TORONTO – He’s won two Tony Awards, two Emmys and been nominated for an Oscar – among many other accolades – but legendary Canadian actor Christopher Plummer says being honoured by the Stratford Shakespeare Festival is special because of its origins.
“This is sweet and delightful because I always consider Stratford a sort of second home,” Plummer, 81, said before receiving the festival’s newly created lifetime achievement award at a gala celebration at the Four Seasons Hotel Monday.
“I’ve been (performing there) since 1956 and it’s like a prize saying, ‘Hello, why don’t you come home?’ It’s a very sweet prize.”
Several luminaries attended Monday’s splashy soiree in honour of Plummer, who has homes in Palm Beach, Fla., and Connecticut.
Among them were actors Cynthia Dale, Brian Dennehy and Gordon Pinsent, who was slated to give Plummer his award at the swank event, which included performances by Stratford festival stars. Proceeds from the gala, for which individual tickets were priced at $1,000 each, will support several of the festival’s key initiatives.
“He’s masterful, he really is,” said Pinsent, 81, a fellow Stratford festival alum who first met Plummer in ’62 and with whom he did a speaking engagement at the Empire Club of Canada earlier this year.
“He certainly doesn’t believe in anything called ‘retirement,’ neither do I and neither do a good many of us. The man is extraordinary. He’s got so many sides to him. He’s quite remarkable, and when you share a stage with him it’s magic.”
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Des McAnuff, the Tony-winning artistic director of the festival in southwestern Ontario, said it was a “no-brainer” to give the inaugural lifetime achievement award to Plummer.
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“He is without question a national treasure and I think he’s quintessentially a Stratford Shakespeare Festival product,” said McAnuff, who’s directed Plummer several times at the festival.
“His work in England and London and on the screen and around the world, it all really started, it blossomed under Michael Langham’s direction (at the festival) in the 1950s. It all started there.”
Born in Toronto and raised in Montreal, Plummer – whose great-grandfather was Prime Minister John Abbott – has appeared in dozens of films and starred on stages from Broadway to Stratford and London.
He made his debut at the Stratford festival in a 1956 production of “Henry V.”
Plummer has performed at the Stratford festival several times since, including his 1996 starring turn in “Barrymore,” for which he later earned a Tony Award when it moved to Broadway. His recent Stratford festival credits include his 2008 tour-de-force role in “Caesar and Cleopatra” and his critically heralded 2010 turn in “The Tempest.”
Next year, Plummer is scheduled to present his one-man show “A Word or Two” at the festival.
Of course, Plummer has also had a distinguished film career. One of his best-known big-screen roles is Capt. Georg von Trapp in the 1965 musical “The Sound of Music.”
Last year Plummer earned his first Oscar nomination, for playing Russian author Leo Tolstoy in “The Last Station.”
In recent months he’s starred in the film “Beginners,” in which he played a father who comes out of the closet at age 75. In December, he’ll play the patriarch in the Hollywood remake of the highly anticipated “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”
“Plummer is a miracle,” said Dennehy, who’s been in two productions at this year’s festival and who starred with Plummer in the 2007 Broadway production of “Inherit the Wind.”
“He’s in amazing health … he’s got a waistline of a 16-year-old boy. It drives me absolutely crazy,” Dennehy added with a laugh.
“He’s probably personally inspired more actors, directors and writers than any other individual who’s alive and working.”
Plummer – who’s also received a Governor General’s Lifetime Achievement Award and a Companion of the Order of Canada – may do even more projects at the festival, if McAnuff has his way.
“I have lots of things I want him to do,” said McAnuff, noting he just spoke with Plummer on Sunday about his plans for the 2012 and 2013 Stratford festival seasons.
“The thing that’s fabulous about working with a rare artist like Chris is he’s 81 years old and we talk almost exclusively about the future. That’s a great inspiration to talk to an artist at that point in his career, when he’s still looking steadfastly forward, looking to the future to collaborate.”
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