By City News Service Boundaries New York Screening LOS ANGELES (CNS) - The entertainment world was mourning the loss of a legend today with the death of Christopher Plummer, the Oscar-winning actor who graced stage and screen for seven decades, but is best remembered for portraying Captain Von Trapp in “The Sound of Music. Plummer, 91, died peacefully Friday morning at his home in Connecticut, with his wife Elaine Taylor at his side, according to his management team. “Chris was an extraordinary man who deeply loved and respected his profession with great old fashion manners, self-deprecating humor and the music of words, Plummer s manager and longtime friend Lou Pitt said in a statement. “He was a national treasure who deeply relished his Canadian roots. Through his art and humanity, he touched all of our hearts and his legendary life will endure for all generations to come. He will forever be with us.
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Listen • 3:38 Born in Toronto, Christopher Plummer made his name as a classical actor performing Shakespeare at the Stratford Festival in Canada and the Royal Shakespeare Company in England. He began acting in films in the 1950s. In 2012, when he was already well into his 80s, Christopher Plummer told NPR that he was busier than he had been in a long time – and that was OK with him. You never stop learning how to act, both on screen and on the stage, he said. I feel like I m starting all over again. Every sort of decade I feel this, and that s very satisfying.
Knives Out, among numerous others. The actor was also active on stage, appearing on Broadway, the National Theater and The Royal Shakespeare Company in England. Plummer earned a Tony Awards for his portrayal of Cyrano de Bergerac in the musical Cyrano in 1974. He also played John Barrymore in Barrymore in 1977, for which he won another Tony. Chris was an extraordinary man who deeply loved and respected his profession with great old fashion manners, self deprecating humor and the music of words, wrote Lou Pitt, Plummer s manager of 46 years, in a statement. He was a National Treasure who deeply relished his Canadian roots. Through his art and humanity, he touched all of our hearts and his legendary life will endure for all generations to come. He will forever be with us.
reporter: it s lit her way for more than 130 years, often considered one of the greatest inventions of all time. but the watt hungry incandescent bulb is on the the endangered species list. what do you think thomas edison would think of all this? i think thomas edison would say, what took you so long. reporter: but fans of edison s finest disagree and are crying, let there be light later on sunday morning. osgood: then on to a young singer who is going places and has come a long way already as tracy smith will show us. . reporter: his music has taken him all over the world. his indomitable spirit has taken him to even more surprising places. you repeled down a 3-story building. yeah. what a treat. reporter: singer/songwriter justin hine later on sunday morning. osgood: christopher plummer is a veteran actor of great ability and durability who by his own account is only just getting started. anthony mason has paid him a visit. the enemies of my friends are my enemies. reporter: with a key role in the girl with the dragon tattoo, christopher plummer s now appeared in more than 90 films. in many ways it feels like you re in the prime with your movie career. extraordinary. i work harder and more frequently now that i m in my 80s than i ever did before. reporter: later on sunday morning christopher plummer talks about stage, screen and the sound of music. just don t ask captain von trapp to sing edal wise. it s a wrap. osgood: the complaint that some christmas decorations go over the top, some uninhibited homeowners say lighten up. bill geist has more. reporter: a few little white lights on the bushes, an ornamental reindeer. don t get yourself, outdoor christmas decorating can be highly addictive. al and esther thompson have more than 170,000 lights and counting. you ll meet them and other deca-holics on a tacky lights tour later on sunday morning. osgood: ben tracy opens a few holiday e-cards. bill flannagan shares his list of musical gifts. martha teichner introduces us to the american guy who made it big at the bolshoi blue jay ballet but first the headlines for the 18th of december, 2011. the last american combat forces have left iraq. the final convoy rolled across the border into neighboring kuwait at day break this morning. nearly 4500 americans died in the nearly nine-year war. thousands more were wounded. more than 100,000 iraqi lives were lost. our jim axelrod was with the troops as they pulled out and we ll hear from him in just a few minutes. the house is expected to vote tomorrow on a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and of jobless benefits. the extension, passed by the senate yesterday, would also require president obama to approve or reject a proposed oil pipeline from canada within 60 days. he wanted to wait until until after the presidential election to decide. just two weeks to the iowa caucuses and republican presidential hopeful mitt romney has picked up a key endorsement. editors of the des moines register cites romney s sobriety, wisdom and judgment. playwright turned politician pavel has died. in 1989 he guided czech s break from the soviets. he was 75. in tampa last night, the dallas cowboys quarterback tomorrowy romo threw three touchdown passes and got help from receiver des bryant for this catch. to lead the cowboys to a 31-15 win over the tampa bay bucaneers. now take a look at this. a run-away golf cart sped on to the field after a high school football game in arlington texas. at least one man was hospitalized with an apparent leg injury. here s today s forecast. mostly cool with pockets of snow and cold rain scattered about the country. the week ahead looks even colder. there s a word for this. it s called winter. winter officially begins on thursday. next, including starbucks. it s the way to brew everyone s favorite cup in under a minute. way to brew! osgood: a convoy of u.s. combat troops crossed the border from iraq into kuwait in the wee hours of this morning. that is the last of them. they re all out now. jim axelrod traveled with the troops. here he is with a sunday journal. reporter: yesterday was no ordinary saturday for the soldiers in iraq. it was the last saturday in iraq. for these, the last u.s. troops left here. by last night, the u.s. troop count in iraq stood at several hundred, down from a high of 170,000 four years ago. i just want to say hello. reporter: the top u.s. general in iraq called the final drawdown, the military s largest, most complex logistical undertaking since world war ii. after one final piece of business, a reenlistment ceremony for sergeant grant smith, the final convoy rolled out at 2:30 this morning, 30 vehicles, 130 mps from the third brigade of the first calvary. platoon leader jennifer farland drove in the second to last troop transport vehicle to leave the country. a little overwhelming, but we re watching history in the making. pretty magical when we cross the border. reporter: a little more than five hours later, they had reached the border 160 miles away. dawn was breaking. no ordinary saturday night was