At Harvard, Plimpton was a classmate and close personal friend of Robert F. Kennedy. 1. 2023 Cond Nast. That made him a great storyteller. Just in time for the Sixties, with all their other pressures towards some kind of anti-Eisenhower authenticity. He also served as editor of the Harvard Lampoon. George Plimpton: Writer, Quarterback, Pitcher, Boxer, Triangle Player He was very understanding of what we did and how we did it. Richard Howard, poetry editor, the Paris Review:I worked with George for 10 years on the magazine. 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. News children today have no concept of the Mid-Atlantic accent. Never heard of this decidedly imprecise term. I do believe his accent was decidedly Swamp Yankee. Jonathan Ames, author:Back in the fall of 1999, in preparation for my one and only boxing match, I read George Plimptons great book, Shadow Box, where he recounted his foray into the world of boxing and his famous encounter with Archie Moore. He wrote for the Harvard Lampoon, was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, Pi Eta, the Signet Society, and the Porcellian Club. They all gathered there. He was stationed primarily in Italy, where he worked as a tank driver. I feel that his work on this and many other language-related matters should be far more widely known than it is. Rose Styron, wife of William Styron and former Paris Review editor:My husband Bill was with George when he started the Paris Review. 'Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself' review Starring George Plimpton as Himself, the writer James Salter said of Plimpton that "he was writing in a genre that really doesn't permit greatness. Vault. The Blacklisted Journalist,George Plimpton, 76 Death Claims Another of Too old-fashioned. 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. Mid-Atlantic accent - Wikipedia $ 4.19 - $ 17.92. Yes he is gone. Shadow Box. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. Realizing that I probably didnt know anyone, George took me around the room to introduce me to his guestsWilliam Styron, Norman Mailer, Robert Stone, and Gay Talese among them. During our time in Paris, he had a famous little car, a dark blue Peugeotit was mine originally; I sold it to himand it had to be seen to be believed. When he found a story to be short of the mark, he rejected it no matter who the author wasan old friend, a Pulitzer winner, an unknown. He died on September 26, 2003 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. After running the pilot, Rod Serling realized the narration needed a less pompous sounding and more natural voice himself. The opposing team: the Detroit Lions. When George Plimpton Met the Best Bartender in Brooklyn Congratulations Carnac, for posting about George Plimptons death at 3:44 PM. Orson Welles also comes to mind, though I noticed he spoke in this mode more often during his early days, on and off screen. So it was that George Plimptons accent could not be imitated. The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent, is a . What exactly is a Boston Brahmin accent? George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. In the 50s Plimpton and staff came to New York, where they kept the Review going for half a century. One night Joe DiMaggio was here, and they had never met, so I introduced them. "[44], In 2006, the musician Jonathan Coulton wrote the song entitled "A Talk with George", a part of his 'Thing a Week' series, in tribute to Plimpton's many adventures and approach to life. He had a way of putting it all together, of understanding fighters in the ring; he was a good analyst of boxing. These interviews are a collaborative effort, and, I believe, a fascinating contribution to literary history. You can. The picture at the top of this post is of the same Westbrook Van Voorhis who epitomized FDR-era announcer-speak but didnt fit the sensibility of the early-cool-cat-era Twilight Zone. Vault. $ 3.99 - $ 27.44. Angelo Dundee, trainer for Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard:George was such a great guy. [citation needed], In the movie Plimpton! And George had written it straight. Description above from the Wikipedia article George Plimpton, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of . George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. Think of the accent of Jane Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies. George Plimpton | About the Film | American Masters | PBS The wife is also old money, as Phlosphr mentions, and she talks exactly the same way. My dad and I could not lose each other, but we could never quite find each other, either. Norman Mailer said that George Plimpton was the best-loved man in New York. (The filmmakers assembled his voice-over from recorded speeches and other archival footage.) (This is not to belittle Lowell Thomas, but to recognize the artifice that served him so well in his career). Dan Rather certainly marks the definitive end of the newsreel style and the ascendance of the folksy vernacular: those rustic analogies! NEW YORK -- George Plimpton, the self-deprecating author of "Paper Lion" and other sporting adventures and a patron to Philip Roth, Jack Kerouac and countless other writers, has died. #1 was Who Was the Last American to Speak This Way, #3 is Class-War Edition, and #4 is The Origin Story., Who Was the Last American to Speak This Way. And the answer may explain partly why it has gone out of fashion: Jonathan Harris, the actor who played Dr. Smith on the television show "Lost in Space.". Aldas version was always angry or consternated, like a character in a Woody Allen film, while my dad, though he certainly faced hurdles as an amateur in the world of the professional, bore his humiliations with a comic lightness and charmmuch of which emanated from that befuddled, self-deprecating professors voice. It is the kind of study . Well, perhaps it's more accurate to say that the book provided entertaining confirmation to millions of people that they -- like the author . George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 September 25, 2003) was an American writer. He could have been a fight trainer, a fight manager! There youd be, talking with her on the phone, and shed say, Well, tell him I called, and youd say, O.K., Grandma, good to talk to you, I Grandma?. Along with all the other things he does, George is an editor of the Paris Review, a literary quarterly published by the Aga Khan's uncle, Sadrudin, and his apartment is overstuffed with the comforts and legends of its use as a literary salon. After it was published, all of the baseball people were trying to get in touch with Sidd, but he didnt existit was an April Fools joke! Jean Stein became his co-editor. 