Canadian actor Christopher Plummer dead at 91

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Canadian-born actor Christopher Plummer is dead. He was 91 years old.

The two-time Tony award winning actor died at his home in Connecticut Friday morning with his wife, Elaine Taylor, by his side, his manager said.

“Chris was an extraordinary man who deeply loved and respected his profession with great old fashion manners, self deprecating humor and the music of words,” Lou Pitt, his longtime friend and manager of 46 years, told Variety.

“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. He will forever be with us,” Pitt added.

Throughout his long career, Plummer received several accolades for his work, including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, and a Golden Globe, among other hardware.

He is one of the few performers to receive the Triple Crown of Acting (Academy, Tony, and Emmy), and the only Canadian to ever do so. He was also nominated for a Grammy Award in 1986 in the Best Recording for Children category.

Plummer became the oldest person to win an Oscar when he took home the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at the age of 82 for “Beginners” in 2010.

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 Captain von Trapp in “The Sound of Music” 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 “humorless and one-dimensional.” Plummer spent the rest of his life referring to the film as “The Sound of Mucus” or “S&M.”

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