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It happened last week … death on Friday of actor Christopher Plummer at his home in Connecticut.
Born in Canada, the great-grandson of a former prime minister, no less, Plummer trained as a Shakespearean actor, adept at playing princes and kings.
But it was as a captain in the navy that he achieved his most enduring fame, playing Captain von Trapp in the 1965 musical film “The Sound of Music,” opposite Julie Andrews.
Plummer was largely dismissive of the film despite its success, as in this exchange with our Anthony Mason in 2011:
Mason: “Have you ever sung ‘Edelweiss’ in public after that?”
Plummer: “Not on your nellie! You mean you were hoping, for example, that if things got boring here, I could sing for you here now?”
Mason: “I don’t know.”
Plummer: “It’s a wrap!”
Still, as far as her co-star, Julie Andrews …
Mason: “Despite all the less than pleasant things you’ve said about ‘The Sound of Music’ over the years, you’ve only had nice things to say about it.”
Plummer: “Well, who wouldn’t? I mean, how professional. I love Julie!”
Dozens of other roles followed, including a portrayal by CBS’s own Mike Wallace in 1999’s “The Insider”:
“Corporate lackey! Who told you that your incompetent little fingers have the skills to edit me?”
Plummer won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a gay man who came out at age 75 in the 2011 film “Beginners.” At 82 in real life, Plummer was the oldest actor to win an Oscar in a competitive acting category.
With two Tony’s and two Emmys also under his belt, Christopher Plummer was an actor through and through.
Mason asked, “Can you hear yourself performing sometimes?”
“Oh God yeah,” Plummer replied.
How is that? “Oh God yeah. It’s horrible. Most of this interview has been acting.”
“I was afraid of that …”
Christopher Plummer was 91 years old.
