Television
Christopher Plummer made his television debut in the February 1953 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation production of Othello, starring Lorne Greene as the Moor. He appeared regularly on American television throughout the 1950s, appearing on both dramatic showcase programs like The Alcoa Hour, G.E. True Theater, Kraft Theatre and Omnibus and episodic series. In 1956, he appeared with Jason Robards and Constance Ford in an episode entitled "A Thief There Was" of CBS's anthology series Appointment with Adventure.
In 1958, he appeared in the television film Little Moon of Alban with Julie Harris, for which he received his first Emmy Award nomination. He also appeared with Harris in the 1958 TV adaptation of Johnny Belinda and played Torvald Helmer to Harris' Nora in a television version of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (1959).
He also starred in the TV adaptations of Philip Barry's The Philadelphia Story (1959), Bernard Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1960), Jean Anouilh's Time Remembered (playing the role of Prince Albert originated by Richard Burton on Broadway), and Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac (1962). In 1964, his performance of the Gloomy Dane in the BBC production Hamlet at Elsinore garnered his second Emmy nomination. Another notable play in which he appeared was the 1974 adaptation of Arthur Miller's After the Fall, in which he played Quentin (a part originated on Broadway by Jason Robards) opposite Faye Dunaway's Maggie.
He has acted in nearly 100 TV roles in all, including appearances in Jesus of Nazareth, the five-time Emmy Award-winning The Thorn Birds, the Emmy-winning Nuremberg, the Emmy-winning Little Moon of Alban and the Emmy-winning Moneychangers (for which he won his first Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series).
He co-starred in American Tragedy as F. Lee Bailey (for which he received a Golden Globe Nomination), and appeared in Four Minute Mile, Miracle Planet, and a documentary by Ric Burns about Eugene O'Neill. He received an Emmy nomination for his performance in Our Fathers and reunited with Julie Andrews for a television production of On Golden Pond. He also played Herod Antipas in the miniseries, Jesus of Nazareth and was the narrator for The Gospel of John. He also co-starred with Gregory Peck in The Scarlet and The Black.
He narrated the animated television series Madeline, for which he received an Emmy, as well as the animated television series David the Gnome.
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Famous quotes containing the word television:
“In full view of his television audience, he preached a new religion—or a new form of Christianity—based on faith in financial miracles and in a Heaven here on earth with a water slide and luxury hotels. It was a religion of celebrity and showmanship and fun, which made a mockery of all puritanical standards and all canons of good taste. Its standard was excess, and its doctrines were tolerance and freedom from accountability.”
—New Yorker (April 23, 1990)
“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create “one world.” Instead of one world, we have “star wars,” and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“There is no question but that if Jesus Christ, or a great prophet from another religion, were to come back today, he would find it virtually impossible to convince anyone of his credentials ... despite the fact that the vast evangelical machine on American television is predicated on His imminent return among us sinners.”
—Peter Ustinov (b. 1921)