becoming an historic sunday morning. let s set the scene for you right now. we are paused just a couple of hundred yards from the border into kuwait to let some vehicles in front of us go in first. these are the last vehicles of the u.s. convoy out of iraq. this is a medivac unit. these are the last soldiers who will actually cross over the border into kuwait. you see a beautiful sunrise that s coming up over the desert. and what s behind us? absolutely nothing. at 7:37 local time, the last u.s. armored vehicle crossed over. the mission went smoothly. no casualties, meaning the final number of american troops killed in iraq will be 4,487, more than 30,000 were wounded and more than 100,000 iraqis are thought to be dead from war-related violence. since the shock and awe began in march of 2003, the united states has spent more than $800 billion fighting in iraq. there will be no shortage of questions for the historians to debate, but for these soldiers on this sunday morning, there was only one thing on their minds. completing their final mission successfully, leaving iraq safer. as they stood on the side of a road just inside kuwait clearing their weapons of ammo, soldiers like specialist tris tan mcdonough, a 24-year-old from tacoma, washington, began concentrating on their next task at hand: racing the calendar to get home for christmas. we re going to run across, give me a big old hug and be home in time for my son s fourth birthday, my daughter s second birthday. it will be amazing. reporter: when it comes to these soldiers and this mission at least, there will be no one arguing it s mission accomplished. osgood: next, the battle of the bulb. edelweiss > and later the sound of christopher plummer. the course of four centuries.r [ woman ] it was a family business back then, and it still feels like a family business now. the only people who knew about us were those in new england, that moment that we got our first web order. .we could tell we were on the verge of something magical. all of a sudden it just felt like things were changing. we can use this to advertise to bakers everywhere. [ man ] browns summit, north carolina. crescent city, california. we had a package go to kathmandu once. the web has been the reason this entire section of the warehouse exists today. we were becoming more than this little flour company in vermont. [ woman ] we re all going after one common goal, which is to spread the joy of baking throughout the whole world. hey babe. oh, hi honey! so i went to the doctor today, then picked up a few extra things for the baby. oh boy. i used our slate card with blueprint. we can design our own plan to avoid interest by paying off diapers and things each month. and for the bigger stuff, we can pay downalance faster to save money on interest. bigger? bigger. chase slate with blueprint helps you save money on life s little surprises. trip.lets. start your path to saving today, call 855-get-slate. in the king james version of genesis, god said, let there be light and there was light. fortunately he didn t have to check with congress. congress has been wrangling over new national energy efficient standards for light bulbs. our sunday morning cover story is reported now by lee cowan. reporter: tis the season when it seems all some families want for christmas is a bit more wattage. there are houses that have the extra twinkle to their trees, more deck to their halls. if you didn t know better, you might think christmas was a celebration of the electric light bulb itself. but those who are especially festive are not the only people passionate about light. it turns out this year lights and light bulbs are at the heart of a burning debate. i believe in liberty for light bulbs. reporter: g.o.p. presidential hopeful michele bachmann, along with other conservatives, have been pointing to the incandescent light bulb as a symbol of government meddling. it all stems from a law signed by george w. bush in 2007 requiring that our most popular light bulbs be at least 25% more energy efficient starting next year. but conservatives complain those standards render the lowly old-fashioned orb obsolete, restricting consumer choice. the conference report is adopted. reporter: but this weekend congress pulled the funding to enforce that law. giving the incandescent a temporary reprieve. but the fight is far from over. the efficiency standards are still law. and fans of thomas edison s finest know the switch to more modern bulbs is only a matter of time. there is a pushback from a lot of people who say i m sitting in my living room, i want a warm, comfortable light. i want it to be that s the word they use warm. the earliest lamp that edison made.. reporter: david is a lighting engineer and historian who has a bit of a crush on the incandescent. even though it gives off more heat than light, edison s fuzzy filament has filled our homes with a glow that became the standard for more than 130 years. its first real challenge came from the compact fluorescent bulb, but that didn t go over too well. if you take an incandescent lamp out of a socket and put in a compact fluorescent lamp, it doesn t have the right color. even though it s more efficient, they re going to say, what have you done to my light? reporter: and they are saying that. and they are saying that. reporter: in the days edison was fine tuning his invention most of the world was lit by gas, essentially fire. in fact it was always that way. from camp fires to candles to kerosene lamps, the color of flame was the light of our lives. what edison finally captured in 1879 was that same light in a bottle. or in his case in a vacuum tube. it s very easy to look at a lamp now probably rightly as an almost purely technological artifact assembled by machine. the exact opposite is the case with the early lamps. virtually every aspect of these devices had to be built by hand. reporter: mark is the curator of industry at the henry ford museum outside detroit. where thomas edison s lab has been recreated down to the tiniest detail. it wasn t just a bulb. it wasn t just a lamp. it was wiring, conduit, switches, fuses, generators. of course, the lamp is the most visible part of it. it was what most people were interested in. reporter: but even after edison s invention electrified parts of lower manhattan, the rest of the country didn t have the budget for bulbs. in fact it wasn t until after 1910, almost 30 years later that using light bulbs became cheaper than gas. the gizmo that comes out of this. correct. that s happened with every other lighting technology. it s been introduced. it s very expensive. and you simply wait long enough and the price comes down. reporter: which is where light bulb manufacturers are right now. having to change the public mind set from the $1.99 disposable lighting to the $25 a bulb light that is more like an appliance. you might install a light bulb in your foyer when your kids are born and that light bulb will still be in there working, no problems, when the kids go off to college. reporter: ed crawford heads up the north american lighting division at phillips, the largest lighting company. this is a compact fluorescent. a lots of.. reporter: like the rest of us, he watched that first jump from incandescent to those energy efficient bulb s with a bit of a cringe. some of the early compact fluorescent