Christopher Plummer was born on the 13th December 1929, in Toronto, Canada, and is an actor probably still best known for his role as Captain Georg von Trapp in the musical “The Sound of Music” (1965) directed by Robert Wise. However, in 2012 at the age 82, Plummer won the Academy Award as the Best Actor in a Supporting Role in the film “Beginners”, becoming the oldest actor to receive an Oscar. Christopher has been active in the entertainment industry since 1953.
How much is the net worth of Christopher Plummer? It has been estimated by authoritative sources that the overall size of his wealth is as much as $20 million, as of the data presented in the middle of 2016. Among his assets is a waterfront house valued $11.2 million. Acting is the main source of Plummer ‘s fortune.
Christopher Plummer Net Worth $20 Million
To begin with, Plummer is the grandson of the Canadian Prime Minister Sir John Abbott. He was an only child, and his parents divorced when Christopher was a baby, so he was brought up in the house of the Abbott family.
Talking about his professional career, he debuted in Broadway’s “The Starcross Story” (1953). Five years later, he starred in the feature film “Stage Struck” (1958) directed by Sidney Lumet. However, his real breakthrough was the main role in the musical drama film “The Sound of Music” (1965) produced and directed by Robert Wise, which won among others five Academy Awards. During the 1970s, Plummer combined his film appearances with those in the theatre, in this way after winning ta Tony Award for “Cyrano de Bergerac” (1974), and he got into the skin of Rudyard Kipling in “The Man Who Would Be King” (1975). In “Murder by Decree” (1979) he was inducted into the list of actors who have portrayed Sherlock Holmes. His net worth was already well established.
In the 1980s, he focused on his career in the theatre, and played Iago in “Othello” (1982) and “Macbeth” (1988). He also performed in films including “Somewhere in Time” (1980) with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, as well as the remarkable historical film “The Scarlet and the Black” (1983) based on fact. In the middle of the 1990s, he returned to the movies with brief roles: the entrepreneur in “Lobo” (1994), the detective in “Total Eclipse” (1995), the virologist in “Twelve Monkeys” (1996) and others. In 1999, he won Boston Society of Film Critics, Los Angeles Film Critics Association and National Society of Film Critics Awards for the role of Mike Wallace in the film “The Insider”.
Then Hollywood began claiming his services more regularly, inviting him to star in “Beautiful Mind” (2001), “Ararat” (2002), “Nicholas Nickleby” (2002) and “Blizzard” (2003) for which the actor received nominations.
His recent and notable work is the role of Hal Fields in “Beginners” (2010), in which he plays an elderly widower who reveals to his son that he is gay. As the Best Supporting Actor, he won the Golden Globe, BAFTA, Hollywood Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, as well as the Academy Award, and many others. Soon, the films “The Exception” (2016) and “Boundaries” (2017) will be released, in which Plummer is cast as the main.
In a remarkably consistent career, Christopher Plummer has appeared in more than 110 films, over 50 TV productions, and a dozen notable live stage performances, as well as voicing a few video games.
Finally, in the personal life of the actor, he married the actress Tammy Grimes in 1956. They have a daughter born in 1957, and named her Amanda after the character Amanda Payne from “Cowards Private Lives” – Amanda is also an actress. As a result, Christopher, Tammy and Amanda were the only family which has won a Tony award for their work in the theatre. The careers of both spouses asked too much of their attention, which resulted in their separation in 1960. From 1962 to 1967, Christopher was married with Patricia Lewis. In 1969, he met Elaine Regina Taylor during the filming of “Lock Up Your Daughters”. They married in 1970.
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture, Independent Spirit Award, Tony Award, Hollywood Film Festival Award for Best Supporting Actor, Screen Actors Guild Award
Nominations
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie, Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries, or Motion Picture Made for Television,...
Movies
“The Starcross Story” (1953), “Stage Struck” (1958), “The Sound of Music” (1965), “Lock Up Your Daughters”, “The Scarlet and the Black” (1983), “The Sound of Music” (1965), “Beginners” (2012), “The Exception” (2016), “Boundaries” (2017)
TV Shows
“Cyrano de Bergerac” (1974), “The Man Who Would Be King” (1975), “Murder by Decree” (1979),“Othello” (1982), “Macbeth” (1988)
[on turning down the role of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy] I don't know why I turned it down. I think it had to do with spending four years in New Zealand. There's other countries I want to visit before I croak. But Ian McKellen got the role and he was fantastic in it. He played the role really warm and kind and I hate the son-of-a-bitch!
2
[observation, 2014] I'm thrilled to be around still, and I don't want to blow my horn, but I've done so many more parts than Barrymore ever got a chance to do. That Barrymore wasn't able - or willing to show his true range is one of the great missed opportunities of the theatrical stage. A terrible waste.
