Oscar-winner, ‘Sound of Music' star Christopher Plummer dies At 91
New York: Christopher Plummer, the dashing award-winning actor who played Captain von Trapp in the film The Sound of Music and at 82 became the oldest Academy Award acting winner in history, has died. He was 91.
Plummer died Friday morning at his home in Connecticut with his wife, Elaine Taylor, by his side, said Lou Pitt, his longtime friend and manager.
Over more than 50 years in the industry, Plummer enjoyed varied roles ranging from the film The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, to the voice of the villain in 2009's Up and as a canny lawyer in Broadway's Inherit the Wind.
But it was opposite Julie Andrews as von Trapp that made him a star. He played an Austrian captain who must flee the country with his folk-singing family to escape service in the Nazi navy, a role he lamented was humorless and one-dimensional. Plummer spent the rest of his life referring to the film as The Sound of Mucus or S&M.
We tried so hard to put humor into it, he told The Associated Press in 2007. It was almost impossible. It was just agony to try to make that guy not a cardboard figure.
The role catapulted Plummer to stardom, but he never took to leading men parts, despite his silver hair, good looks and ever-so-slight English accent. He preferred character parts, considering them more meaty.
Plummer had a remarkable film renaissance late in life, which began with his acclaimed performance as Mike Wallace in Michael Mann's 1999 film The Insider, continued in films such 2001's A Beautiful Mind and 2009's The Last Station, in which he played a deteriorating Tolstoy and was nominated for an Oscar.
In 2012, Plummer won a supporting actor Oscar for his role in Beginners as Hal Fields, a museum director who becomes openly gay after his wife of 44 years dies. His loving, final relationship becomes an inspiration for his son, who struggles with his father's death and how to find intimacy in a new relationship.
Too many people in the world are unhappy with their lot. And then they retire and they become vegetables. I think retirement in any profession is death, so I'm determined to keep crackin', he told AP in 2011.
Plummer in 2017 replaced Kevin Spacey as J. Paul Getty in All the Money in the World just six weeks before the film was set to hit theaters. That choice that was officially validated in the best possible way for the film a supporting Oscar nomination for Plummer, his third. (AP)
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Baramati plane crash: Rohit Pawar alleges attempts to shield VSR Ventures
Mumbai (PTI): NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar on Wednesday alleged that someone was trying to save VSR Ventures in connection with the plane crash that killed Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, and claimed that the AAIB preliminary probe vindicated the doubts earlier raised by him.
He also accused VSR company of indulging in several grave lapses in the past.
The Learjet 45 aircraft, operated by VSR Ventures, crashed near the Baramati air strip in Pune district on January 28, killing Pawar and four others.
In its 22-page preliminary report on the VSR Venture's Learjet plane crash, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) said the visibility at the time of the crash was below the required level. It also flagged about fading marks on the runway and presence of loose gravels on the runway surface.
Pawar said, "I am not against VSR or the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). Ajitdada was travelling in a VSR aircraft. Unless we go into the depth of every aspect, we will not know the truth. But someone is trying to save this company. The doubts we had raised have been proven correct in the inquiry report."
He also claimed that the AAIB report contained discrepancies, including mentioning Baramati as a district, and questioned how seriously the probe had been conducted.
Pawar, who has been regularly holding press conferences to raise issues concerning the Baramati plane crash, also contested the report's conclusion that the aircraft hit trees before crashing.
"The report says the aircraft struck trees and then fell. But there are no trees at that spot. There is only a small bush which the aircraft did not even touch. What is stated in the report about hitting trees is incorrect," he said.
Pawar further alleged that VSR Ventures had displayed irresponsibility on multiple occasions, citing an incident involving the then chief minister Eknath Shinde's Davos visit on January 20, 2023.
He claimed that the aircraft carrying Shinde had entered Iranian and Iraqi airspace without overflight permission, following which fighter jets from the two countries allegedly warned of action, forcing a change in route from Bahrain to Zurich.
"There have been several such grave lapses by VSR," he said.
Pawar demanded to know from where VSR Ventures derived its "audacity", and sought details about its investors and officials, though he added that he was not personally concerned with who they were.
Drawing a comparison, he said the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had taken over the probe into actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death within two days, whereas a month had passed since the Baramati crash without a similar action.
He claimed that VSR Ventures had two directors and three shareholders, and that there were eight common names across two related companies.
He further alleged that the owner of VSR was related to the Union Civil Aviation Minister and questioned why the company, though registered in Delhi, had made high-value investments in Jubilee Hills (upscale area in Hyderabad) at rates allegedly Rs 17 crore above the market price.
The MLA representing the Karjat-Jamkhed assembly constituency in Ahilyanagar district also raised concerns about the legal and institutional framework of the AAIB under the 2017 rules, claiming it was neither a statutory nor an autonomous body and remained answerable to the secretary and the minister, besides being attached to the DGCA.
"There is no independent investigative agency," he alleged.
