In Spite of Myself A Memoir A rollicking rich portrait of a life And what a life By one of today s greatest living actors He was born a Canadian on a Friday the thirteenth in the year of the Crash His boyhood was one of pr
A rollicking, rich portrait of a life And what a life By one of today s greatest living actors.He was born a Canadian on a Friday the thirteenth in 1929 the year of the Crash His boyhood was one of privilege an ancestor was a Governor General his great grandfather Sir John Abbott was Canada s third prime minister and owned railroads There were steam yachts, mansions,A rollicking, rich portrait of a life And what a life By one of today s greatest living actors.He was born a Canadian on a Friday the thirteenth in 1929 the year of the Crash His boyhood was one of privilege an ancestor was a Governor General his great grandfather Sir John Abbott was Canada s third prime minister and owned railroads There were steam yachts, mansions, and a life of Victorian gentility and somewhat cluttered splendor.Plummer tells how this young bilingual wastrel, incurably romantic, spoiled rotten, tore himself away from the ski slopes to break into the big bad world of theatre, not from the streets up but from an Edwardian living room down, and writes of his early acting days as an eighteen year old playing the lead in Shakespeare s Cymbeline, directed by the legendary Komisarjevsky of Moscow s Imperial Theatre.We see his glorious New York of the fifties, where life began at midnight, with the likes of Arthur Miller, Carson McCullers, Tennessee Williams, and Paddy Chayefsky, and how Plummer s own Broadway world developed and swept him along through the last Golden Age the American Theatre would ever remember how the sublime Ruth Chatterton she might have been created by F Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis introduced him to the right people in New York how Miss Eva Le Gallienne gave Plummer his Broadway debut at twenty five in The Starcross Story It opened and closed in one night One solitary night But what a night He writes about Miss Katherine Cornell the last stage star to travel by private train , who, with her husband, Guthrie McClintic, added to what experience Plummer had the necessary gloss, spit, and polish to take him to the next level Guthrie bundled Plummer off to Paris for a production of Medea, opposite Dame Judith Anderson a little Tasmanian devil who with one look could turn an audience to stone.Plummer writes about the great producers with whom he worked Kermit Bloomgarden, Robert Whitehead, and Roger Stevens about Lillian Hellman, Leonard Bernstein, Elia Kazan If you weren t careful, this chameleon of chameleons might change into you, wear your skin, steal your soul , and the miracle that was the new Stratford Festival in Canada, where Plummer blossomed in the classics under the extraordinary Tyrone Guthrie He writes about his too brief encounters with his favorite geniuses, Orson Welles and Jonathan Miller He writes about his lifelong friendships with Raymond Massey and the wild Kate Reid, and with that fugitive from the Navy, that reprobate and staunch drinking buddy, the true reincarnation of Eugene O Neill, whose blood was mixed with firewater, Jason Robards, Jr.Plummer writes about his affairs and his marriages, and about his daughter, Amanda, who despite her slim looks and tiny bones could raise tempests, guaranteed to loosen the foundation of any theatre in which she chose to rage We see him becoming a leading actor for Peter Hall s Royal Shakespeare Theatre, with a company of young talented players, each destined for stardom Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave, Peter O Toole, et al collectively the future of the English stage The old guard was brilliantly represented by Dames Edith Evans and Peggy Ashcroft and Sir John Gielgud Plummer, the only fugitive from the New World, played Richard III, Benedick, and Henry II in Becket.He writes about his film career The Sound of Music affectionately dubbed SM Inside Daisy Clover, which brought him together with the beautiful Natalie Wood John Huston s The Man Who Would Be King Plummer was Rudyard Kipling He tells the story of accepting Sir Laurence Olivier s invitation to join the National Theatre Company, playing in Amphytron directed by Olivier himself a great actor but lousy director , and writes about falling deeply in love with and eventually marrying a young actress and dancer, Elaine Taylor to this day, his one true strength Seamlessly written, with stories that make us laugh out loud and that make real the fascinating, complex, exuberant adventure that is the actor s at least this actor s life.
