Line #28 Creator/ChristopherPlummer


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/christopher_plummer.jpg]]
2	->''"I think anger does fuel a successful acting career. To play the great roles, you have to learn how to blaze."''
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4	Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer [[UsefulNotes/KnightFever CC]] (December 13, 1929 – February 5, 2021) was a Canadian film, stage, and TV actor born in Toronto, Ontario. He's best known for his role as Captain Von Trapp in ''Film/TheSoundOfMusic'', and for [[CreatorBacklash mocking that film and his performance nearly every chance he got]] (though he still considered co-star Creator/JulieAndrews one of his closest friends).
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6	He played a huge number of parts over his nearly 70-year career, and despite a large number of acclaimed performances, he [[AwardSnub wasn't even nominated for an Oscar]] until 2009, when he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Creator/LeoTolstoy in ''The Last Station''.
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8	He won Best Supporting Actor two years later for his performance in ''Beginners'', becoming, at 82, the oldest person at the time to win an Oscar in ''any'' category.[[note]]The record has since been broken by [[Creator/MerchantIvory James Ivory]], who won Best Adapted Screenplay for ''Film/CallMeByYourName'' at 89, and even in acting, the record was also broken by Creator/AnthonyHopkins winning Best Actor for ''Film/TheFather'' at 83.[[/note]] He also received an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series, for the 1972 miniseries ''The Moneychangers'', and a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance, for his narrations of the ''WesternAnimation/{{Madeline}}'' cartoons.[[note]]He narrated them from 1988-2001, and won the Emmy in 1994. [[/note]] At age 88 he also became the oldest person to even be ''nominated'' for an acting Oscar for ''Film/AllTheMoneyInTheWorld'' (in which he got cast as TheOtherMarty after Creator/KevinSpacey got booted for numerous allegations of sexual abuse).
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10	He also did quite a bit of stage work. Before hitting it big in the movies he was in the original cast of the 1958 Pulitzer Prize-winning play ''Theatre/{{JB}}''. He earned Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Musical in 1974, for the musical ''Theatre/{{Cyrano\|de Bergerac}}'', and Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play in 1997, for ''Barrymore''. All of these awards make him one of the few actors to win an Oscar, and Emmy, and a Tony.
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12	Plummer was [[JustForFun/OneOfUs a life-long]] [[Franchise/StarTrek Trekkie]], and one of the reasons that he [[LargeHam seemed to be having so much fun chewing the scenery]] in ''Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry'' is because (in his own words), he was "in geek Heaven doing what geeks love doing: being a geek." Appropriately, in his theatrical career he once became ill, letting his understudy Creator/WilliamShatner take over for that performance and get his big break.
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14	He was the father of actress Creator/AmandaPlummer, who should not be confused with Music/AmandaPalmer. Christopher Plummer was also the great-grandson of Sir John Abbott, the fourth Prime Minister of Canada.
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16	He passed away at age 91 two and a half weeks after falling and injuring his head.
17	----
18	!!Filmography:
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20	* ''Film/TheFallOfTheRomanEmpire'' (1964) -- Emperor Commodus
21	* ''Film/TheSoundOfMusic'' (1965) -- Captain Von Trapp
22	* ''Film/InsideDaisyClover'' (1965) -- Raymond Swan
23	* ''Film/TheNightOfTheGenerals'' (1967) -- Field Marshal UsefulNotes/ErwinRommel
24	* ''Film/BattleOfBritain'' (1969) -- Squadron Leader Harvey
25	* ''Film/{{Waterloo}}'' (1970) -- Sir Arthur Wellesley, [[UsefulNotes/TheDukeOfWellington Duke of Wellington]]
26	* ''Film/ConductUnbecoming'' (1975) -- Major Wimbourne
27	* ''Film/TheDayThatShookTheWorld'' (1975) -- Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria
28	* ''Film/TheReturnOfThePinkPanther'' (1975) -- Sir Charles Lytton
29	* ''Film/TheManWhoWouldBeKing'' (1975) -- Creator/RudyardKipling
30	* ''Film/AcesHigh'' (1976) -- Captain "Uncle" Sinclair
31	* ''Film/{{Starcrash}}'' (1978) -- The Emperor [[note]]Featured on ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000''[[/note]]
