#j.b.

In another lifetime

We will be brave enough

To love

Each other

Christopher Plummer 1929–2021

Plummer made his Broadway debut in January 1953 in The Starcross Story, a flop that closed on opening night. His next Broadway appearance, Home is the Hero, lasted 30 performances in September–October 1954. He appeared in support of Broadway legend Katharine Cornell and movie legend Tyrone Power in The Dark is Light Enough, which lasted 69 performances in February–April 1955. The play also toured several cities, with Plummer serving as Power's understudy. (In his autobiography, Plummer states that Cornell was his 'sponsor.’) Later that year, he appeared in his first hit on Broadway, co-starring with Julie Harris (who won a Tony Award) in Jean Anouilh's The Lark.

After appearing in another flop, Night of the Auk, Plummer was in another hit, Elia Kazan's production of Archibald Macleish's Pulitzer Prize-winning play J.B., for which he was nominated for his first Tony Award as Best Actor in Play. (J.B. also won Tonys as Best Play and for Kazan's direction.)

—http://www.christopherplummer.eu/

Above: Plummer in J.B., 1958.

Below: Plummer with Julie Harris in The Lark, 1955. Photo by George Karger/Pix Inc./The Life Images Collection via Getty Images