products were not ready for prime time. they buzzed. they had lousy color. they made everything kind of grayish, you know, green. reporter: edison s glowing filament gave off nearly every color of the rainbow especially reds and yellows. and duplicating that isn t easy. what are we in now? what is this? this is white light. this is a warm, balanced light. reporter: phillips daniel blitzer says that although we see white light as one color, it is in fact many. when the light changes. reporter: too many of any one is uncomfortable. it goes mostly blue. reporter: whether it s blue or vivid green. this is a particularly unhappy color for people. reporter: but perhaps the most important is red. too much of it is, well, martian. but for humans not enough red can be disastrous. but if you have no red light, nothing bounces off the red pigments, it only bounces off the blue of your veins and that looks awful. does it not? reporter: yes. the solution for phillips is a bulb that just won a $10 million prize from the department of energy. while it may look like those orange bug lights of old, this is an led that phillips says all but replicates the warm glow of the incandescent. this light bulb does everything that consumers like except it uses nine watts instead of 60. reporter: that s only 9 watts? yes. if i take one of these fins off, you can see what s inside. these are the led. you see six leds right there. there s six in each of these chambers. reporter: when he flipped the switch? so there s two colors that you ll see here when you turn this on. it s kind of amazing. reporter: blue. and through having this lens that we put over the blue, we get that warm white light that we re used to. reporter:. it s really remarkable almost like a magic trick. this is my little experimental workshop. reporter: but it still has its critics. howard is one of them. he knows a little something about lights. he was the engineer who made lady liberty shining just the right way. i threw together all of this.. reporter: he took us out to his garage where he set up an experiment. a candle, he says, gives off a nicely rounded curve of light. it s full. there s no gaps. there s no peaks. reporter: but a lot of yellows and reds. there it is. reporter: and the old- fashioned 60-watt incandescent is almost identical. you can see all the red that s there. reporter: what about that phillips master piece? much to his surprise it did pretty well. although howard isn t ready to switch just yet. very weak in red. reporter: so an incandescent almost this whole area would be red as opposed to this part that drops down. that s right. reporter: the market for just the right replacement is huge. some 4.7 billion sockets are in the u.s. alone. he says you don t even need a socket anymore. with leds the possibilities are endless. this is a really exciting new thing where we have integrated led light behind fabric panels. reporter: like auto shows with cars of the future, there are now lighting exhibits with lamps of the future. but what started it all remains close to our hearts. edison s incandescent revolutionized our lives. but much like the flickering candle, the incandescent bulb will inevitably succumb to the winds of change. it s the nature of technology. it has a lifetime. a start and an end. it s time to end. osgood: bill geist keeps it light ahead on sunday morning. this is the arctic join coca-cola and world wildlife fund to help protect it. so the polar bear always has a place to call home. to donate, and help create a safe refuge for the polar bear, look for limited edition coke cans and caps. with less chronic low back pain. imagine living your life with less chronic osteoarthritis pain. imagine you, with less pain. cymbalta can help. cymbalta is a non-narcotic treatment that s fda-approved to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain. one pill a day, every day, can help reduce this pain. tell your doctor right away if your mood worsens, you have unusual changes in mood or behavior or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults. cymbalta is not approved for children under 18. people taking maois or thioridazine or with uncontrolled glaucoma should not take cymbalta. taking it with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk. severe liver problems, some fatal, were reported. signs include abdominal pain and yellowing of the skin or eyes. talk with your doctor about your medicines, including those for migraine, or if you have high fever, confusion and stiff muscles, to address a possible life-threatening condition. tell your doctor about alcohol use, liver disease, and before you reduce or stop taking cymbalta. dizziness or fainting may occur upon standing. side effects include nausea, dry mouth, and constipation. [ male announcer ] ask your doctor about cymbalta. imagine you, with less pain. cymbalta can help. go to cymbalta.com to learn about a free trial offer. osgood: and now a page from our sunday morning almanac. december 18, 1892, 119 years ago today. a day all who love monsters should mark. and mark well. for that was the date that british scientist sir richard owen died at the age of 88. sir richard had studied the fossilized remains of gigantic creatures millions of years old. in 1842 he gave them a name, combining the greek words for terrible and lizard to create the word dinosaur. thanks to sir richard, dinosaurs became the stars of london s natural history museum. and other museums followed suit including chicago s field museum whose 40-foot long t-rex named sue was the biggest and most complete t-rex skeleton around. dinosaurs have made it into the movies as well. in the 1940 disney film fantasia, animated dinosaurs battled to the death to the accompaniment of rite of spring. while it was modern day humans versus dinosaurs in the 1993 film jurassic park. i think we re back in business. reporter: yet for all their terrors, it is often the smallest among us who are most captivated by these largest of beasts. i like them because they have big teeth. i love scary things. because they re mean. reporter: mean perhaps but not cold blooded, according to the latest research. nor were they lumbering slow pokes as once was thought. in fact, they could be sleek and fleet of foot as depicted in these animations from the national geographic channel. we don t know for sure, but it was asteroid strike or something else that doomed the dinosaurs to extinction some 65 million years ago. what we do know is that nothing seems likely to extinguish our fascination with them. next, shall we dance? osgood: for an american ballet dancer to be applauded and honored in russia required an enormous leap of faith but a performer not to mention phenomenal talent. david hallberg also some explaining to do for steven colbert. i m really the first person to have done this. no one has been this much of a traitor to the united states, okay. you are a benedict arnold in slightly tighter pants. how are you? steven colbert. nice to meet you. thank you so much for coming on. reporter: ballet dancer david hallberg returned home from moscow earlier this month just in time to appear on comedy central s the colbert report. . you were with the american ballet theater and the bolshoi at the same time. that s right. so you re a double agent. how are you? reporter: it s been a wild three months for