Christopher Plummer, Canadian actor and producer
Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer (December 13, 1929 – February 5, 2021) was a Canadian actor. His career spanned seven decades, gaining recognition for his performances in film, stage and television. He made his Broadway debut in 1954 and continued to act in leading roles on stage playing Cyrano de Bergerac in Cyrano (1974), Iago in Othello, as well as playing the titular roles in Hamlet at Elsinore (1964), Macbeth, King Lear, and Barrymore. Plummer performed in stage productions, including J.B., No Man's Land, and Inherit the Wind.
Plummer was born in Toronto, Ontario, and grew up in Senneville, Quebec. After appearing on stage, he made his film debut in Stage Struck (1958), landed his first starring role that same year in Wind Across the Everglades, and won widespread acclaim for his performance as Captain Georg von Trapp in the musical film The Sound of Music (1965) alongside Julie Andrews.Plummer played numerous major historical figures, including Commodus in The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington in Waterloo (1970), Rudyard Kipling in The Man Who Would Be King (1975), Mike Wallace in The Insider (1999), Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station (2009), Kaiser Wilhelm II in The Exception (2016), and J. Paul Getty in All the Money in the World (2017). His film credits also include Malcolm X (1992), A Beautiful Mind (2001), The New World (2005), Inside Man (2006), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), Knives Out (2019), and The Last Full Measure (2019).
Plummer received various awards for his work, including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a British Academy Film Award. He is one of the few performers to have received the Triple Crown of Acting, and the only Canadian to accomplish this feat. In 2011, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at the age of 82 for Beginners (2010), becoming the oldest person to win an acting award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (a distinction he held until being supplanted by 83-year-old Anthony Hopkins in 2021), and he also received an Oscar nomination at the age of 88 for All the Money in the World, making him the oldest person to be nominated in any acting category at the Academy Awards.
1929Dec, 13
Christopher Plummer
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Events on 1929
- 31Jan
Leon Trotsky
The Soviet Union exiles Leon Trotsky. - 26Feb
Grand Teton National Park
President Calvin Coolidge signs an executive order establishing the 96,000 acre Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. - 8Apr
Bhagat Singh
Indian independence movement: At the Delhi Central Assembly, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt throw handouts and bombs to court arrest. - 21Jun
Cristero War
An agreement brokered by U.S. Ambassador Dwight Whitney Morrow ends the Cristero War in Mexico. - 23Aug
1929 Palestine riots
Hebron Massacre during the 1929 Palestine riots: Arab attack on the Jewish community in Hebron in the British Mandate of Palestine, continuing until the next day, resulted in the death of 65-68 Jews and the remaining Jews being forced to leave the city.