Sound of Music star Christopher Plummer dies age 91
- The actor played Captain von Trapp in the musical drama and became the oldest Oscar winner in history at 82
- Plummer had a late-career renaissance, appearing in films like The Insider, A Beautiful Mind and Beginners
Christopher Plummer, the dashing award-winning actor who played Captain von Trapp in the film The Sound of Music and at 82 became the oldest Academy Award acting winner in history, has died. He was 91.
Plummer died Friday morning at his home in Connecticut with his wife, Elaine Taylor, by his side, said Lou Pitt, his long-time friend and manager.
Over more than 50 years in the industry, Plummer enjoyed varied roles ranging from the film The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, to the voice of the villain in 2009′s Up and as a canny lawyer in Broadway’s Inherit the Wind.
But it was opposite Julie Andrews as von Trapp that made him a star. He played an Austrian captain who must flee the country with his folk-singing family to escape service in the Nazi navy, a role he lamented was “humourless and one-dimensional”. Plummer spent the rest of his life referring to the film as “The Sound of Mucus” or “S&M”.
“We tried so hard to put humour into it,” he said in an interview in 2007. “It was almost impossible. It was just agony to try to make that guy not a cardboard figure.”