Veteran film stars

In the week I had lunch with a film buff who spoke highly of  All The Money In The World and in particular  of Christopher Plummer who, aged 88, turned out a stellar performance. The interesting thing about Christopher Plummer is that he is best known for Fritz von Trapp in The Sound of Music but he loathed the film. My friend also said he was a concert pianist and did some musical arrangements.

Conversation turned to veterans still on screen and I offered up Max von Sydow.

The Swedish actor could do just about anything. He made his name with 12 Bergman films but in Hollywood made Hawaii. He also featured as villain in the Quiller Memorandum and in The Exorcist and Hannah and her Three Sisters.

Born in 1929 he is still acting and in the last 3 years was in Star Wars and Game of Thrones. 

Two others who had long careers but are sadly no longer with us were Eli Wallach and Ernest Borgnine.

Eli Wallach was the son of Polish Jews but was forever cast as a MJexican bandit notably in The Magnificent Seven.

His slow and sententious delivery of words made them more important than they seemed but  he was a supreme character actor and finally got the Jewish roles he craved in late age. 

Ernest Borgnine, who mostly played extrovert villains, was another popular actor who was acting into his nineties.

To be fair, both Wallach and Borgnine began their film career relatively late, as did Plummer.