Plummer, (Arthur) Christopher Orme

Plummer, (Arthur) Christopher Orme (1927– ), gifted and versatile Canadian actor, with a flair for irony and flamboyant comedy. He gained his early experience with the Canadian Repertory Company in Ottawa and made his New York début in 1954. For several years he appeared mainly in Shakespeare, being seen as Mark Antony in Julius Caesar and Ferdinand in The Tempest in the opening season at Stratford, Conn., in 1955 (see AMERICAN SHAKESPEARE THEATRE). In 1956 he played Henry V at the Stratford (Ontario) Festival, where his other roles included Aguecheek in Twelfth Night and Hamlet the following year, Leontes in The Winter's Tale (1958), the title-roles in Macbeth and Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac (1962), and Antony in Antony and Cleopatra (1967). In 1961 he was seen at the RSC as Benedick in Much Ado about Nothing and as Richard III. He also appeared in a number of modern plays in New York, including Fry's The Dark is Light Enough (1955), MacLeish's J. B. (1958), Brecht's Arturo Ui (1963, in the title-role), and Shaffer's The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1965, as Pizarro). In London he played Henry II in Anouilh's Becket (1961) and was in revivals of Giraudoux's Amphitryon 38 and Büchner's Danton's Death for the National Theatre company in 1971. He portrayed Anton Chekhov in Neil Simon's The Good Doctor (NY, 1973), and in 1981 returned to the American Shakespeare Theatre to play Iago in Othello and the title-role and Chorus in Henry V, repeating Iago in New York in 1982. In 1988, opposite Glenda Jackson in New York, he again played Macbeth.