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Sound of Music star Christopher Plummer dead at 91. Christopher Plummer, who starred as widower Captain von Trapp opposite Julie Andrews in the blockbuster 1965 musical The Sound of Music and in 2012 became the oldest actor to win an Oscar, has died at 91. "The world has lost a consummate actor today and I have lost a cherished friend," Andrews said in a statement. "I treasure the memories of our work together and all the humour and fun we shared through the years." Plummer passed away peacefully at his home in Connecticut with his wife Elaine Taylor at his side. "Chris was an extraordinary man who deeply loved and respected his profession with great old fashion manners, self-deprecating humour and the music of words," his long-time friend and manager Lou Pitt said. "He was a National Treasure who deeply relished his Canadian roots. Through his art and humanity, he touched all of our hearts and his legendary life will endure for all generations to come." Plummer, an accomplished Shakespearean actor honoured for his varied stage, television and film work in a career that spanned more than six decades, was best known for his role in The Sound Of Music, which at the time eclipsed Gone With the Wind (1939) as the top-earning movie ever. Plummer flourished in a succession of meaty roles after age 70 — a time in life when most actors merely fade away. He claimed a long-awaited Academy Award at age 82 for his supporting performance in Beginners as an elderly man who comes out of the closet as gay after his wife's death. "You're only two years older than me, darling," Plummer, who was born in 1929, purred to his golden statuette — first given for films made in 1927 and 1928 — at the February 2012 Oscars ceremony. "Where have you been all my life?" Plummer became the oldest actor to win a competitive Academy Award — supplanting Jessica Tandy and George Burns, who both were 80 when they won theirs. Plummer appeared in more than 100 films and also was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Russian author Leo Tolstoy in 2009's The Last Station. He won two Tony Awards for his Broadway work, two Emmy Awards for TV work and performed for some of the world's top theatre companies. But for many fans his career was defined by his performance as a stern widower in The Sound of Music — a role he called "a cardboard figure, humourless and one-dimensional." In his 2008 autobiography In Spite Of Myself, Plummer refers to the movie with the mischievous acronym "S&M". It took him four decades to change his view of the film and embrace it as a "terrific movie" that made him proud. Director Robert Wise's wholesome, sentimental film follows the singing von Trapp family and their 1938 escape from the Nazis. Plummer's character falls in love with Andrews', a woman hired to care for his seven children. The movie won the Academy Award as best picture of 1965.