical of Cyrano, and again in 1997 playing John Barrymore in Barrymore.
After numerous appearances on live television plays, his first film was Stage Fright, a generally forgotten backstage drama with Henry Fonda. Plummer, though, was a dashingly handsome actor, and his memorable big-screen roles include the psychotically laughing Commodus in the sprawling Fall of the Roman Empire with Alec Guinness and Sophia Loren, the intense manager of teen starlet Natalie Wood in Inside Daisy Clover, a jaunty Sherlock Holmes in Murder by Decree with James Mason as Dr Watson, and Rudyard Kipling telling the tale of The Man Who Would Be King with Sean Connery and Michael Caine.
As Plummer aged, his face evolved into a craggy, wrinkled moonscape, and in his late career he played several memorable elderlies -- the scientist father of radical Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys, a spineless Mike Wallace in The Insider with Russell Crowe, Crowe's shrink in A Beautiful Mind, and the priest and pedophile-enabler Bernard Cardinal Law in Our Fathers. After playing Cardinal Law, Plummer publicly criticized the Vatican for its decades of protecting child abusers "behind crimson robes".
Plummer and Shatner were reunited in the final voyage of the original Star Ship Enterprise, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). Plummer played the Shakespeare-quoting Klingon, General Chang, making a half-attempt at diplomacy with the despised Federation of Planets.
Father: John Plummer (lawyer at McGill University)
Mother: Isabella Mary Plummer
Wife: Tammy Grimes (actress, m. 19-Aug-1956, div. 1960, one daughter)
Daughter: Amanda Plummer (actress, b. 23-Mar-1957)
Wife: Patricia Lewis (British journalist, m. 4-May-1962, div. 1967)
Wife: Elaine Taylor (actress, b. 17-Oct-1943, dated 1968-70, m. 1970)
High School: Jennings Private School, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Order of Canada 1968
Canada's Walk of Fame 1998
Risk Factors: Alcoholism
TELEVISION
Counterstrike Alexander Addington (1990-93)
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
The Lake House (16-Jun-2006)
Inside Man (16-May-2006)
The New World (25-Dec-2005)
Syriana (23-Nov-2005)
Must Love Dogs (21-Jul-2005)
Our Fathers (11-May-2005)
National Treasure (8-Nov-2004)
Alexander (5-Nov-2004)
Cold Creek Manor (17-Sep-2003)
The Gospel of John (11-Sep-2003) Narrator [VOICE]
Blizzard (15-May-2003)
Nicholas Nickleby (27-Dec-2002)
Ararat (20-May-2002)
A Beautiful Mind (13-Dec-2001)
Lucky Break (24-Aug-2001)
On Golden Pond (29-Apr-2001)
Full Disclosure (2001)
Dracula 2000 (22-Dec-2000)
Possessed (22-Oct-2000)
Nuremberg (16-Jul-2000)
The Insider (5-Nov-1999)
Winchell (11-Nov-1998)
Hidden Agenda (1998)
The Clown at Midnight (1998)
The Arrow (12-Jan-1997)
Skeletons (1996)
Twelve Monkeys (27-Dec-1995)
Harrison Bergeron (13-Aug-1995)
Dolores Claiborne (24-Mar-1995)
Wolf (17-Jun-1994)
Crackerjack (1994)
Malcolm X (18-Nov-1992)
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (6-Dec-1991)
Rock-A-Doodle (22-Nov-1991) [VOICE]
Young Catherine (17-Feb-1991)
A Ghost in Monte Carlo (2-Apr-1990)
Where the Heart Is (23-Feb-1990)
Red Blooded American Girl (1990)
Vampire in Venice (1-Sep-1988)
I Love N.Y. (1988)
A Hazard of Hearts (27-Dec-1987)
Dragnet (26-Jun-1987)
An American Tail (21-Nov-1986) [VOICE]
The Boss' Wife (7-Nov-1986)
The Boy in Blue (17-Jan-1986)
Highpoint (31-Aug-1984)
Dreamscape (15-Aug-1984)
Ordeal by Innocence (1984)
The Thorn Birds (27-Mar-1983)
The Scarlet and the Black (2-Feb-1983)
Little Gloria: Happy at Last (24-Oct-1982)
The Amateur (11-Dec-1981)
Eyewitness (26-Aug-1981)
Somewhere in Time (1980)
Hanover Street (18-May-1979)
Murder by Decree (1-Feb-1979)
Starcrash (21-Dec-1978)
International Velvet (13-Oct-1978)
The Silent Partner (7-Sep-1978)
Jesus of Nazareth (3-Apr-1977)
Aces High (30-Sep-1976)
The Man Who Would Be King (17-Dec-1975)
Conduct Unbecoming (5-Oct-1975)
The Return of the Pink Panther (21-May-1975)
Waterloo (26-Oct-1970)
The Royal Hunt of the Sun (6-Oct-1969)
Battle of Britain (15-Sep-1969)
The Night of the Generals (2-Feb-1967)
Triple Cross (9-Dec-1966)
Inside Daisy Clover (17-Feb-1966)
The Sound of Music (2-Mar-1965)
The Fall of the Roman Empire (26-Mar-1964)
Wind Across the Everglades (11-Sep-1958)
Stage Struck (22-Apr-1958)
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