Yes he is gone. [citation needed] Some of these events, such as his stint with the Colts, and an attempt at stand-up comedy, were presented on the ABC television network as a series of specials. Just listen to very early recordings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, back even before microphones, when singers had to yell directly into a large cone and over-enunciate so that their voices would be recorded into something intelligible on a spinning wax cylinder or disk. *Originally posted by j.c. * I didnt know he was from the Larchmont area. In His League: Being George Plimpton | The Nation Another entertainment-related explanation for the shift, right about the time of the Eisenhower-Kennedy transition: The plumby announcer voice that hovers over the Atlantic midway between the Eastern Seaboard and England was mortally wounded in 1959. With the evolution of talkies in the late 1920s, voice was first heard in motion pictures. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. Besides, third is a very respectable showing! I had George tell him the story of Sidd Finch. Share; Copied! The title of the PBS documentary - "Plimpton! He once said that, in writing Paper Lion, he wanted to reveal the "humor and grace" of football. He wrote for the Harvard Lampoon, was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, Pi Eta, the Signet Society, and the Porcellian Club. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. Final Twist of the Drama. (Every now and then he also called me Sweet Prince, as in Goodnight, Sweet Prince.), Of course, my fathers voice was odd not just in what it said, but in what it couldnt. The Writer's Chapbook A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit, and Advice from the Twentieth Century's Preeminent Writers. Harvard (where he edited the Lampoon), Kings College, The conservative thinker may have shared an accent with some other men of the same age and social class, but his mannerisms and gestures made him entirely uniqueand occasionally prone to. But he came right down to our level. At one point, there was a tremendous Wagnerian thunder and lighting storm. Articles by George Plimpton - Sports Illustrated Vault | SI.com This periodical has carried great weight in the literary world, but has never been financially strong; for its first half-century, it was allegedly largely financed by its publishers and by Plimpton. Plimpton would not boast of his feat, so we did. This speech pattern might be common among US expatriates in the UK, of which Grossman would seem to represent just the most ostentatious example. I just heard that George Plimpton has died. We made $15,000-20,000. Plimpton appeared in the 1989 documentary The Tightrope Dancer which featured the life and the work of the artist Vali Myers. But dying in sleep: It was as if he was doing what he did when he tried out for all those other things as an amateurballooning, acting, boxing, performing at amateur night. Elaine Kaufman, owner of Elaines restaurant:Over the 40 years I knew him, George came in often, sometimes twice a week, usually on his way back from a cocktail party. It was always as if one were setting out with him on a special adventure. George Plimpton was a literary man about town who did it all, from co-founding The Paris Review to boxing (and dribbling and quarterbacking) with the pros. Timothy Seldes, George Plimptons literary agent:Whenever George wanted me to do something for him, he would call me up and say, Hello, Old Tim. One day, I got a call, and heard his voice, and my heart sank. Plimpton, George 1927-2003(George Ames Plimpton) Source for information on Plimpton, George 1927-2003: Concise Major 21st Century Writers dictionary. Bill, who was from the South, kept saying to me, Can you believe Georges not English? Kaltenborn was a famous mid . Plimpton was associated with the literary magazine in Paris, Merlin, which folded because the State Department withdrew its support.[why?] Its strange to think, but he would have been eighty-five this year: fourteen years older than my mom, fifty years older than me. I have a memory of George emerging out of the bush, with a terrible sunburn on his nose and face and legs; he was in safari gear, none of it hanging together very well, and over it all he was wearing a nice blue blazer. Get a life. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. His final interview appeared in The New York Sports Express of October 2, 2003 by journalist Dave Hollander. The s. It evoked a sense of Paris from a time when Paris was still the literary capital of the world, publishing literary giants who were considered obsceneHenry Miller, D.H. Lawrence. George Plimpton, Out of My League: The Classic Account of an Amateur's Ordeal in Professional Baseball, 2016, Little The presentation was called Freedom of the American Road and was made 60 years ago, in 1955, as part of the campaign to build support for the new Interstate Highway system. $ 3.99 - $ 27.44. By George Plimpton. Read more. Family (1) Spouse He called his computer the machine. At dinner, when offered seconds, he would often decline by saying, Thank you, no, Ive had a gracious plenty. He called my mom Puss (this was also the name of our fat, raccoon-striped cat, though he was Mr. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. In the early 60s, when I was working at the firework plant with my dad [Felix Grucci], George would pull up in shiny red sports car on his way to the Hamptons. Buckley clearly flaunts it, probably to set himself apart from the hoi polloi of his contemporaries. It includes clear pronunciation of each and every consonant cluster. It was as if he was trying out again. In 2013, the documentary Plimpton! Mid-Atlantic. Of the Murrow Boys, Eric Sevareid held on to the newsreel style the longest; relying on memory, Im betting that we could actually watch the transition away from that to a more vernacular style in the long career of Walter Cronkite. If you were making a speech in a large hall, or speaking on the radio, you needed to enunciate very clearly and use a lot of emphases to be sure your audience could understand what you were saying. He had, for instance, a series of antiquated phrases and terms of affection. NYC speech in the sixties, in some ways, flipped prestige markers. But Labov said that in post-World War II New York, fancier people started becoming rhotic, and recovering their Rs. Hed have that and a scotch on the rocks, his favorite drink. He was respected by all. [29], With Felix Grucci, Plimpton competed in the 16th International Fireworks Festival in 1979 in Monte Carlo. If he couldnt be taken quite seriously, that was fine with him (he took himself lightly, and relished being in on the joke). In early 1959, George Plimpton was preparing to watch an execution in Cuba. There was intellectual heft in the Plimpton genes too: one Ames was a Professor of Botany, another was Governor of Massachusetts, another relation was a publisher, and yet another a writer-philanthropist fascinated with the subject of how the great figures of the past were educated Young Georges educational path was precisely that of a After St. Bernard's School, Plimpton attended Phillips Exeter Academy (from which he was expelled just shy of graduation), and Daytona Beach High School, where he received his high school diploma,[16] before entering Harvard College in July 1944. Alan Alda, portraying my dad in the movie version of Paper Lion (his book on playing quarterback for the Detroit Lions), didnt bother with his voice at all. "Hut-Two-Three . . Ugh" A writer proves to be a Paper Lion at QB In Praise of Plimpton - Newsweek (What else happened that year??? Ive always heard it referred to as a patrician accent. How George Plimpton's Sports Books Presaged the First-Person Media Age George was a little more in-depth than a lot of us, of course, with his education and all. But he would do this in the most charming and agreeable way. 2023 Cond Nast. [30] Plimpton later wrote the book Fireworks, and hosted an A&E Home Video with the same name featuring his many fireworks adventures with the Gruccis of New York in Monte Carlo and for the 1983 Brooklyn Bridge Centennial. A lordly accent acquired at St. Bernard's and burnished later at Cambridge, in England, enhanced his distinguished aura, as did elevated stature and a silver head of hair which might have encouraged a career in politics but mercifully did not. Is it in evidence among the Gen X set of Boston, or a passing phenomenon? And here for the full interview). As Poling puts it, George was known as an unrivaled raconteur and, in making a film of his life story, it only seemed natural to allow him to tell it.. Off screen, George Plimpton and Gore Vidal come to mind. In 1966, George Plimpton's book Paper Lion, recounting his attempt to play football with the Detroit Lions, allowed millions of Americans to vicariously live out their childhood dream of playing in the NFL. See Inside George Plimpton's Upper East Side Duplex Being, And Appreciating, George Plimpton - krvs.org All the good guys have got to go. Now, in George, Being George, 200 friends, lovers and rivals detail Plimpton's remarkable exploits. [2] His first wife, whom he married in 1968[38] and divorced in 1988, was Freddy Medora Espy, a