In Spite of Myself

By: Christopher Plummer

Narrated by: Christopher Plummer

A rollicking, rich portrait of a life. And what a life! By one of our greatest actors.

Plummer tells how “this young bilingual wastrel, incurably romantic, spoiled rotten, tore himself away from the ski slopes to break into the big bad world of theatre, not from the streets up but from an Edwardian living room down,” and writes of his early acting days as an eighteen-year-old playing the lead in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline.

We see his glorious New York of the fifties, where life began at midnight, with the likes of Arthur Miller, Carson McCullers, Tennessee Williams, and Paddy Chayefsky, and how Plummer’s own Broadway world developed and swept him along through the last Golden Age the American Theatre would ever remember . . . how the sublime Ruth Chatterton (“she might have been created by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis”) introduced him to the right people in New York . . . how Miss Eva Le Gallienne gave Plummer his Broadway debut at twenty-five in The Starcross Story (“It opened and closed in one night! One solitary night! But what a night!”).

He writes about his film career: The Sound of Music (affectionately dubbed “S&M”) . . . Inside Daisy Clover, which brought him together with the beautiful Natalie Wood . . . John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King (Plummer was Rudyard Kipling). He tells the story of accepting Sir Laurence Olivier’s invitation to join the National Theatre Company, playing in Amphytron directed by Olivier himself (“a great actor but lousy director”), and writes about falling deeply in love with and eventually marrying a young actress and dancer, Elaine Taylor—to this day, his “one true strength.”

Seamlessly written, with stories that make us laugh out loud and that make real the fascinating, complex, exuberant adventure that is the actor’s (at least this actor’s) life.

Christopher Plummer’s devotion to his career.

Christopher Plummer’s devotion to his craft and his career was evident throughout his life from an early age. Unlike the usual actors, he began with the most difficult acting in Shakespearean plays. To earn extra money and to keep his career on track, he took to read roles for radio and then act on TV. His first love always remained the Shakespearean theater. His life took several unexpected turns, but his determination promoted his success.

Brilliantly told!

I so enjoyed hearing Christopher Plummers voice again, and getting to know his perspectives beyond his public persona.

Perfectly Wonderful!

The prose is erudite with wonderful quotes and references, yet down to earth and very companionable. The narration is beyond perfection; never lagging, always engaging, with spot-on voices for familiar fellow actors whom readers will recognize. I’m sorry it’s over. Thank you Christopher Plummer!

Completely charming

Plummer knew everyone in the theater and movies and tells the most delightful stories about them. I had no idea he was such a gifted mimic. His impersonations are loving and hilarious as he moves fluidly from voice to voice, many now nearly forgotten - Edward Everett Horton, Raymond Massey, John Barrymore, to name a few. Plummer brings tremendous depth to his memoir and at the same time, lightness. Knowing him best from The Sound of Music, I hadn't realized that for much of his career, he was a stage actor, mostly in the classics. That means his memoir is a virtual 360 degree tour of London, Hollywood and Broadway. I had assumed that Plummer was British, but he's Canadian, from a very old, respected and once-wealthy family, and some of his early memories sound straight out of Edith Wharton. Charming, witty and informative about a world of acting and glamor that is both current and gone forever. I'm delighted that his movie acting career has had a resurgence just lately.

It... may be the best audiobook I've ever heard...

"In Spite of Myself" popped up as a suggestion after I finished Julie Andrews' "Home Work" (also a marvelous listen.) Just a few thoughts to share - I really don't want to give too much away:

1. The stories are so rich and Christopher's performance is so utterly enthralling, I constantly forgot that I was listening to a memoir. Rather, it felt like a masterpiece performance of some kind of lost Hemingway or Charles Dickens novel. Plummer's life was such an odyssey of happenstance and wild characters, most of them artists/actors/fellow drunks.

2. Although I suspect he was in his late 80's when he created this memoir, Plummer is NO prude. Some of the dirtier stories of his youth or his colorful way of describing things with minimal profanity left me blurting out belly-laughs while listening on the train.

3. Even if you don't know Christopher Plummer, there is still probably something in this memoir for you. This book is more than the memoir of an artist, it's just... a review of a vibrant, hilarious and occasionally sad life. Very human.