Canadian theater, film and television actor Christopher Plummer died in the US at the age of 91.
Plummer, the oldest actor to win an Oscar for 2010’s Beginners, had a star-studded career on the screen and stage stretching back to the 1950s.
His wife, Elaine Taylor, said his cause of death was a blow to the head as a result of a fall, the New York Times reported.
His longtime friend and manager Lou Pitt said: “Chris was an extraordinary man who deeply loved and respected his profession with great old fashion manners, self-deprecating humour and the music of words.
“He was a National Treasure who deeply relished his Canadian roots. Through his art and humanity, he touched all of our hearts and his legendary life will endure for all generations to come.”
Plummer passed away peacefully at his home in Connecticut with his wife at his side, Deadline Hollywood said.
The prolific actor of stage and screen was perhaps best known for playing Captain von Trapp in the beloved musical The Sound of Music.
Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer was born in Toronto on December 13 1929.
He studied to become a concert pianist but soon developed a love for the theatre. He then went on to star in many prize-winning productions on Broadway and in London’s West End, including the title role in the musical Cyrano for which he was awarded his first Tony.
Plummer was also a leading member of Britain’s National Theatre under Sir Laurence Olivier, and the Royal Shakespearean Company under Sir Peter Hall, where he won the London Evening Standard Best Actor award.
His career spanned more than seven decades during which he played many substantial roles in film, television and theatre, including most of the major Shakespearean parts, picking up many awards along the way.
Despite his huge success in The Sound Of Music, it was a musical he did not like. He accepted the role despite never singing “outside of the shower” and only as a means to play french playwright Cyrano de Bergerac in an upcoming project.
He had been known to describe it as The Sound Of Mucus. In his 2008 autobiography “In Spite Of Myself,” Plummer refers to the movie with the mischievous acronym “S&M.”
It took him four decades to change his view of the film and embrace it as a “terrific movie” that made him proud.
He was nominated for an Oscar for his role, after being enlisted at the 11th hour to replace disgraced actor Kevin Spacey, as frugal billionaire J Paul Getty in Sir Ridley Scott’s film All the Money in the World.
He claimed a long-awaited Academy Award at age 82 for his supporting performance in “Beginners” as an elderly man who comes out of the closet as gay after his wife’s death.
“You’re only two years older than me, darling,” Plummer, who was born in 1929, purred to his golden statuette – first given for films made in 1927 and 1928 – at the February 2012 Oscars ceremony. “Where have you been all my life?”
One of his last roles was in Knives Out where he played patriarch Harlan Thrombey whose death sparked a witty and suspenseful whodunnit mystery.
According to IMDB he was in the process of filming Heroes of the Golden Masks with Patton Oswalt and Ron Perlman.
He is survived by his third wife, Elaine Taylor, whom he married in 1970, and his actress daughter Amanda Plummer, from his first marriage to actress Tammy Grimes.