photographer's assistant. The enormously popular speech styles of Brando and Dean (and I could add Elvis Presley) clearly pushed vernacular style into a kind of mainstream acceptability, then desirability. The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent, is a . With such a useful explanation, why do I gripe about the name? O ne afternoon this summer, I sat in George Plimpton's study waiting for the gentleman editor, participatory journalist, and beloved gadfly of American letters to arrive. By George Plimpton. A heuristic approximation! Sometimes, we used to have quarrels, because he thought I took too many poems: Are you turning this magazine into a poetry magazine? he would say. George Plimpton | The New Yorker [citation needed] In 1958, prior to a post-season exhibition game at Yankee Stadium between teams managed by Willie Mays (National League) and Mickey Mantle (American League), Plimpton pitched against the National League. In fact, my dads farewells seemed loquacious in comparison to his mothers. The list of authors interviewed is extraordinary, and stretches from Hemingway years ago to Amy Hempel (in the 50th anniversary issue that has just been published). As an old film buff, I am used to this voice, though it figures unevenly in old movies. Was this sheer affectation? How widespread, numerically and geographically? Its a joke to say 500 of my closest friends, but that would have been true with George1,000 of his closest friends, actually. Even the most basic conversation was often a struggle. Labov suspected that WWII had something to do about it. [citation needed], In the movie Plimpton! I believe the accent was at one time known as Larchmont Lockjaw. He had the bearing of Gen. MacArthur, but the soul of Charlie Chaplin. Plimpton himself described it as a "New England cosmopolitan accent"[36] or "Eastern seaboard cosmopolitan" accent. But it didnt define him, much the way he refused to be defined by the stiff, upper-crust world from which hed come. Oh now, Im joking, Carnac ( see? These events were recalled in his best-known book Paper Lion, which was later adapted into the 1968 feature film starring Alan Alda. In 1992, Plimpton married Sarah Whitehead Dudley, a graduate of Columbia University and a freelance writer. He was a Wasp (both of his parents came from old New England families, and had ancestors on the Mayflower). If you didnt know the man, you could, I think, be fooled by the voice. Think of the accent of Jane Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies. It was so tiny that if you saw him in it, you couldnt believe hed be able to get himself out of it. Hemingway on Fiction, Part Two. Plimpton revisited pro football in 1971,[18] this time joining the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Colts and seeing action in an exhibition game against his previous team, the Lions. How to find out, and whether you should care. But the average person never talked that way. With the help of the New York Mets organization and several Mets players, Plimpton wrote a convincing account of a new unknown pitcher in the Mets spring training camp named Siddhartha Finch, who threw a baseball over 160mph, wore a heavy boot on one foot, and was a practicing Buddhist with a largely unknown background. **Oh, I suppose we should all just lavish praise upon Carnac the Magnificent now for bringing this to your attention, is that it? Ken Auletta, author:Sometime after age 70, when his reflexes dulled, George took to the sidelines in the Artists and Writers softball game in Easthampton, N.Y. Each year his name was announced, and each year he was hailed by the crowd, who paid more attention to him than to the game. He looked for ways in which he could make himself a ridiculous figure, and not only on the football field, but in all walks of life. He said, You better stay here, and I did, for a while. It came from a different era, shouldn't have still existed, but nevertheless, there it wasold New England, old New York, tinged with a hint of King's College King's English. He could as easily have been my grandfather as father. Read more in this thread (long). George Plimpton, who died last week at his town house, on East Seventy-second Street near the river, was a serious man of serious accomplishments who just happened to have more fun than a van. They spoke in this manner, and it seemed perfectly natural, evocative of a background spent among the gentry of the northeast. If you found him at a fancy restaurant, he was there as a guest: For his own meals he preferred cheap Chinese or bangers and mash at a local Irish pub. The Wikipedia entry is indeed