hallberg. after the startling news that he had been asked to become a premiere dancer with russia s famous bolshoi ballet. the first american ever! it was such a bold offer because all of the premiere dancers with the bolshoi are russian so it was unbelieveably historical, which i realized right away. reporter: until now, the traffic has mostly been the other way. there was rudolph nureyev who defected from the soviet union in 1962 and mikhail who followed in 1974 in the middle of the cold war. their defections were a huge propaganda victory for the west. the cold war is over. but david hallberg took on the bolshoi position only too aware of what was at stake. still. i see myself as an ambassador. reporter: did you feel you had to hold up your end as the american? always. i always felt a responsibility. reporter: we met hallberg in october when his new york apartment as he was packing for russia. what is the thing that you cannot possibly leave behind? it would be these. these are a sense of comfort. these get me warmed up for rehearsals, keeping my feet supple and ready. reporter: on the day he left, his parents, bruce and colleen hallberg, were there from phoenix where he grew up. to send him on his way with a little moral support. we never imagined it. he had two gold fish and named them fred and ginger. i mean we just thought it was cute. and it was. and then he asked for tap shoes for a birthday. we said, sure. why not? reporter: that s how it began for david hallberg at the age of eight. no one around me was obsessive except for me. it just snowballed really. i started with tap lessons. when i didn t have tap shoes, i taped nickels on the bottom of my penny loafers. reporter: a local production of the nutcracker led him to ballet. and then the bullying started. it was really hard. it was really a scarring couple of years. reporter: but it didn t stop you from dancing. never. reporter: he joined new york s american ballet theater at age 19. five years later he was a principal dancer. one of his generation s best dancers in one of the world s best companies. do you ever get out there on stage and think, if only i could see those kids who were mean to me now? yes. i do actually. if i can relay anything, it s that if someone has a dream and it isn t the norm of what others are doing around you, it doesn t matter. reach for it. go for it. because i m a shining example of that. reporter: which answers the question, why risk joining the bolshoi? the historic old bolshoi theater had just held its grand reopening after a six-year approximately $700 million renovation. when david hallberg arrived in moscow. bolshoi means big. everything about the reaction to his presence was out. outsized. i have never experienced expectation and pressure like that in my life. i felt like i could handle it. and really focus on the task at hand. reporter: he would need focus. president medvedev took a special interest. the gala opening on november 18 of the first new production in the newly refurbished theater. sleeping beauty about its american prince was a very big deal in russia. and for david hallberg, a triumph. the reviews were adoring. his parents were there to share the moment. and then two days later came the second performance. broadcast live around the world. now here s what you re not seeing. i could still hear the trail of the entrance applause, and i twisted my ankle going into a jump. and sprained it. it hurt so bad. but tens of thousands of people are watching. you go into this tunnel vision. you don t see anything else but to finish the performance. and to finish it well. reporter: no one knew. not until after the last curtain call. the pressure was over and so i could be a human being again. reporter: but the show must go on. two weeks later he was fit enough to be able to appear with steven colbert. ever the ambassador for american ballet, he put on his prince costume from the nutcracker and danced to the music. if you can t beat em, join em. what an honor. thank you so much. what a pleasure. did you get a workout? absolutely. so did my dance belt. was it fun? a lot of fun. tell me, who you gonna love? osgood: ahead, tis the season for music. but first the era of the e-card. twizzlers. the twist you can t resist. and tea to choose from. it s the way to individually brew fresh, delicious coffee in under a minute. way to brew, hon. hey. hey mom! what is this? it s a special paste i invented to replace socks. why? because we can t find socks that shape to our feet. we re sick of it! try hanes socks with the smooth comfort toe seam. a better fit your whole family will love. osgood: this is a greeting card that does us honor. at least i think it does. not available on a rack in the store but on the internet as ben tracy explains it s all part of an e-revolution. have a holy jolly christmas > tis the season to send greetings. americans will buy an estimated 1.5 billion holiday cards this year, yet when it comes to the traditional tidings of comfort and joy, these two days say ho, ho, no. oh, the weather outside is frightful i think their lowest common denominating, they re like super saccharin, kind of embarrassing. reporter: duncan and brook run a different kind of card company. it s online and free, but what truly sets it apart is not how the cards are sent but the irrefuse vent message they deliver. one e-card reads good luck explaining to your kids why it s okay for santa to be morbidly obese. or this one. allow me to apologize in advance for what i m going to say to you at the office holiday party. brook has his own favorite. i hope you like the gift you asked me to get you. that felt pretty dead-on. reporter: the site is somewhat obviously named some e-cards dot-com. very creative, guys. that actually was hours and hours of work. reporter: what they are working very hard at is to make up for what they think most holiday cards lack: mainly honesty. there s gifts you have to buy. there s getting time off. there s family occasions that can get, you know, crowded and spiteful. they go wrong. so cards like christmas shopping for you as made me realize i know absolutely nothing about you tend to ring true. reporter: what are the guiding principles of an e-card for you guys? i think the first thing is whether it feels true. like the first rule of thumb is don t write a joke. write something that is honest. it can t be too mean. people don t send mean things to their friends. reporter: these two friends worked in big new york advertising firms. they quit those jobs shortly after launching some e-cards in 2007 with a tongue in cheek tag line, when you care enough to hit send. each card is just one sentence. paired with often victoria style art, they say traffic on the site is up 400% with nearly five million visitors each month. nationwide 17% of holiday greetings this year will be sent as e-cards. we have a card for every occasion from extremely important to utterly pointless. reporter: yes, they have birthday cards. may you live to be so old your driving terrifys people. but they also have sections devoted to break-ups. it s not you. it s my horrible choice in men. and the workplace. when work feels overwhelming, remember you re going to die. what i liked about that is, yes, it is actually kind of a positive message wrapped in a very cynical message. it s saying lighten up. you