Plimpton, along with former decathlete Rafer Johnson and American football star Rosey Grier, was credited with helping wrestle Sirhan Sirhan to the floor when Kennedy was assassinated following his victory in the 1968 California Democratic primary at the former Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Documentary Shows George Plimpton's Best Story Was His Own : NPR - NPR.org The Writer's Chapbook A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit, and Advice from the Twentieth Century's Preeminent Writers. rejoiced in the name of Euphemia van Renssalaer Wyatt. The Detroit Lions let a reporter play QB. Can you guess how it went George Plimpton's duplex apartment on the Upper East Side hit the market for $5.495 million on April 18. Were taking off from Teterburo, N.J., at 4 a.m. tomorrow. George Plimpton gives an auction winner a star-studded walk through the legendary NYC eatery Elaine's. Even Orson Welles on occasion. He rounded first as if he were about to go for a double, then glided back to the base, with fans waving and cheering. The Paris Review was a testimony to his literary taste and his sense of glamour. Just in time for the Sixties, with all their other pressures towards some kind of anti-Eisenhower authenticity. (Why do I even bother?) So think of Margaret Anderson or Amanda and you can place George. Congratulations Carnac, for posting about George Plimptons death at 3:44 PM. How widespread, numerically and geographically? When George Plimpton Met the Best Bartender in Brooklyn Two New York Legends Collide By Tim Sultan February 26, 2016 The only other person that I had known who possessed a similar charisma to Sunny Balzano's was my first employer in New York: George Plimpton. Actors Nathan Lane (from Jersey City, NJ) and Robin Williams (grew up in SF Bay area) often adopt this accent. It was then that the majority of audiences first heard Hollywood actors speaking predominantly in Mid-Atlantic English, British expatriates John Houseman, Henry Daniell, Anthony Hopkins, Camilla Luddington, and Angela Cartwright exemplified the accent, as did [a long list of North Americans, from Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly to Richard Chamberlain and Christopher Plummer]. He was a great addition to the human race. George Plimpton was a literary man about town who did it all, from co-founding The Paris . George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. One night Joe DiMaggio was here, and they had never met, so I introduced them. These interviews are a collaborative effort, and, I believe, a fascinating contribution to literary history. In that vein, here is an oral biography of George Plimpton. 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. Whee!! [2] His first wife, whom he married in 1968[38] and divorced in 1988, was Freddy Medora Espy, a photographer's assistant. George Plimpton. But looking back on it, its funny, too. Paul McCartney and his then-girlfriend Heather showed up. If you listen to Grossman (who is originally from Boston) starting about 15 seconds into the clip below, youll see that he uses a split-the-difference UK/US hybrid that is literally mid-Atlantic, in the sense of combining accents from both countries, but is different from the newsreel announcer voice: You should talk to William Labov [JF: I will try] , pioneering sociolinguist, whose landmark study into New York City speech led him to ask the same question you have. In the "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can" episode of The Simpsons, he hosts the "Spellympics" and attempts to bribe Lisa Simpson to lose with the offer of a scholarship at a Seven Sisters College and a hot plate; "it's perfect for soup! He was "George Plimpton"-editor, host . And the role of Katharine Hepburn, whose Locust Valley Lockjaw accent was a cousin of announcer-speak: I was just discussing this not a week ago with a friend who has done voice work in film and television, and can adopt this accent in an instant to evoke that period, much to my amusement. George Plimpton | Sport | The Guardian You should be very grateful. 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. 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. The funny thing about Harris was that he did not start out with that accent - as I suspect George Gershwin did not. So it was that my father played himself not just in movies and on TV, but in life, too. George Plimpton: what kind of accent? Over the years, we held a lot of dinner parties for him, and he brought a lot of people inmany, many writers. Get book recommendations, fiction, poetry, and dispatches from the world of literature in your in-box. Now the interview is perfect!. Paris Review - Writers, Quotes, Biography, Interviews, Artists Plimpton's The Bogey Man chronicles his attempt to play professional golf on the PGA Tour during the Nicklaus and Palmer era of the 1960s. Articles From This Author. In the offices of the Paris Review, he displayed far more discerning tastes. It was as if some old gentlemans code prohibited us from interacting as human beings. I havent heard that he is dead, but if so RIP