Christopher Plummer, star of Sound of Music, dies at 91

Christopher Plummer, the handsome award-winning actor who played Captain von Trapp in the movie The Sound of Music and at age 82 became the oldest Oscar winner in history, has died. He was 91 years old.

Plummer died Friday morning at his Connecticut home with his wife, Elaine Taylor, by his side, said Lou Pitt, his longtime friend and manager.

For more than 50 years in the industry, the Canadian-born Plummer enjoyed varied roles ranging from the film Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to the voice of the villain in 2009’s Up and as a crafty lawyer on Broadway’s Inherit the Wind. .

But he starred opposite Julie Andrews as von Trapp which made him a star. He played an Austrian captain who must flee the country with his family of folk singers to escape service in the Nazi army, a role he lamented was “humorless and one-dimensional.” Plummer spent the rest of his life referring to the film as The Sound of Mucus or S&M.

“We tried very hard to put humor into it,” he told The Associated Press in 2007. “It was almost impossible. It was agony trying to keep that guy from being a cardboard cutout.”

The role catapulted Plummer to stardom, but he never took up male roles, despite his silver hair, good looks, and ever-so-slight English accent. He preferred the character parts, considering them meatier.

Plummer had a remarkable cinematic renaissance at the end of his life, beginning with his acclaimed portrayal of Mike Wallace in Michael Mann’s 1999 film The Insider, continuing in films such as 2001’s A Beautiful Mind and 2009’s The Last Station, in the who played a deteriorating Tolstoy. and was nominated for an Oscar. In 2012, Plummer would win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Beginners.

– AP