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. Actually, thats not far off from how my mom felt when she first met him. YESTERDAY IS NOT FAR AWAY. 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. Here are five things you may not have known about him. Think of the accent of Jane Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies. Here's how Geroge Plimpton and his team created a prodigious pitcher out of thin air. Harris trained himself as a young man to lose his native Bronx accent - to the point that he was asked if he were British. 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. Sign up for the Books & Fiction newsletter. * George was the one who read my name out to the commissioner. 26 Feb 2023 12:18:23 George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. Youll get another shot at the big time, trust me. Vault. 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. He smiled broadly, signaled for the coach to send Lupica in to run for him, and trotted back to the sidelines. Katharine Hepburn spoke this way, on and off screen until she died. It was as if he was trying out again. 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. 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]. Mona Abboud remembers George Plimpton - Orlando Sentinel George Plimpton. We all just had our own regional accentor non accent, like the flat midwest speak. Plimpton, George 1927-2003 | Encyclopedia.com [31][32][33] His firework, a Roman candle named "Fat Man",[31][32][33] weighed 720 pounds (330kg)[31] and was expected to rise to 1,000 feet (300m)[33] or more[31] and deliver a wide starburst. Share; Copied! *Originally posted by bordelond * Announcer-Speak: The Video Highlights Reel - The Atlantic Articles by George Plimpton - Sports Illustrated Vault | SI.com 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. George Plimpton (1927-2003) was a journalist and the first editor-in-chief of The Paris Review. Eerily enough, one of the messages on my answering machine was from George, with that distinctive accent of his: Hallo, its George Plimpton. 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. 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. I always thought it sounded similar to the accent of William F. Buckley, Jr., who I believe was not reared in Boston. Was it me? He was so open to life and all its new and unexpected situations. Lionel on Twitter: "News children today have no concept of the Mid You heard it and it could only be him. The book offers memories of Plimpton from among other writers, such as Norman Mailer, William Styron, Gay Talese and Gore Vidal, and was written with the cooperation of both his ex-wife and his widow. He saw athletes as heroes he. Whats the matter?, Well, he said. It was a great partyraucous and long. It includes clear pronunciation of each and every consonant cluster. He was one of her original supporters and had published an article about her work in The Paris Review. The Dudleys established the 36-acre (15ha) Highstead Arboretum in Redding, Connecticut. Congratulations Carnac, for posting about George Plimptons death at 3:44 PM. Louis Begley, novelist:Jim Atlas interviewed me for an Art of Fiction piece in the Paris Review, a feature of the magazine that George invented and brought to perfection. 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.. Even if it had nothing else going for itsomething very far from the truth Shadow Box by George Plimpton will forever remain a bastion of boxing literature because of the image it contains of the "Near Room," a place of dreadful foreboding which Muhammad Ali once described to the famed . What stood in our way? He had it, as does/did William Buckley, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Julia Child. It's a Scottish accent that's been modified somewhat for a mainstream audience that tends to associate them with Groundskeeper Willie. My suspicion is that the shift might have begun in the switch away from the two paired styles in American movies, the classical acting of the British School and the rapid patter of popular American actors (Marx Brothers, Cagney, Powell and Loy, etc), and over to the Method Acting style of the Strasberg/Brando/Dean school. One reader writes: I've wondered whether that "announcer English" was at least partly caused by poor loudspeakers and microphones. Yes indeed, George Plimpton is a man for all seasons. [2], A November 6, 1971, cartoon in The New Yorker by Whitney Darrow Jr. shows a cleaning lady on her hands and knees scrubbing an office floor while saying to another one: "I'd like to see George Plimpton do this sometime." Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. It was as if some old gentlemans code prohibited us from interacting as human beings. Mid-Atlantic. Plimpton sparred for three rounds with boxing greats Archie Moore and Sugar Ray Robinson while on assignment for Sports Illustrated. A similar phenomenon can be noted in the use, well into the 1980s, of the recorded sound of teletype machines in the background of newscasts, a sound still faintly evoked by the bip-bip-bip patterns of music that often introduces news broadcasts, even though teletype machines are long gone The subconscious association of this pattern of sound with news is fading fast with the passing of the years and will undoubtedly disappear entirely in the coming decade as surely as the over-enunciated style of radio speech of the 30s disappeared within a generation of its no longer being needed. So it went in late 1960 at one of George Plimpton's legendary soirees at 541 E. 72nd St., New York. In that vein, here is an oral biography of George Plimpton. 