Oscar-winner ‘Sound of Music’ star Christopher Plummer dies at 92

Christopher Plummer, the dynamic award-winning actor who played Captain von Trapp in the film “The Quality of Music” and 82 became the oldest Academy Award acting champion in history, has died. He was 91.

Plummer died on his home in Connecticut with his wife, Elaine Taylor, by his side, said Lou Pitt, his longtime friend, and manager.

He had almost 50 years in the industry; Plummer had varied roles ranging from the movie “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” to the voice of the villain in 2009′s “Up” and a canny agent in Broadway’s “Inherit the Wind.” In 2019 he starred as failed mystery novelist in Rian Johnson’s whodunnit “Knives Out.”

But it was with Julie Andrews as von Trapp was the one that made him a star. He played an Austrian officer who must flee the people with his folk-singing family to escape service in the Nazi navy, a role he cried was “humorless and one-dimensional.” Plummer spent the rest of his life leading to the film as “The Sound of Mucus” or “S&M.”

“We tried so laboriously to put humor into it,” he told The Associated Press in 2007. “It was almost useless. It was just painful to try to make that guy, not a cardboard figure.”

The role took Plummer to stardom, but he never played to leading men parts, despite his silver hair, extreme good looks, and ever-so-slight English accent. He favored character parts, considering them meatier.

Plummer had also done remarkable film renaissance late in life, which began with his remarkable performance as Mike Wallace in Michael Mann’s 1999 film “The Insider,” continued in films such as 2001’s “A Beautiful Mind” and 2009′s “The Last Station,” in which he played a deteriorating Tolstoy and was nominated for an Oscar.

In 2012, Plummer won a practical actor Oscar for his role in “Beginners” as Hal Fields, a museum director who starts openly gay after his wife of 44 years dies. His loving, final bond becomes an impulse for his son, who struggles with his father’s death and how to find the secret in a new relationship.