know, there s bigger things to worry about. reporter: unless, of course, you really are the most overworked guy this holiday season. one love osgood: next osgood: tis the season for the gift of music. our bill flannagan of mtv has some recommendations. reporter: it s december and the record companies are shoving cds into boxed sets fast every than grandma can stuff a turkey. there is a 20th anniversary box of nirvana s never mind. one love, one life > a 20th anniversary mega box of u2s album and a not quite 20th anniversary expanded box of pearl jam s versus and vitality. the 90s. those were the days. it s the end of the world as we know it > and what modern rock fan would not want the two disk anthology, part lies, part heart, part truth, part garbage, 40 songs from the recently concluded career of r.e.m. for those with longer memories let s set the way back machine for 60 years ago. howling wolf was a primal blues singer, a crucial figure in the formation of rock n roll. smoke stack lightning, the complete chess master s 1951 to 1960 contains 97 tracks that challenge the notion of the 50s as an era of domestic complacency. wolf sings like the house is on fire, and he s holding a big can of gasoline. if howlin wolf suggests the hidden wildness of the 50s, ray charles singular genius reminds us there was a lot more to the 60s than love beads. i ll be back on my feet some day > this five-disk box contains over 100 tracks, all the singles that brother ray cut for abc records between 1960 and 72. georgia reporter: it s the era of georgia on my mind, hit the road, jack, and your cheating heart. your cheating heart > one of the leading jazz musicians of the 1970s fusion era was the great composer and saxophonist wayne shorter. the complete columbia albums collection combines four solo albums shorter made in the 70s and 80s with two cds of the songs he wrote for his fans. shorter mixed jazz with rock and funk rhythms and instrumentation, a raging purist then and now. these boxed sets are wonderful gifts but not everybody has a lot of money to throw around this holiday season. i want to mention a new artist who will light up any christmas tree. laura marling is a 21-year-old british singer/songwriter who is not only wiser than her years, she s wiser than my years. i don t ask for love and i don t beg for money i m just asking for grace and forgiveness > her new album is called a creature i don t know. if you re old enough, you ll hear echos of joany mitchell, sandy denis and leonard cohen. if you are young, you ll hear the voice of a new generation coming into its own. i know it s not right reporter: this is the time of year when we get to throw out the old calendar and start fresh. here s to better days ahead. i really didn t think of it. it was just another theater. osgood: ahead, catching up with actor christopher plummer. and nancy giles with the skinny on spandex. what is the gift that truly keeps on giving through thick and thin? nancy giles has a nominee. reporter: it s the time of year for christmas trees. kwanza traditions, the symbolic hanukkah men or a, a time to eat, drink and be merry. a time to celebrate one of the most brilliant and forgiving inventions of the 20th century. a time for stretch fabrics. think about it. you re eating, drinking and mer reeating christmas cookies as you make them. that s what i do anyway. unless you have a tremendously fast metabolism, your body is probably expanding. so when it s time to dress up and hit those parties, aren t you grateful that you have the option of putting on something with some give? can you imagine life without stretch? yet there was a time when it wasn t readily available. a suit with a built-in girdle. reporter: after painstaking years of research in 1959 spandex and lycra were introduced to the market. spandex is an and a gram of the word expand. get it? stretch fabrics first saw lights in swim suit and athletic garments and then into the extreme fashions of the 1970s. both jane fonda and olivia newton john stretched with stretch. let s get into physical > and who could forget the days of stretchy roler disco fashions? thankfully that look died. this century s version of a girdle. there s even manx for men called compression garments. sounds more macho, i guess. it s really like hugging him. reporter: in a country with 68% of us obese or overweight, that and its cousins have expanded pun intended into a $770 million industry. now the stretch is everywhere. even as little as one percent of the spandex/lyca family in dresses, suits, jeannes and leggings can allow women of all sizes to wear something that is flattering, that gently hugs you instead of giving you the oversized tent effect. do that i say glory hallelujah. in truth, stretch fabric knows no season. but at this time of the year, many of us are especially grateful for a little wiggle room. osgood: ahead, justin hines, going places. do you want to race? ready? here we go. i m phil mickelson, pro golfer. if you have painful, swollen joints, i ve been in your shoes. one day i m on top of the world. the next i m saying. i have this thing called psoriatic arthritis. i had some intense pain. it progressively got worse. my rheumatologist told me about enbrel. i m surprised how quickly my symptoms have been managed. [ male announcer ] because enbrel suppresses your immune system, it may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events including infections, tuberculis, lymphoma, other cancers, and nervous system and blood disorders have occurred. before starting enbrel, your doctor should test you for tuberculosis and discuss whether you ve been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. don t start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. tell your doctor if you re prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b, have been treated for heart failure, or if, while on enbrel, you experience persistent fever, bruising, bleeding, or paleness. get back to the things that matter most. ask your rheumatologist if enbrel is right for you. [ male announcer ] enbrel. the #1 biologic medicine prescribed by rheumatologists. osgood: the singer justin hines is going places in more ways than one. and shattering a lot of pre-pre-conceptions as he goes along. tracy smith shows you what we mean. reporter: his voice and his songs have taken him all around the globe. to canada, south africa and dubai. justin hines is 29 and on top of the world. does your success still surprise you? yes (laughing). yes, it does. and if i ever lose my place. > perhaps what s most surprising is that he s done it all from a wheelchair. how would you describe your stage show? well, a lot of choreography is not going to be happening. still working on the dance moves, per se. but, no, it s really important for me to try to connect on an emotional level with people. reporter: justin hines was born with larsen s syndrome, a rare joint disorder that means he s unable to walk. he prefers to see it as an asset. do you want to race? reporter: okay. are you ready? here we go. in a strange way i think it s kind of good. my thing is that i roll around on four wheels and that s how people sort of have that click and remember me. i m okay with that. reporter: his songs, like his outlook, are decidedly upbeat. i have a hard time leaving a song kind of negative because i