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In Spite of Myself: A Memoir BY Christopher Plummer
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Christopher Plummer
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Title:
In Spite of Myself: A Memoir BY Christopher Plummer
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Published :2019-05-27T23:40:27+00:00
Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer, CC.In 1968, he was invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada CC In 2001, he received the Canadian Governor General s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement.Recipient of two Tony Awards 1974, 1997 , two Emmy Awards 1976, 1974 , and the Golden Globe Award and Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role 2012.Awarded honourary doctorates from New York s Juilliard School, University of Toronto, Ryerson University, McGill University, University of Western Ontario, University of Ottawa, and University of Guelph.
661 Replys to “In Spite of Myself: A Memoir”
Well worth reading. I found the last chapter or two incredibly moving. I will read again, for all the parts I missed. Agreed, it is a little long, but Christopher Plummer's memoir is a real gift to his fans on many levels.
A brilliant diamond with a hollow core – is how I must describe the man behind this memoir. Sadly, I came to this conclusion in spite of myself. His soul speaks loud and clear in his memoir – what vestige of it there may be, that is!One cannot discount his acting abilities. He now adds a good grasp of the English language to his repertoire for he writes beautifully, if not structurally. That, and his love of dogs, is all that I can find to recommend both the essence of the memoir and the man [...]
It took me weeks to read this all too aptly titled memoir. Despite a gargantuan effort to present himself as charming – and a very effortful effort it is, rather as if someone once described charm to him but he’d never actually seen it in action himself – Plummer is ultimately unable to disguise the thing that has probably kept him from entering the pantheon of legendary and beloved North American actors: he is a simply terrible human being. His choice of anecdotes, the way he talks about [...]
It's just after midnight here in Chicago. The deep cold outside is seeping in at the windows of my room here at the Hotel Blake. I've just turned the last page of In Spite of Myself: A Memoir by Christopher Plummer. Most of this I read in my dressing room over the last four weeks. I read it during the quiet time before half hour is called, in the fifteen minutes between half and fight call, and during intermissions in Cincinnati, South Bend, Peoria, and Chicago at the Auditorium. And I haven't e [...]
Admittedly, I picked this up on a whim after watching the 45th Anniversary Sound of Music reunion on Oprah. I was nostalgic, I was tearful, I was vulnerable.I love Christopher Plummer. I love his acting. I thought he was one of the best parts of The Sound of Music. I loved to hate him in Somewhere in Time. I loved it when he guest-starred on The Cosby Show. I even loved his turn in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.He should never try to write. Really. It wandered and rambled and meandered. [...]
I picked up this biography not knowing much about the life of Christopher Plummer, I just wanted Sound of Music scoops. I think this book would appeal more to fans of his theater work, it’s all a little too high-brow for me, but still I enjoyed it overall.I got so much more out of this memoire than I anticipated, who knew Christopher Plummer was such player and not just on the stage. He’s a charming, boozing, womanizing, cocky, overconfident man (I would say Captain Von Trapp comes close to [...]
It took me the better part of two weeks to read this - not because it is a bad book but because it is so overwhelming in scope. I was amazed at the number of people this man has worked with over the last forty years, ranging from Lillian Hellman and Raymond Massey to Russell Crowe and Spike Lee. The sheer number of names dropped from the world of Hollywood and New York Theatre are amazing. Plummer is probably best known as the Baron von Trapp from the Sound of Music and after thirty years or so [...]
There's a bit in In Spite of Myself when Plummer is writing the memoir and trying to remember the details of how he and his wife Elaine met and got together. So he asks her. She's reading a book."Help me," I plead. "Take me back, in your own words, to the time we met." She looks up. "There must have been something about you. And, oh, yes, we tumbled into bed and all that, but I didn't like you very much. I thought you were the most conceited prig--the way you ponced about in that big convertible [...]