delightful. When Plimpton, the co-founder of The Paris Review, died in 2003 at age 76, The New York Times . Here's a look inside the space, where the Paris Review editor hosted legendary parties. The clipped English of George Plimpton and William F. Buckley, Jr. were vestigial examples.. Well have a lot more to say about Buckley and Vidal for now the leaders in the race for Last American to Talk This Way (with George Plimpton in third)in the next installment. Exeter Academy after an incident involving a (The filmmakers assembled his voice-over from recorded speeches and other archival footage.) Discussing the accent he used for Washington in an interview with The Onion AV Club, he explained: The accent back then was probably nothing like what we think of as a Southern accent now or a New England accent now, so we tried to find the root of the accents. Her mother, a writer and critic for Commonweal and Catholic World. Anyhow, I asked Terry Gross from Fresh Air and George Plimpton to be auctioneers. Kennedy died the next day at Good Samaritan Hospital. Im having a harder time coming up with clear examples from the other side of the Atlantic, but Ive heard Alfred Molina (Londoner), and Catherine Zeta-Jones (Welsh) put on a Mid-Atlantic accent from time to time.. I havent heard that he is dead, but if so RIP George. Whether on the football field or on a golf course or in a poem or an essay, the notion of human talent in whatever form excited him. Back in the 1960s and '70s, I would nightly sit alone in front of a TV set in a darkened room in the Midwest munching on potato chips watching late night talk shows out of New York CityJohnny Carson and Dick Cavett in particularand Plimpton was a regular on those shows. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Even the manliest actors, such as Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable sometimes slipped into this voice-coach mode. That is the tendency of Americans trying to sound more British, or Brits trying to sound more Yank, to split the difference and speak in an accent whose home ground is no real country but somewhere in the middle of the sea. Ad Choices. Plimpton scowled, and said he was perfectly capable of running for himself. Starring George Plimpton as Himself" - is meant as a wink-wink to Plimpton's career as a "participatory journalist." As a writer for Sports . Larchmont Lockjaw? One of the magazine's most notable discoveries was author and screenplay writer Terry Southern, who was living in Paris at the time and formed a lifelong friendship with Plimpton, along with writer Alexander Trocchi and future classical and jazz pioneer David Amram. Old money, would never say the word spanky, and certainly had more money than God could count. Big, tall, good-looking guy, easy-going. Peter even came with us on our honeymoon in Ravello, though George didnt. Vault. News children today have no concept of the Mid-Atlantic accent. In all my years, Ive never heard this accent in person. All rights reserved. Would you admit to there being symbolism in your novels? That made him a great storyteller. On Sept. 26, George Plimpton died in his sleep, at the age of 76. So it was that my father played himself not just in movies and on TV, but in life, too. Yes indeed, George Plimpton is a man for all seasons. Starring George Plimpton as Himself, "George Plimpton, Urbane and Witty Writer, Dies at 76", "Obituary: Frances T. P. Plimpton, 82, Dies", "Obituary: Pauline A. Plimpton, 93, Author Of Works on Famed Relatives", "Milton at the Midpoint of the Last Century: One Collection of Memories", "How Failing at Exeter made a Success of George Plimpton", "Legendary Humorist, Poonster Dies at 76 | News | The Harvard Crimson", "George Plimpton, Paris Review Founder, Pitches 1980s Video Games for the Mattel Intellivision", "The Simpsons: I'm Spelling As Fast As I Can", "George Plimpton, Author And Editor, Is Dead at 76", "Professor Muhammed Ali Delivers Lecture; Poems and Parables Fill Talk on Friendship | News | The Harvard Crimson", "George Plimpton | Full Film | American Masters | PBS", "George Plimpton, Still Burning His Punk at Both Ends, Finds a Sport in Which He Can Sparkle", "George Plimpton: The Professional Amateur", "Some Really Dangerous Jobs For George Plimpton", "Being, And Appreciating, George Plimpton", "Obituary: Willard Espy, Who Delighted In Wordplay, Is Dead at 88", "George Plimpton, Writer and editor, Is Wed to Sarah W. Dudley, a Writer", "Obituary: James C. Dudley, 77, Investment Adviser", "Naming the Sky: The true story of one man's quest to give George Plimpton a permanent presence in orbit", "DEAD END-DRIVE-IN | Plimpton!