always see. or at least i think there s a positive resolution to things. reporter: you re not going to do the teen angst songs. not so much. me and marilyn manson shouldn t do a duet together, i should say. when i look back at all the pictures that you have justin, he s smiling in every one of them. reporter: it s an optimism that amazing even his mom carol. after all, justin spent most of the first five years of his life in the hospital. his mom never left his side. and sang to him constantly. he would actually sing along. he couldn t talk, but he would be making all these noises. if i didn t know better i would think he was singing in italian like in opera. i think that was in a lot of ways my life line because i was so drawn to music even at such a young age that i think i probably took a lot of comfort in that. music coming from your mother is probably one of the most beautiful things ever. on the road again i just can t wait to get on the road again > by the time justin was pre-school age, he was singing willie nelson. by age 7, he had written his first song. a gospel tune. god is up in heaven, and he knows it all reporter: there was a time when he actually asked you what is it like to walk. yes. yeah. okay. reporter: he s how old? about five or six. and he just turned to me and said, mommy, i wonder what it s like to walk? and i just went (sighing), my heart just kind of. i thought, think quick. so i put one of his feet on each of my feet. my legs weren t perfectly straight so it was kind of unstable. she took a couple steps with me. it seemed like a lot of work. really overrated. i thought. reporter: walking? yes. walking. reporter: when he was 14, justin hines won a contest to sing at a toronto raptors basketball game. in front of 17,000 people. it helped me get rid of any stage fright i might have had for the future because in terms of crowds they don t generally get much bigger than that. reporter: he was on his way. he released his first album in 2007. but it was his second album with the song and video, say what you will, that really took off. say what you will i don t think any of us anticipated how amazing some of the responses would be. people sharing their hearts. reporter: say what you will was an overnight hit in canada. and then went to number one in south africa. where they made it their own. say what you will reporter: the song was used in a campaign to build more than 20 schools there. when he visited last spring justin was overwhelmed to find himself a super star. i never experienced anything like that truthfully. who knows. but it was very powerful. can i shake your hand? that s fine. reporter: back in north america, he raises money and awareness for people with disabilities. what are you signing there? my assumption of risk. reporter: sometimes going over the edge. you repeled down a 33-story building? yeah, something like that. reporter: why? well, it was a very good cause. reporter: justin hines has spent his life defying everybody s expectations. thank you so much. awesome. what a treat, man. reporter: four years ago, he defied his own. i never really thought my situation would allow for a partner. i know it sounds bizarre. but i just never thought that would be my reality. reporter: savannah, who wrote to justin after hearing his music, didn t see it that way. i felt really lucky when i got to him because i thought who wouldn t want to be with him. that s what i thought. that s what i still think. savannah, i don t think she sees my chair at all. that s amazing to me. reporter: they were married on may 31, 2008. now savannah travels everywhere with him as both wife and roady. and yet as close as they are, savannah had never seen him play the piano. he taught himself behind closed doors, the way he writes his songs. it s the hardest thing to do i find my strength in you in my quiet hours that s always been a long time in his studio. i never wanted to interrupt that. reporter: the night we were there at a concert in toronto this fall, justin hines played the piano in public for the first time. in my quiet hour that was beautiful. do you know that? that was beautiful. i love you. reporter: notes of courage and hope. in my quiet hour edelweiss osgood: coming up, christopher plummer, a long way from edelweiss. protein in jellyfish, minous impact life expectancy in the u.s., real estate in hong kong, and the optics industry in germany? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. it s just one reason over 75% of our mutual funds beat their 10-year lipper average. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information, risks, fees and expenses to read and consider carefully before investing. with investment information, risks, fees and expenses this was the gulf s best tourism season in years. all because so many people wanted to visit us. in louisiana. they came to see us in florida. nice try, they came to hang out with us in alabama. once folks heard mississippi had the welcome sign out, they couldn t wait to get here. this year was great but next year s gonna be even better. and anyone who knows the gulf knows that winter is primetime fun time. the sun s out and the water s beautiful. you can go deep sea fishing for amberjack, grouper and mackerel. our golf courses are open. our bed and breakfast have special rates. and migrating waterfowl from all over make this a bird watcher s paradise. so if you missed it earlier this year, come on down. if you ve already been here come on back. to mississippi. florida. louisiana. alabama. the gulf s america s get-a-way spot no matter where you go. so come on down and help make 2012 an even better year for tourism on the gulf. brought to you by bp and all of us who call the gulf home. that s good morning, veggie style. hmmm [ male announcer ] for half the calories plus veggie nutrition. could ve had a v8. my heart wants to beat like the wings of a bird that flies from the lake to the trees my heart. it s sunday morning on cbs, and here again is charles osgood. osgood: that s christopher plummer as captain von trapp in the 1965 film the sound of music. all these years later he s still on the screen in roles as different from that one as you can imagine. anthony mason has our sunday profile. someone killed her. someone on the island that day. someone close enough to know what she used to give me each year on my birthday. reporter: in the new film of the blockbuster novel, the girl with the dragon tattoo, christopher plummer is hin rick wagoner, the patriarch of a wealthy swedish family who hires a journalist played by daniel craig to investigate the disappearance of his grand niece. someone in the family murdered her. for the past 40 years i ve been trying to find out. reporter: how did you get the part for girl with the dragon tattoo. they thought who old is left in the world of the theater? or film? reporter: at 82, the veteran actor is in demand. in another film this year, beginners. i m game. reporter: plumber plays a father who finds new life when he comes out of the closet at age 75. i loved your mother, but now i want to explore this side. reporter: i think you said it was the freeist you ever felt in front of a camera. i really think so because it was a real character. you know, something i ve never played before. i believe that wealth corrupts us all. reporter: after earning his first