George. Ill try to give a representative range, and I am grateful for the care and thought that have gone into these responses. You heard it and it could only be him. Manhattan DVD. Exeter Academy after an incident involving a 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.. You're going to play for us-making some sort of big comeback." "That's right," Plimpton replied in his patrician accent. George Plimpton - Rotten Tomatoes Why Did William F. Buckley Jr. Talk Like That? - Slate Magazine George Plimpton Wiki: Salary, Married, Wedding, Spouse, Family . George Plimpton, Out of My League: The Classic Account of an Amateur's Ordeal in Professional Baseball, 2016, Little He would have a beer with you. Plimpton was a writer-raconteur and dilettante in the best sense of the word: He co-founded an important literary magazine, the Paris Review, and tried his hand at everything from quarterbacking for the Detroit Lions (which he wrote about in Paper Lion), boxing with light-heavyweight champ Archie Moore (which became Shadow Box), and becoming New Yorks unofficial official fireworks commissioner. His exploits were such that at one point, The New Yorker ran a cartoon in which a patient eyed a surgeon with misgiving and said, But how do I know youre not George Plimpton?, But perhaps foremost among his accomplishments was his elevation of the interview to a literary form, both in the Paris Review and in his two superb works of oral history, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career, and Edie, a biography of Edie Sedgwick, which he and Jean Stein compiled. He once said that, in writing Paper Lion, he wanted to reveal the "humor and grace" of football. . I do believe his accent was decidedly Swamp Yankee. (A variation is the Locust Valley Lockjaw.). They were born to Plimpton and his second wife, Sarah Dudley, 26 years younger than he, who is chairwoman of the East Harlem Tutorial Program, for which he was a trustee. . $ 4.19 - $ 17.92. Besides, third is a very respectable showing! Middle class? Plimpton entered Harvard as a member of the Class of 1948, but did not graduate until 1950 due to intervening military service. He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Oh now, Im joking, Carnac ( see? [5][6][7][8][9][10] His father was a successful corporate lawyer and partner of the law firm Debevoise and Plimpton; he was appointed by President John F. Kennedy as U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations, serving from 1961 to 1965. his prose, and his down east, cultivated accent, although perhaps a bit pretentious, will remain with me as I reread one of my favorite books. George Plimpton, the New York aristocrat and literary journalist whose career was a happy lifelong competition between scholarly pursuits and madcap attempts -- chronicled in self-deprecating. Shed wandered out to the balcony of a lonely Manhattan cocktail party, and was standing out there, smoking a cigarette and looking down mournfully at the street far below, when from behind her she heard a voice: I know a better way down.. What accent does Logan have in the show? : r/SuccessionTV I hope not. [2], In 1975, in Bellport, Long Island, Plimpton, with Fireworks by Grucci attempted to break the record for the world's largest firework. Tom Nowatzke, fullback, Detroit Lions (In the 1960s, Plimpton briefly played with the Detroit Lions asresearch for the best-selling book Paper Lion, which was later made into a film):I was the No. He did these jobs, and many others, as an amateur.. Starring George Plimpton as Himself, directed by Tom Bean and Luke Poling, was released. Mr. Plimpton was born in Manhattan in 1927 and raised in Huntington, L.I. Puss, and my father enjoyed nothing more than holding the beast high in the air and making strange, affectionate sounds in that distinguished voice: Yeanngghh, Puss Yeaannngh Puss Puss Puss.) He called my sister Puss, too, sometimes, though mostly I think with her it was Kiddo, which he also called me, though there was a period in which he occasionally called me Ernie, which was the dogs name. News children today have no concept of the Mid-Atlantic accent. I enjoy doing it. Thats it, George cried out. Next up: some sociological explanations of why someone like George Gershwin might have tried to speak like Westbrook Van Voorhis. **Your transparent jealousy is very unbecoming, Carnac. That phony-baloney feigned British pronunciation thing. [citation needed], Outside the literary world, Plimpton was famous for competing in professional sporting events and then recording the experience from the point of view of an amateur. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. From what other people had told me, I knew a little bit about itthat my father (and mother) had been right by Bobbys side in California when he was shot, that my father had tackled Sirhan Sirhan to the ground, and wrestled the gun from his handbut not a word of it came from my dad himself. Jean Stein became his co-editor. It was scary, because he was never mad, and to see this normally benevolent, white-haired figure of civility fill with pink steam, to hear this gentle man, who loved nothing more than to tell lighthearted stories and laugh, suddenly shout-whisper Dammit at some injustice on the other end of the telephone was unsettling. [28], Plimpton was a demolitions expert in the post-World War II Army. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. It sounds like Somerset Maugham, was a favorite putdown. And they founded this thing called the Paris Review and published poetry and short story writers and did interviews. They spoke in this manner, and it seemed perfectly natural, evocative of a background spent among the gentry of the northeast.. When I spoke to him my voice went up an octave and took on his formal tone and became careful and unnatural; his voice became like his fathersstern, authoritative, disciplinarianwhen his father was the last person in the universe he wanted to be. The flipped prestige markers point here is fascinating. I have worked as poetry editor with editors on other magazines; only with George has the experience been entirely agreeable. The opposing team: the Detroit Lions. Others outside the entertainment industry known for speaking Mid-Atlantic English include William F. Buckley, Jr., Gore Vidal, George Plimpton, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Norman Mailer, Diana Vreeland, Maria Callas, Cornelius Vanderbilt IV. I received many notes like this one: The variety of English you are referring to has a name in linguistics: "Mid-Atlantic English". The responses fall into interesting categories: linguistic descriptions of this accent; sociological and ethnic explanations for its rise and fall; possible technological factors in its prominence and disappearance; explanations rooted in the movie industry; nominees for who might have been the last American to talk this way; and suggestions that a few rare specimens still exist. Thats where there was that cross-section you once found in Parisof literary people, of people who were illiterate, of people down on their luck, and people of status. [17], In 1953, Plimpton joined the influential literary journal The Paris Review, founded by Peter Matthiessen, Thomas H. Guinzburg, and Harold L. "Doc" Humes, becoming its first editor in chief. Did he have the celebrated Boston Brahmin accent, or was it a psuedo-Brit affectation? Richard Howard, poetry editor, the Paris Review:I worked with George for 10 years on the magazine. Mia had the perfect model! Plimpton's remarkable life is showcased in a documentary that is. To me, Mid-Atlantic English is the nom juste for a related but distinct phenomenon (which is also mentioned in Wikipedia). A lifelong New Yorker, he never tasted a bagel or an olive, and he never chewed a stick of gum. I mean, if George Plimpton wasnt my father and Id never met him, and I heard that voice emerge from his lips and matched it with his severe Roman features and his usual blue blazer, oxford shirt, and tie, I might have assumed that he was a little pompous or snooty or affected. That he died in his sleep was impressive. Heres a sampling for today, with more planned in the days ahead. George . The Scout Is a Lonely Hunter. He was so open to life and all its new and unexpected situations. If you say, I parked my car in Harvard Yard, you are being rhotic. As a result, this American version of a posh accent has all but disappeared even among the American upper classes. Angelo Dundee, trainer for Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard:George was such a great guy. Plimpton was an omnipresence for much of American cultural lifeboth high and lowin the last third of the 20th century. Norman Mailer said that George Plimpton was the best-loved man in New York. What exactly is a Boston Brahmin accent? 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. He was smooth. George Plimpton Dec 1, 2014 In which the venturous author, the rawest rookie pro football has ever known, recounts all the excruciating details of what happened when he called five plays as. Ive known him forsix months and I just now learned hes not English!. Too old-fashioned. 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. One thinks of the glorious character actress, Kathleen Freeman, as the voice coach Phoebe Dinsmore in Singing in the Rain: Round tones, Miss Lamont. In Woody Allens Radio Days, Mia Farrow has an impossibly thick Brooklyn accent until she takes voice lessons and becomes a successful radio purveyor of celebrity gossip. Shadow Box: An Amateur In The Ring -- George Plimpton On Boxing Plimpton, George 1927-2003(George Ames Plimpton) Source for information on Plimpton, George 1927-2003: Concise Major 21st Century Writers dictionary. But the average person never talked that way. Family (1) Spouse I dont give a rats ass about informing anyone about the death of Plimpton. Orson Welles notably spoke in a mid-Atlantic accent in the 1941 film Citizen Kane, as did many of his co-stars, such as Joseph Cotten. With a little more practice, you could give us boys in the big leagues a run for our money. When he was on the scene, everything was a big happeningan event. 