32	* ''Film/TheSilentPartner'' (1978) -- Harry Reikle
33	* ''Film/MurderByDecree'' (1979) -- Literature/SherlockHolmes
34	* ''Film/SomewhereInTime'' (1980) -- William Fawcett Robinson
35	* ''Literature/TheThornBirds'' (1983) -- Archbishop Vittorio Contini-Verchese
36	* ''Film/{{Dreamscape}}'' (1984) -- Bob Blair
37	* ''WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail'' (1986) -- Henri
38	* ''Franchise/{{Dragnet}}'' (1987) -- Reverend Jonathan Whirley
39	* ''WesternAnimation/TheManWhoPlantedTrees'' (1987) -- Narrator (English version)
40	* ''WesternAnimation/RockADoodle'' (1991) -- Grand Duke
41	* ''Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry'' (1991) -- General Chang
42	* ''Film/MalcolmX'' (1992) -- Chaplain Gill
43	* ''Film/WolfMikeNichols'' (1994) -- Raymond Alden
44	* ''Film/DoloresClaiborne'' (1995) -- Detective John Mackey
45	* ''Film/TwelveMonkeys'' (1995) -- Dr. Goines
46	* ''WesternAnimation/BabesInToyland'' (1997) -- Barnaby Crookedman
47	* ''Film/TheInsider'' (1999) -- Mike Wallace
48	* ''Film/TheDinosaurHunter'' (1999) -- Hump Hinton
49	* ''Series/{{Nuremberg}}'' (2000) -- Sir David Maxwell Fyfe
50	* ''Film/{{Dracula 2000}}'' (2000) -- Abraham Van Helsing
51	* ''Film/ABeautifulMind'' (2001) -- Dr. Rosen
52	* ''Film/NationalTreasure'' (2004) -- John Adams Gates
53	* ''Film/{{Alexander}}'' (2004) -- Aristotle
54	* ''Series/MiraclePlanet'' (2005)-- Narrator
55	* ''Film/{{The New World\|2005}}'' (2005) -- Captain Christopher Newport
56	* ''Literature/{{Heidi}}'' (the AnimatedAdaptation; 2005) -- Heidi's Grandfather
57	* ''Film/InsideMan'' (2006) -- Arthur Case
58	* ''Film/TheLakeHouse'' (2006) -- Simon Wyler
59	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'' (2009) -- Charles Muntz
60	* ''Film/TheLastStation'' (2009) -- Leo Tolstoy
61	* ''Film/TheImaginariumOfDoctorParnassus'' (2009) -- Doctor Parnassus
62	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Nine}}'' (2009) -- #1
63	* ''Film/{{Beginners}}'' (2010) - Hal Fields
64	* ''Film/{{Priest\|2011}}'' (2011) -- Monsignor Orelas
65	* ''Film/{{The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo\|2011}}'' (2011) -- Henrik Vanger
66	* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' (2011) -- Arngeir
67	* ''Film/{{Remember}}'' (2015) -- Zev Guttman
68	* ''Film/TheException'' (2016) -- UsefulNotes/WilhelmII
69	* ''Film/TheManWhoInventedChristmas'' (2017) -- Ebenezer Scrooge
70	* ''WesternAnimation/TheStar'' (2017) -- King Herod
71	* ''Film/AllTheMoneyInTheWorld'' (2017) -- J. Paul Getty[[note]]Replaced Creator/KevinSpacey after the controversy surrounding him that broke in late 2017, with all of Getty's scenes being re-shot just a few weeks before the film's release.[[/note]]
72	* ''Series/{{Departure}}'' (2019-2021) -- Howard Lawson (final on-screen role)
73	* ''Film/KnivesOut'' (2019) -- Harlan Thombey
74	----
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76	!!Tropes Pertaining to Plummer's performances:
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78	* AffablyEvil: Whenever he played bad guys, you could be sure he'd give them inject them with boatloads of charisma and charm even [[FauxAffablyEvil if it was false]].
79	* CoolOldGuy: Many of his later roles had him playing such characters.
80	* EvilOldFolks: He could still play wonderfully loathsome characters well into his eighties.
81	* EvilSoundsDeep: He played many villains, a fact no doubt aided by his magnificent silky voice.
82	* FakeNationality: Beginning his professional career on the West End stage, Plummer played his fair share of British and British-accented characters, as well as his fair share of Americans and Europeans (and the occasional space alien). It says something that he made a career of playing British characters in British productions, despite not actually being British. Averted in ''Film/BattleOfBritain'', in which he requested that his character be Canadian.
83	* ManOfWealthAndTaste: He played many characters who were exceptionally wealthy and cultured and liked showing it off.
84	* QuintessentialBritishGentleman: Despite not actually being British, he tended to be cast in these types of roles, often playing very posh and well-to-do characters.
85	* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: His normal dialect was notoriously hard to pin down. It was a consequence of Plummer being raised in a time and environment in which the "Canadian Dainty" (really a mid-Atlantic) was considered "proper" English, just before the practice fell out of favor. That, and spending a lot of his early adulthood in Quebec and the UK, creates a kind of melting pot of dialects that made his own wholly unique.

Context Creator / ChristopherPlummer