3
I was much a part of live television in the '50s. There was something terribly honest about live television and terribly dangerous and terribly risky. You were bound to learn your lines without bumping into each other, which we did a lot of.
4
The writing was superior [in the '50s]. But then we had all the best writers, Horton Foote and others, writing for this brash new medium. It was as exciting as hell. It was an adventure. Television has become a little glossy. A little too comfortable.
5
[on Mike Wallace and his impact on public affairs programming] He had a lot to do with making it dangerous. He understood media. He understood how you could break down a person in front of a camera. It's a cruel medium. You have to deal with it skillfully. He was not a horrid man. I met him. He was very likable and very bright. But he knew it was a cruel medium and that it was an instant medium. It's now; it's in the moment. You can't rehearse it; you can't be glib. That's really what television is about. It's about what's happening in the streets, all the awful wars, all the awful things that are happening.
6
Television is certainly more skilfully handled [now] than it was then. There are certain things, like Sherlock (2010), which is enchanting and perfectly right for a younger audience. And the truly wonderful thing about it is that it is not disloyal to the original. There's a Conan Doyle feeling about it - something that Doyle would have written for this age. Benedict [Cumberbatch] is a superb actor. I love his beats. Those are rare things that happen marvelously in this medium.
7
I think many of today's politicians take a typical CEO mentality when it comes to the arts. It's anathema to them. It's the last thing they think of when it comes to funding; it's way down at the bottom of the list. That is unconscionable. It's so stupid and narrow-minded. They don't realize. It's all about political manoeuvring.
8
[on cell-phones ringing during a live performance] The only thing to do is to say something like "I'll get it." The audience gives you applause because they hate it too.
9
[to his Oscar statuette at the 2012 Academy Awards] You're only two years older than me, darling. Where have you been all my life?
10
[a portion of his Oscar acceptance speech for Beginners (2010)] I would happily share this award with [Ewan McGregor] if I had any decency but I don't.
11
The theatre is not for sissies. It separates the men from the boys.
12
As T.S. Eliot measures his life with coffee spoons, so I measure mine by the plays I've been in. I'm too vague to measure any other way.
13
Ewan (McGregor) doesn't act, he inhabits a role. And, of course, he makes you not act and inhabit the role, like it's a competition. I owe that to him.
14
[on the ability to convey a sense of pathos] Very few people have it naturally - Chaplin, Brando. It's a gift. But you can learn how to fake it.
15
[on receiving a Screen Actors Guild award for Beginners (2010)] I just can't tell you what fun I've had being a member of the world's second oldest profession. When they honor you, it's like being lit by the holy grail.
16
[2011, a revised opinion on The Sound of Music (1965)] People were unnaturally sentimental about the film. So I always gave it a tough time. But a few years ago, I went to an Easter party and had to watch the damn thing with these kids. I was a prisoner! And then I thought, it's got everything - the lovely songs, the Nazis and the nuns and the kids. It's timeless and I'm grateful for it.
17
Too many people in the world are unhappy with their lot. And then they retire and they become vegetables. I think retirement in any profession is death, so I'm determined to keep crackin'.
18
[on the enduring appeal of The Sound of Music (1965)] Yeah, it drives me nuts. It has nothing to do with the movie, it's just a relentless pursuing of this film that goes on and on and I've gone on and on, far above and beyond it and then to be reminded of it, God almighty what is the matter with people?
19
[on being asked whether he had made his peace with his most famous film The Sound of Music (1965)] Oh, God no.
20
[on working with Michael Langham] When I did "Henry V", he changed my life. Really owe my career to Michael.
21
[on working with Michael Langham] Hamlet can sound self-pitying. He's always whining, something being rotten in Denmark and the world so awful. To get over that, Michael suggested that because Hamlet himself had a large intellect, that he turned those complaining moments into a kind of wonderment and would analyze everything as a fresh discovery. It was a superb way of getting rid of the danger of self-pity, and an astounding piece of direction because it was valuable throughout the play.
22
[on Franchot Tone, who starred onstage with him in "The Petrified Forest"] His sense of humor, as one might guess, was seemingly self-deprecating, drawn always from this inexplicable inner torment. These vulnerable qualities were to make his Chekovian performances ("Uncle Vanya" and "A Moon for the Misbegotten"), both of whom I later saw, so memorable - a rare combination of lightness and poignancy... I saw in him someone I could perhaps one day aspire to; not the hidden sad, pained man that was part of Franchot but the part he couldn't conceal, no matter how hard he tried, the part that was refined, noble and infinitely kind.
23
[on working with Dame Julie Andrews] Working with her is like being hit over the head with a Valentine's card.