1) The linguists have a name for it: they call it Mid-Atlantic English. I dont like this name, for reasons Ill explain in a minute. I can understand your frustration, but celebrities die every day. We worked at the Paris Review on the Rue Garanere for several years together. Prestigious prep schools and ivy league institutions (though Gore Vidal never went to college). We were bound to play the roles of father and son, unable to simply be ourselves. Daniel Kunitz, managing editor of the Paris Review from1995-2000: I once heard George joking with William F. Buckley on the phone about how they had the last affected accents in New York. 1. Ive lived in Boston for 30 years and have never heard a George Plimpton accent; so I guess it must be a Larchmont accent, *Originally posted by Carnac the Magnificent! In most situations, he had the remarkable quality of making everyone he talked to feel at ease, at home, welcome, no matter who they were or what they didbut for whatever strange reason there wasnt this effortlessness with me, this warmth. George Plimpton Net Worth It includes clear pronunciation of each and every consonant cluster. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. Talking about sports with Georgeor, even better, reading George about sportswas more fun than sports themselves. I live in Connecticut which is both the richest and poorest state in the union - I think we still are - and we have our fair share of extremely rich folk who sit around all day in their large victorians wearing rockport loafers, no sox, khaki pants and a polo-shirt with the collar up. It includes clear pronunciation of each and every consonant cluster. He could as easily have been my grandfather as father. Mr . What stood in our way? Future Poet Laureate Donald Hall, who had met Plimpton at Exeter, was Poetry Editor. He also served as editor of the Harvard Lampoon. The point of the flipped prestige markers is that generally the fewer the Rs, the fancier the person. 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. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. His dish was Spaghetti Bolognese. Vault. If he couldnt be taken quite seriously, that was fine with him (he took himself lightly, and relished being in on the joke). If you are in the big league, God help us all. And the many candidates for the crown of Last American to Speak This Way. [19] Another sports book, Open Net, saw him train as an ice hockey goalie with the Boston Bruins, even playing part of a National Hockey League preseason game. 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.. After several problems with transporting and preparing the fireworks, Plimpton and Grucci became the first competitors from the United States to win the event. How George Plimpton's Sports Books Presaged the First-Person Media Age At Harvard, Plimpton was a classmate and close personal friend of Robert F. Kennedy. Ive rarely heard this accent in real life but its often used by actors doing a stereotype character based on other actors impersonations! She was the daughter of writers Willard R. Espy[39] and Hilda S. Cole, who had, earlier in her career, been a publicity agent for Kate Smith and Fred Waring. In finally hearing the great storyteller tell the one story he would not tell, I could hear, too, his long, reverent silence on the subjectand it reveals his integrity as a journalist, and as a man. 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. & FDR, George Plimpton, William F. Buckley, etc. Writing Wednesdays: Hemingway on Fiction, Part Two - Steven Pressfield Somehow Georgehad gotten it into his head that I was on the verge of becoming a pharmacist before he had called me up a year earlier to tell me the Paris Review was publishing a story I had submittedperhaps because of the pharmacological bent of the subject matter. By George Plimpton. For instance: The American-British television presenter Loyd Grossman, who has described his accent as Mid-Atlantic. When Muhammad Ali was fighting, George Plimpton was always there. Here's a look inside the space, where the Paris Review editor hosted legendary parties. George Plimpton | The New Yorker Yes he is gone. His final interview appeared in The New York Sports Express of October 2, 2003 by journalist Dave Hollander. Almost twenty years ago, writing quirky sports pieces for the Village Voice, I decided to enter the world of championship arm wrestling.Like many young writers, I was inspired by the sports adventures of the gaunt but game George Plimpton, who had made a literary career out of placing himself in . George was a little more in-depth than a lot of us, of course, with his education and all. He was one of her original supporters and had published an article about her work in The Paris Review. Plimpton scowled, and said he was perfectly capable of running for himself. Hed done it in Amsterdam, Moscow, and London; hed done it at a PEN benefit; and now he and Norman were going to do it in Cuba. Several readers wrote in with specimens of Americans who had gone to England and ended up speaking in this mid-Atlantic way. In 1955 or 56, he went back to New York.
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