oscar nomination in 2009, playing russian writerly owe tolstoy in the last station, plumber is now being tipped as a frontrunner for another nomination. in many ways it feels like you re in the prime of your movie career. it s extraordinary to wait this long. i ve worked harder and more frequently now than in my 80s than i ever did before. in the future you ll try to remember that there are certain rooms in this house which are not to be disturbed. reporter: he s appeared in more than 90 films most famously as leading man in the sound of music. but plumber has never quite become a movie star. in part because his heart has always been on the stage. i always go back to the theater. that s very hard for film people and hollywood people to understand. why on earth. he must be dead because he s either dead or he s in the theater, which is is the same thing. reporter: (laughing) growing up in montreal, the great grandson of a former canadian prime minister, he caught the acting bug in high school. and at 18 was already winning rave reviews on the canadian stage. his first role in america was at the westport country play house in connecticut. very early 50s. i came here and this was my american debut. reporter: it s the audience that plumber says he feeds off of. even if he can t always see them. but you feel them. that s the thing. it s live. reporter: plumber won a tony award for his portrayal of cyrano in 1974. when he played another part in 1982 on sit james earl jones othello, the new york times critic called it quite possibly the best single shakespearean performance on this continent in our time. i don t have to tell you that divorces cost more than marriages. dam it, they re worth it. reporter: he earned another tony in 1997 playing actor john barry more. the play is now being made into a film. plummer s home in connecticut that s me as king lear. reporter:. is filled with photographs of his great roles and his great co-stars. this is julie andrews. reporter: there is julie andrews. for all of the less than nice things you ve said about sound of music over the years you ve had only nice things to say about her. who wouldn t? what a professional. i love julie. hello. the movie was. there were too many nuns in it, i thought. reporter: as captain von trapp, father of the singing von trapps, he teaches his children the song edelweiss. small and white clean and bright you look happy to meet me reporter: have you ever sang edelweiss in public after that? not on your nelly. reporter: you mean you were hoping, for instance, that if things got dull here, i might sing it for you here now? reporter: i don t know. it s a wrap. ( applause ) reporter: but last year for the first time plummer consenteded to reunite with the cast on oprah. that was sweet. i was dreading it. but they paid me to go. reporter: (laughing) i love what your co-star said. did you learn anything from him? yes. i learned how to drink. reporter: you know you weren t initially a big fan of the movie. listen, i think the sound of music for what it is it s an absolutely wonderful film and i m thankful for it because it certainly helped get audiences in the seats when i went back to the theater. reporter: that s the blessing. did you view it as a curse in some ways as well? because i was immediately cast in all those sort of rather uptight young arrogant leading men. you may call me captain. reporter: plummer preferred playing character roles like rudd yard kipling in the man who would be king. don t do it. the odds are too great. sherlock holmes in murder by decree. illustrious names indeed. reporter: and cbs s mike wallace in the insider. you corporate lacky. who told you you re incompetent little fingers had the requisite skills to edit me. reporter: but there was a part that got away. yes i do regret that i didn t play the king in beckett. reporter: plumbmer had won raves in the play in london. in 1964 the film role went to another rising star named peter owe owe too many. there can be only one justice in this country. that is the king. reporter: well he had just made lawrence of arabia. you know, that tiny little film that hardly anyone saw. reporter: sound of music was one of the really bad films of all time? yes, i love peter. that man took my part. i ll kill him. reporter: by his own admission plumbmer lived a wildlife in his early years. in the late 60s he made actress elaine taylor who became his third wife. they ve been together now more than 40 years. in this business it s a record-breaker. reporter: especially for you given your early record. i ve only been married three times. good god. that s not an awful lot, is it. reporter: early on, they were coming fast. every five years. but at least five years. so i got to know their names. reporter: how did this one stick? elaine strengthens me. she s been extraordinary for me. she saved my life. first of all i was drinking too much. she said if you don t stop, we re finished. so she saved my life. literally. when we do fight which is occasionally, we always end up absolutely screaming with laughter because we suddenly see ourselves performing. and it turns into a performance. reporter: can you hear yourself acting sometimes? oh, god, yes. reporter: what is that like? it s awful. most of this interview has been acting. reporter: (laughing) i was afraid of that. from an actor who at 82 isn t about to leave the stage. why would a young lady like you want to know about such an awful murder? [ sue ] wow! i ve been so looking forward to this. when my asthma symptoms returned, my doctor prescribed dulera to help prevent them. [ male announcer ] dulera is for patients 12 and older whose asthma is not well controlled on a long-term asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid. dulera will not replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. dulera helps significantly improve lung function. this was shown over a 6 month clinical study. dulera contains formoterol, which increases the risk of death from asthma problems and may increase the risk of hospitalization in children and adolescents. dulera is not for people whose asthma is well controlled with a long-term asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid. once your asthma is well controlled your doctor will decide if you can stop dulera and prescribe a different asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid. do not take dulera more than prescribed. see your doctor if your asthma does not improve or gets worse. ask your doctor if dulera can help you breathe easier. osgood: time is about running out on getting that letter to santa claus. of course the real santa doesn t need a list to know how to help a person in need. here s steve hartman. reporter: whether you believe in santa claus or god or fate, no matter what you believe, you re not going to believe what happened at reading, pennsylvania. all right. let s go. reporter: it began like all the other times. every year i go out with secret santa, an anonymous businessman who travels the country at christmas time randomly going up to people in bus stations and thrift stores and handing out $100 bills. are you lying? no, no, it s true. oh, my god. this is crazy. reporter: although the reactions are priceless, every year he spends sometimes more than $100,000 of his own money on this. here s $100. reporter: one thing