Early Life
Plummer was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Isabella Mary (née Abbott) and John Orme Plummer, who was secretary to the Dean of Sciences at McGill University. Through his mother, Plummer is a great-grandson of Canadian Prime Minister Sir John Abbott, and a great-great-grandson of Anglican clergyman and McGill acting president John Bethune. Plummer was an only child. His parents were divorced shortly after he was born, and he was brought up at the Abbott family home in Senneville, Quebec, outside Montreal. He is bilingual. He studied to be a concert pianist, but developed a love for the theatre at an early age. He began acting while he was living on Pine Avenue in Montreal and attending Montreal High. Plummer took up acting after seeing Laurence Olivier's film Henry V (1944). In 1946, his performance as Mr. Darcy in the production of Pride and Prejudice at Montreal High brought Christopher Plummer to the attention of Herbert Whittaker, the theatre critic of the Montreal Gazette. Whittaker, who was also amateur stage director the Montreal Repertory Theatre, cast Christopher Plummer as Oedipus in Cocteau's La Machine infernale when he was only 18 years old.
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