Great actor. Not much else.

Very rarely do I read a biography that makes me come away disliking the author. But that is what happened when I read Christopher Plummer's book. In Spite of Myself. Essentially Plummer is a braggart, a name-dropper, a liar and a drunk. According to him he's met every famous person of the 20th century and they all adored him. Many of his anecdotes were highly questionable if not downright unbelievable. And, most interestingly,  I don't think there was a page in the book when he wasn't downing some alcoholic beverage in large volumes. It's a pity really because he did have a privileged life, met the most important persons of his time, and, I'm sure, had enough real experiences so that he didn't have to invent any. If he were a person of more depth, this very-well-written 650-page book would have been filled with wonderful insights  (like Noel Coward's diaries, for instance). But it was a me-me-me bio all the way. The most amusing thing to me was by page 580, I noticed that he never seemed to have a single pet. In fact that only animal I think he mentioned was a bull in Spain where was, naturally, rooting for the matador who, to my delight, was gored. Shortly after noticing this, he wrote the following, "Fuff* and I loved dogs with a devotion bordering on obsession." From then on, he has lots to say about the dogs in his life, which was the only part of this self-congratulatory book that showed any kind of tenderness and humanity.


*His third or fourth wife.