i ve always wondered is, is it really worth it? you don t know what these people are going to do with this money. do you care? no. because one of the things that i do is i do not judge. reporter: good thing. because separating the naughty from nice.. and this is for you. reporter:. is definitely not his forthe. i didn t earn that. you did earn it because i can tell you re a good man. reporter: a good man? when was the last time you heard that? maybe like my mom. reporter: 30-year-old thomas coates is a total dead beat at least by most accounts. including his own. addicted to heroin, he recently hocked his own son s toys for drug money. that s how bad it is. i haven t worked in over a year. i spent so much time in and out of treatment facilities. reporter: why his girlfriend hasn t left him and taken their son is a mystery. even to her. grab your bag. reporter: but she is now running out of patience which is why the night before we met him during yet another one of their many money fights, she suggested he try something radical. she said maybe you can put a prayer up to god real quick, you know. i know you don t really believe in him. but maybe you can start. reporter: and so he did pray. for the first time since childhood. for you. take it. reporter: and then out of the blue, this man shows up slipping hundreds into his hands. you could almost see the wheels turning. that kind of kindness from a total stranger the day after he prayed.. you re my man. reporter:. it was too much of a coincidence for this atheist to bear. that to me was a miracle. that was god saying, all right, have you had enough now? i m going to show you something from here on out. it s up to me. reporter: after meeting secret santa, thomas checked himself into a treatment facility. and although he s done it before, he says this will be the first time with a higher power at the helm. maybe that gave him the hope that he needs to break his addiction. and maybe that will be the turning point that will change his life and maybe he won t go back. now, wouldn t that be worth it? reporter: every penny. osgood: coming up, we re off to tacky town. lighten up is one proud city s rejoinder to all the scrooges who say ba-hum bug to christmas. as you would expect bill geist simply had to pay that town a visit. reporter: when i think of richmond, virginia, i think of this. and at christmas time, this. not this. but staid old richmond is the self-proclaimed capital of tacky christmas lights. the mayor embraces the title. is is richmond the capital of tacky lights? we own that. we actually issued a proclamation to acknowledge the fact that it s the capital of tacky lights. this is a map of all the participating houses. to get on the list you need to have 40,000 lights. reporter: colleen kur ran of richmond dot-com manages the tacky lights tour. a path followed by thousands of pilgrims each christmas season. hi, guys. you won t believe what you re seeing, honestly. you think you ve seen bad, you have not. it s just amazing. reporter: this past week, we hopped aboard a tacky lights tour bus. very nice. some houses we just rolled past. wow. and just to give you guys an idea this is not 90,000 lights at this house. reporter: at others we paused for reflection. reflected in the water, oh, man! ralph schueler and ann put on a techno show featuring its own radio broadcast and 250,000 lights dancing in time to the music. you could actually see a couple of the houses, like al and esther thompson s from blocks away and quite possibly from outer space. the thompson s neighbors have just thrown in the towel. did you get a little carried away here, al? a little bit. you know, it started slow like a lot of people do. we re up to 603 homemade items now. we have 172,000 lights. we ve had people signing in from every single state and over 80 different countries. little kids are neat. they ll put in their please do this forever. reporter: the tour ends at the piece de resistance. hallelujah > a work of staggering luminescence. do you think it s wrong to call it tacky? i think it s perfect to call it tacky. i wouldn t call it anything else but tacky. it s tacky but it s beautiful at the same time. reporter: what kind of guy do you think would do this? dedicated. a little crazy in a good way and very creative i think. reporter: it s all done by bobby fire with help from his wife, also bobbi, and his daughter. they ve strung more than a million lights on his house and his mother rose s house next door creating a mega watt miracle of the yule tide. it takes nine solid weeks to put up. adds $2400 to their electric bills and draws thousands of viewers. once we got in line it took me an hour-and-a-half to get to your house. reporter: the family has put on this overwhelming display for 37 years and almost feels an obligation to go on. you get people coming by who don t have no money. they come here. you ll see them here every night. their thank-yous is enough to keep you going. reporter: when bobbi and grandma rose throw those switches, every evening between thanksgiving and new year s, it s show time in richmond. hallelujah osgood: a story from our bill geist. now to bob schieffer in washington for a look at what s ahead on face the nation. good morning, bob. schieffer: good morning, charles. we have the republican man of the hour, newt gingrich. he ll be with us for the entire broadcast this morning on face the nation. osgood: thank you, bob. we ll be watching. next week here on sunday morning. i m dreaming of a white christmas osgood: from darlene love. a polar bear cub is born with no sense of sight. help ensure they re born with a sense of home. to donate, look for limited edition coke cans and caps, and join coca-cola and world wildlife fund in helping to create a safe refuge for the polar bear. hey babe. oh, hi honey! so i went to the doctor today, then picked up a few extra things for the baby. oh boy. i used our slate card with blueprint. we can design our own plan to avoid interest by paying off diapers and things each month. and for the bigger stuff, we can pay downalance faster to save money on interest. bigger? 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[ man ] we ve been in the business over the course of four centuries. [ woman ] it was a family business back then, and it still feels like a family business now. the only people who knew about us were those in new england, that moment that we got our first web order. .we could tell we were on the verge of something magical. all of a sudden it just felt like things were changing. we can use this to advertise to bakers everywhere. [ man ] browns summit, north carolina. crescent city, california. we had a package go to kathmandu once. the web has been the reason this entire section of the warehouse exists today. we were becoming more than this little flour company in vermont. [ woman ] we re all going after one common goal, which is to spread the joy of baking throughout the whole world. osgood: we leave you this sunday morning in the company of doves in texas. osgood: this is charles osgood. please join us again next sunday, christmas morning. until then, i ll see you on the radio. captioning made possible by johnson & johnson, where quality products for the american family have been a tradition for generations captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org