Wow! I don't know how this book passed an editor's blue pencil. It was so long-winded I found myself skipping whole pages. If you can stick with the verbosity of it there are quite a few gems buried in the text. I had a bit of a preconceived idea of what Christoper Plummer would be like as I had read several other autobiographies (of other actors with whom he's worked) in which he played a part. It's interesting to read Plummer's take on certain circumstances. Overall, this would've been a much [...]
Fun to read about his life--not quite finished---hope he pulls himself together! He did.
Christopher Plummer, the actor, is much to be admired. The assessment of Plummer, the life, is more complicated. I think the title of his memoir is apt. He spent a great deal of time in the early years sabotaging his early success. Excessive drinking, tactless comments to people of influence, and the blatant refusal to recognize through two marriages that he had a partner and a child, left me scratching my head in wonder about the parts he landed. On the other hand, success came to him because o [...]
Always admired Christopher Plummer the actor (especially his rendition of Prospero in "The Tempest" at Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Theatre a few years ago). After reading this book, not so sure about Christopher Plummer the person. Self-centred, selfish and full of himself. Extremely opinionated about fellow actors, directors, producers and agents to the point of becoming an ad nauseum diatribe.Despite that, Plummer, from his perspective, provides a wonderful look at the history of theatre in [...]
A rambling, effusive, slightly bombastic and self-deprecating biography. I confess I only know Christopher Plummer as Captain von Trapp fromThe Sound of Music(or as he called it,The Sound of Mucus ), and later on as part of the Girl with The Dragon Tattoo film. Thus I wasn't really interested in the whole lot of other works he'd done, and actually most of them just appear in such long run-on sentences that I would've lost any interest anyway. The bits that caught my attention the most were the i [...]
Christopher Plummer could have pretty much Madlibbed this book. It would go like this: "I starred in (fill in the name of film or play), co-starring (famous stars of stage and screen). The details on staging, direction, and relationships were (describe in detail). Afterwards, the cast would go to (fancy restaurant, hip dive, club, villa, or mansion) and get (wasted, in brawls, in trouble with the law), after which I would get laid by (fill in the blank)."It was much better written than I am maki [...]
Did not finish. Oh, the drama! Oh, the name dropping! Oh, the ego! Oh, the random Shakespearean quotes!
Added 7/29/16.I tried getting into this book several times but gave up. It didn't interest me at all.
#peoplemagazineChristopher Plummer remembers Making The Sound Of MusicWhat was it like playing Captain von Trapp in one of the world's best-loved films? "I wasn't really crazy about that character," says Plummer, 78. Or about the 1965 movie itself, which he nicked named "S&M." He shares the memories in his new memoir.What Really Bothered Him: "Probably due to an over abundance of nuns in the cast there was times, an atmosphere of overreverance which irritated me to now end."How He Behaved: " [...]
Simply superb. A charming raconteur with plenty of stories to tell, and with plenty of self-awareness but little care. Marvellous! The audiobook Plummer recites himself is even more wonderful — the man knows how to deliver a text.
A wonderful and very informative read by Mr. Plummer and even though the narrative seems long at times, this is tempered by the author's knack for skillfully relating humorous anecdotes, witty, original poetic interludes and sharp wisecracks. One thing I could have done with less of was the seemingly incessant interjection of French phrases, particularly early on in the autobiography. I suppose this is not surprising, considering Plummer is a native of Quebec, Canada, but it alienates non-French [...]
Christopher Plummer has got away with a lot in his long life. Part of this must be due to sheer luck. Given his appetite for alcohol, food, and women, all of which appears to be meticulously detailed in this autobiography, it's a miracle he's in the good shape he's in, or indeed, alive at all, given more than one close call (also carefully related). Another thing that gets him off is his extreme good looks. People are always more willing to forgive handsome and charming people. The third thing t [...]
