An actor finally gets long-awaited recognition from the public...

I was musing about this after reading several articles published lately about world-renowned Canadian actor, Christopher Plummer who is currently acting in several films and just completed a 30-show engagement in Toronto two months ago. One notable article is NPR's "Christopher Plummer: After 81 Years, A 'Beginner'."

Here's the amazing part: He's still keeping up a full traveling and acting schedule despite the fact that he's 81 years old!

I've been a long-time Christopher Plummer fan for nearly 15 years, and like almost every young person in this generation, it was his role as Captain von Trapp in "The Sound of Music" that first won me over. And as I grew up and began to watch many more of his other films he's performed in and animated movies that he's voiced-over I realized very quickly that his versatility as both a film actor and a stage performer was unmatched. He's played everything from a Klingon ("Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country), Sherlock Holmes ("Murder by Decree"), the Incan king/god Athualpa ("Royal Hunt of the Sun"), Mike Wallace ("The Insider"), John Barrymore ("Barrymore" - stage performance), to multiple Shakespearean characters, and the list goes on and on. His voice has been lent to animated movies and given life to characters such as the Grand Duke from MGM's "Rock-a-Doodle" and most recently, the conniving Charles Muntz from Pixar's "Up."

I've had the chance to accumulate memorabilia from many parts of his storied career, collecting VHS and DVD copies of his more popular films, 8mm transfers of his early work, and unique artifacts such as original costume test shots and one of my favorites, an autographed poster done for the Stratford Public Library in Canada which is only one of 30 known that Plummer has signed.

My set of original costume test shots from "The Sound of Music."  These were shipped from France with photocopies of the original paperwork accompanying the photos from 20th Century Fox.

Yeah, I was the weird one. When kids my age were having obnoxious crushes over Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Leonardo di Caprio, I was the one watching Christopher Plummer in throwback films and enjoying the sheer talent and grace on stage that has kept him going for decades. That longevity has been rewarding, and he's still entertaining another generation of movie and theatre-goers.

According to the Stratford Public library, Christopher Plummer only signed 30 of these posters. I entered a charity drawing with the library to win one of these and my name was drawn. Not bad for sending $10 to Canada!

A little over 11 years ago, I began an online unofficial fan club on Yahoo! Groups dedicated to Christopher Plummer to teach myself the ins and outs of moderating online groups and message boards. Currently it's well over 200 members and has continued to have some level of activity over the last few years. Users have contributed many photos and articles to its archive, and it still ranks as one of the largest Christopher Plummer-related message boards on the Internet. It's a strange accomplishment that I forget about at times but it's a unique project that's lingered on for so long.

So there's my story on how I've admired my favorite actor. He's living proof that there's no school like the old school.

To visit the fan club, visit http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/christopherplummerfanclub/