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Christopher Plummer - In Spite of Myself

Here you can read online Christopher Plummer - In Spite of Myself full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2012, publisher: Vintage, genre: Non-fiction / History. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

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In Spite of Myself: summary, description and annotation

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A vibrant, exuberant self-portrait of one of todays greatest living actors.
Christopher Plummers magnificent book recounts the wild adventure that is his life, stretching from a privileged childhood in Canada to the glorious, star-studded New York of the fifties to a sensational career in film appearing in some of our most beloved classics. Here are his late nights out with Carson McCullers, Tennessee Williams, Paddy Chayefsky, and Arthur Miller; his affairs and marriages; his collaborations with famed producers; and his memorable roles alongside fellow young and talented actors, each also destined for stardom: Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave, Peter OToole, Natalie Wood, and countless others. Plummer weaves delicious anecdotes of a life spent on stages and film sets across the worldfrom Peter Halls Royal Shakespeare Theatre to The Sound of Music (affectionately dubbed S&M)into a boisterous narrative filled with humor and irresistible charm.

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Praise for IN SPITE OF MYSELF NATIONAL BESTSELLER One of the most - photo 1
Praise for
IN SPITE OF MYSELF

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

One of the most entertaining books I have encountered in a long life of reading A history, told not in laborious details, but in revealing, frequently comic, highlights.

John Simon, Bloomberg.com

Christopher Plummer may be the greatest living actor of his generation in the English-speaking theatre world [He] is a born raconteur who tells us exactly what he wants us to know. His unique prose style is elegantly archaic, peppered with French and borrowed snippets of poetry.

The Gazette

A staggering parade of theatre-world luminaries struts, swaggers and, yes, occasionally staggers through this compulsively readable memoir Mr. Plummer seems to have worked with just about everyone imaginable and he has a tasty anecdote about onstage, backstage or drinking-hole doings about every single one of them.

Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

We always knew that Christopher Plummer was a great actor; what a delightful surprise to discover that hes a witty and elegant writer as well.

Winnipeg Free Press

An immensely satisfying memoir of rare grace, good humour and unapologetic self-honesty It is, frankly, a treat, not only for its theatrical stories, but also because Plummer is that rarest of actors, intelligent, thoughtful, hard-working, talented, imaginative, generous, dedicated to his craft and occasionally struck by spark of thespian genius.

Michael Korda, The Daily Beast

A fascinating memoir The book records so many trysts, pratfalls, drunken eveningsand afternoonsthat its amazing he has survived Amply shows how Mr. Plummer has managed a long, successful career in spite of himself.

The Wall Street Journal

A sparkling star turn from a born raconteur for whom all the world is indeed a stage.

Publishers Weekly

A finely observed, deeply felt (and deeply dishy) time-travelling escape worthy of a long, stormy weekend This man has experienced a life rich in textures, and he is able to give most of them glorious voice. His is a life in the theatre lived hard and true, in the grand tradition of those distinguished players who went before, whom he surely made proud. Good sir! I raise my glass to you.

Alex Witchel, The New York Times Book Review

This memoir is invaluable Plummer gives a high-definition performance The relish and zest in his retrospection sweep the reader along.

The Globe and Mail

No one reading the veteran actors delightfully sprawling account of his life and career could accuse him of being a withholding guy He has a loftier goal: offering access to the world of a tireless working artist and bon vivant, someone gifted and lucky enough to be able to fully engage his passions and inspire others in doing so.

National Post

In Spite of Myself acquainted even this dedicated Plummer-watcher with hundreds of facts about his life that Id never known before, all of them related with the same panache he brings to his real-life conversations.

Toronto Star

Canadas most celebrated and acclaimed actor lets loose in a magnificent memoir that will delight and enchant readers.

Woodstock Sentinel

The writing is robust and unapologetically florid. Theres plenty of self-deprecating humour and reports of naughty and gory escapades, a few involving hospitals, that can be mercilessly graphic But there also are moments of unfettered poignancy.

USA Today

FOR FUFF BRIGGIE RAGS TOADIE AND PADDY WITH GRATITUDE AND LOVE BOOK ONE - photo 2

FOR FUFF, BRIGGIE, RAGS, TOADIE, AND PADDY, WITH GRATITUDE AND LOVE

BOOK ONE
CHAPTER ONE

I was brought up by an Airedale. I wont deny it, tis the truth and nothing but, Your Honoura bumbling, oversized shaggy great Airedale. The earliest memory I have of anything resembling a pater familia, bouncer, male-nurse or God is that dear slobbering old Airedale. My sword, my lance, my shield, he never failed to stand at the ready to rescue me from all my early Moriarties! Wherever I happened to beon the floor, in my bath or on the potty, therelooming above me, panting heavily, one large, drooling Airedale reporting for duty, sir! If I went for a ride in my little cart, I would look away and pretend there was no one there at all and then when I did look back, of course he was there. He was always there padding along beside mehow could I miss him? He was my only horizonhe filled the sky. Like Romulus or Remus, I was his cub and he was my Wolf of Rome. His name was Byng.

Me and Byng He was christened after another shaggy old Airedale Field Marshal - photo 3

Me and Byng

He was christened after another shaggy old Airedale, Field Marshal Lord Byng of Vimy, whom my grandparents had known when he was governor general; and also for the very good reason that if any of our household showed guts enough to sit down to tea or play a hand at bridge, the days calm would invariably become a stormy sance as tables, taking on a life of their own, began to shake violently and with one quick loud explosion, Bing! they would catapult themselves ceiling-ward as teapots, cups, toast, crumpets, cards and markers flew madly across the room! My canine patron had, quite simply, decided to rise.

But I like Byng, my dog, because
He doesnt know how to behave
So Byngs the same as the First Friend was
And I am the Man in the Cave

(Apologies to Kipling)

Nothing ever came between usYour Honournothinghe was my world; I knew no other. Until one day, one sobering day, the spell was broken when a meddling family friend pointed out to me that the nice tall lady pushing my pram was my mother.

Mummies and dogs! You can beat em, kick em, treat em as shabbily as you likethey will eternally forgive you and still come back for more. Such degree of devotion is as hard to grasp as it is unshakable. Being a child, I had no comprehension of it. It embarrassed me. I regularly ran away from it; in fact, I still do.

I didnt throw myself into the struggle for lifeI threw my mother into it.

G. B. SHAW

I came into the world that monster of infant monsters, who can clear a room more swiftly than a Sherman tank; that very monster which causes fear, dread, revulsion to seal the lips of those that dare to speak its nameThe Only Child! And being an only child I was more than frequently left on my own. Can you blame em?! A little boys mind can play some pretty macabre tricks on itself. I was so damned terrified of the dark that Mother had to sing me to sleep, snatches of old French songs she particularly loved.

Chante, rossignol,
chante, Toi qui as le coeur gai
Il y a longtemps que je taime,
Jamais, je ne toublierai
.

But the terror never left. It stayed through all the early years. Because of books, which Mother insisted I read, my imagination began to take over, and the long winters gave one so much time to dream up horrors. My grandparents tall, forbidding house in the city could be pretty ominous, full of dark corners to jump out of and scare yourself to death. Every time I tried to rob my grandfathers overcoat pocket of change so I could sneak downtown to Bens delicatessen for a smoked-meat sandwich and a Coke, some sudden sound would force me to drop everything and run like hell. My room was on the very top floor and in the middle of the night I would steal from my bed and sit shivering on the uppermost step, clinging tight to old Byng, staring down into the center of the long circular staircase, down into that black hole, that bottomless pit, and waitwait for them, whoever they were, to climb up and get us.

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