Finally finished it, only seven months after I began it. True, there were several weeks through the summer I did not touch it. Once I got into the rhythm of the book, it went better. I realized it made for good bedtime reading. I don't mean that it is so boring it put me to sleep! The book is a compilation of vignettes throughout Plummer's life. It's easy to read a few pages and stop: perfect for calming down my mind at the end of the day in preparation for sleep. With a novel, you want to know [...]
Very poetic and passionate storyteller.From the start of his career through the 1950s, most of his acting was done on the stage and television. His great passion for the works of Shakespeare kept him happily occupied.Due to his age and perhaps his Canadian roots, there were many topics which were foreign to me. In the first half of the book, many references were made to particular music and musicians, actors and directors, films, plays, theaters, etc most of which I’d never heard, although I†[...]
This book took me FOREVER to read. Not only is because it's like 800+ pages (a fucking tomb in my book) but the writing was a little funny and as it is an older book, I kept putting it off. This is Christopher Plummer's memoir. Recognize that name? You should. He played Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, one of everyone's favorite movie. I always thought he was kind of hot and when the whole cast was on Oprah (fuck, I have been watching way too much of that trash this year) and he chatted [...]
A long, but very worth it book to read. As is true for most of us, we enjoy the parts of this book which we lived through. For me the best parts were from the 60's onward. I had the pleasure of seeing him in his one man play "Barrymore" when it came to San Francisco. It was great! I even went to the stage door where a group of ladies were already standing in line to get his autograph on their programs. I have it framed with the Playbill cover and my ticket stub! He was gracious and so fun to mee [...]
Christopher Plummer has led an interesting life, but it was hard to read anecdote after anecdote about a bunch of theater actors, producers, etc. that I've never heard of. He's not kind to himself - readily admitting taking a lot of sub-par jobs for the money, constantly disparaging his good looks and describing in incredible detail what an enormous jerk he was for most of his life; the kind of self-absorbed drunken asshole who missed his daughter's birth because he lost track of time while talk [...]
That was the abridged version?3.5 Stars. Listening to this book was a lot like my reading of Tangled last week. Of course instead of "Me: What a dickface; Id: Aw, he's darling" it's more like "Me: Eugh, such a letch; Id: Captain Von Trapp!"I gotta admit, though, the man tells a damn good story. A lot of people felt he was doing a lot of namedropping and humblebragging. Sure. Why not? The man has been circulating through stage and screen for three quarters of a century--he's done some incredible [...]
This is a rollicking, vivid and a bit-too-much detailed autobiography by the actor who apparently acted—and drank with—everybody, from Barrymore to Russell Crowe. His elegant retelling of his childhood in upper-crust Montreal is like a crash course in Canadian history (he's linked to a Prime Minisster and other early Anglophone titians). Plummer remains wistful throughout for all the times that pass, but he continually adapts to new performance outlets (live TV, movies). Along the way he sir [...]
I bought this book at the Ontario Stratford Festival bookstore while I was there seeing Christopher Plummer in "The Tempest". Well written memoir with juicy tidbits of his life and great insight in the theater of Canada, U.S.A. and England. He was there with all the "greats" and has good reporting of fun filled nights during stage and filming and afterwards at the party. I always thought of Plummer as Captain Von Trapp in "The Sound of Music", but he is more like a James Bond playboy the first 4 [...]
I've always loved Christopher Plummer and live theatre especially, which it turns out, is his preference over movies as well. I gave this book a high rating because it was an absolute pleasure to read. He has an excellent use of the English language, with the occasional smattering of French, and a good sense of dry humour throughout.The most surprising aspect of the book was it actually reads like an historical account of who's who in the theatre and in film throughout his lifetime. I'm so grate [...]
Long as this book is, I was spellbound by the stories of the adventurous life of one of my favorite actors, from beginning to end. He includes anecdotes of the famous--like Raymond Massey and Jennifer Jones--and the little known of his day, and his own wayward wanderings through bars and strange cities, along with the wonderful backstage stories every actor worth his salt delights in telling. A chapter is devoted to the filming of "The Sound of Music," about which he was so deprecating at the ti [...]