24
I'm bored with questions about acting.
25
Unless you can surround yourself with as many beautiful things as you can afford, I don't think life has very much meaning.
26
[why he prefers playing evil characters] The devil is more interesting than God.
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Fact
1
He was awarded the 1999 Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Award for Lead Actor in a Play for "Barrymore" at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, California.
2
He was awarded the 1998 Back Stage Garland Award for Outstanding Performance for "Barrymore" at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, California.
3
Speaks English and French fluently, from his bilingual upbringing in Senneville, Quebec.
4
Has English, Scottish, Northern Irish, and distant French-Canadian and Swiss-French, ancestry.
5
His great-uncle (paternal grandmother's brother) was F.B. Fetherstonhaugh (Frederick Barnard Fetherstonhaugh), a patent lawyer and agent who founded the patent agency Fetherstonhaugh and Company.
Is a cousin of actor Nigel Bruce. Bruce was best known for playing Dr. John Watson, and Plummer went on to play Sherlock Holmes.
8
Christopher Plummer's mother Isabella was a secretary to the Dean of Sciences at McGill University after her divorce from John Orme Plummer who sold stocks in Toronto and never lived in Montreal. In his memoir "In Spite of Myself" (2008), he writes that his mother was doubly disgraced for an upper-class woman in the 1930s, being both divorced and having to go out of work. This explains why he was born in Toronto, and grew up in Montreal. He and his father did not meet until Christopher was age 17.
Longtime resident of Fairfield County's Weston, Connecticut. [May 2007]
15
Cites Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion (1937) as the film that has moved him to tears more often than any other during his lifetime.
16
In 2012, he became the 21st performer to have received the Triple Crown of Acting: the 1974 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical ("Cyrano") and the 1997 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play ("Barrymore"), the 1977 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series (Arthur Hailey's the Moneychangers (1976)) and the 1994 Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance (Madeline (1989)), and the 2012 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (Beginners (2010)).
Both he and his daughter, Amanda Plummer, have played in Jean Anouilh's "The Lark", he appeared on Broadway in 1955 and she appeared in Stratford in 2005.
19
Is one of four consecutive Oscar winners in the Best Supporting Actor category whose name begins with Chris, the other actors being Christian Bale and Christoph Waltz (who won twice).
20
At age 82, he is the oldest person to receive an Academy Award.
21
Has played the title role in Hamlet at Elsinore (1964), appearing with Michael Caine, who played Hamlet's closest friend Horatio. Caine later said that he had never truly understood Hamlet until he saw Plummer playing the role.
22
Received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto, Ontario in 1998 (charter member).
23
Is the only actor from The Sound of Music (1965) to meet the real Maria Von Trapp in Vermont as a child.
24
Has played Christian in a television production of "Cyrano de Bergerac", opposite José Ferrer, and later played Cyrano himself. In the former role, he performed the translation by Brian Hooker. In the latter, he performed the translation by Anthony Burgess, which he personally selected Burgess to write.
Was actually born on December 13, 1929, although most publications usually state his birthday as December 13, 1927.
32
Trained to become a concert pianist before turning his attention to acting.
33
He and his daughter Amanda Plummer both received Emmy Award nominations in 2005. She won, he did not.
34
Has won two Tony Awards: in 1974, as Best Actor (Musical), playing the title role in "Cyrano", and in 1997, as Best Actor (Play), playing the title role of John Barrymore in "Barrymore". He has also been nominated for the Tony four other times: as Best Actor (Dramatic), in 1959 for "J.B.", and as Best Actor (Play), in 1982 for Shakespeare's "Othello", in 1994 for "No Man's Land", and in 2004 for Shakespeare's "King Lear".
Received an honorary degree (Doctor of Laws) from the University of Western Ontario on June 8, 2004.
37
His first paying role was in "Machina Infernale" (The Infernal Machine) by Jean Cocteau, in which he worked with another young Montreal actor, William Shatner. The two were reunited years later when they both appeared in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).
38
On April 22, 2002, he was awarded the first Jason Robards Award for Excellence in Theatre by the Roundabout Theatre. His The Sound of Music (1965) co-star Julie Andrews was among those in attendance.
39
Is the great-grandson of former Canadian Prime Minister Sir John Abbott.
40
Grew up in the village of Senneville, Québec, Canada.
41
He was awarded the CC (Companion of the Order of Canada) in the 1968 Queen's Honours List for his services to drama.
42
He was awarded the Edwin Booth Lifetime Achievement Award by The Players in 1997.
43
Became a father for the first time at age 27 when his first [now ex] wife Tammy Grimes gave birth to their daughter Amanda Michael Plummer, aka Amanda Plummer, on March 23, 1957.