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 didnt know he was from the Larchmont area. And they founded this thing called the Paris Review and published poetry and short story writers and did interviews. [41] She is the daughter of James Chittenden Dudley,[42] a managing partner of Manhattan-based investment firm Dudley and Company, and geologist Elisabeth Claypool. 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. Its our anniversary. Hed have that and a scotch on the rocks, his favorite drink. Greetings From the Vortex of Unpredictability, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. I saw him [last] Wednesday night at a party; we rode home together, and he told me that he was planning to go down to Cuba, to revisit the site of his famous interview with Hemingway. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. So it was that my father played himself not just in movies and on TV, but in life, too. George Plimpton | The New Yorker Did he have the celebrated Boston Brahmin accent, or was it a psuedo-Brit affectation? We were both excitedId just come back from a weekend in Las Vegas, and hed just come back from celebrating the fortieth anniversary reunion of his Detroit Lions team at Ford Field, where the fans had given him a standing ovation, and he had raised his hatand for a moment we were no longer father and son, but just two big excited boys, each comparing adventures, and I could hear the pride in his voice, the happiness. George Plimpton, Out of My League: The Classic Account of an Amateur's Ordeal in Professional Baseball, 2016, Little . Whee!! I thought Id died and gone to Olympus. He grew up in New York City with bona fide WASP credentials; became the longtime editor of the Paris Review, working with many of the great novelists of the day; contributed to the New Journalism. Everything he did was like this, just a bit odd. He was respected by all. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review. He said, You better stay here, and I did, for a while. Ill try to give a representative range, and I am grateful for the care and thought that have gone into these responses. But he has never employed that voice professionally, and certainly does not speak that way in real life. I just heard that George Plimpton has died. Gay Talese, author:As a young man not long out of university, at 26, 27 years of age, George Plimpton went with his friends to Paris to be benighted in the tradition of Paris culture. 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. 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. Ive rarely heard this accent in real life but its often used by actors doing a stereotype character based on other actors impersonations! An Oral History of George Plimpton: The Man Does Everything - Observer (To read Part One, click here. Read more in this thread (long). 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! Was it him? Between 2000 and 2003, Plimpton wrote the libretto to a new opera, Animal Tales, commissioned by Family Opera Initiative, with music by Kitty Brazelton directed by Grethe Barrett Holby. 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! This brings us back to the why things changed question. He could have done whatever he wanted. 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. **. (What else happened that year??? **. (He intended to face both line-ups, but tired badly and was relieved by Ralph Houk.) Hemingway on Fiction, Part Two. Ive known him forsix months and I just now learned hes not English!. In that regard, Plimpton is the perfect candidate, and the proof is in "George, Being George," the compulsively readable oral biography edited by his friend Nelson W. Aldrich Jr. Prestigious prep schools and ivy league institutions (though Gore Vidal never went to college). So think of Margaret Anderson or Amanda and you can place George. He was one of her original supporters and had published an article about her work in The Paris Review. Book excerpt - George Plimpton on why Hole 16 at Cypress Point is one Here's a look inside the space, where the Paris Review editor hosted legendary parties. It includes clear pronunciation of each and every consonant cluster. Plimpton was an optimist, a teller of amusing and amazing stories. When he was on the scene, everything was a big happeningan event. We were going to go looking for strange birds. Okay, then, are you saying that Plimpton has such as accent? It was always as if one were setting out with him on a special adventure. "[27], Plimpton was a member of the cast of the A&E TV series A Nero Wolfe Mystery (200102). In all my years, Ive never heard this accent in person. I always thought it sounded similar to the accent of William F. Buckley, Jr., who I believe was not reared in Boston. The Detroit Lions let a reporter play QB. Can you guess how it went He had a small role in the Oscar-winning film Good Will Hunting,[22] playing a psychologist. 3: Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". In 2013, the documentary Plimpton! With a little more practice, you could give us boys in the big leagues a run for our money. Hed go on to move freely through so many worlds and circles, without ever not speaking in that singular accentthough it probably would have made life easier for him if hed adopted a new way of talking (after all, as a journalist in the locker rooms, where slang and cursing were art-forms, my dads stiff, formal tongue made him stick out like an egret among ducks). But he came right down to our level. I think it was an affectation people adopted because they thought it made them sound much more intelligent! Whom is it spoken bymerely the elite, old-money types? Buckley clearly flaunts it, probably to set himself apart from the hoi polloi of his contemporaries. He was 76.. [35], Plimpton was known for his distinctive accent which, by Plimpton's own admission, was often mistaken for an English accent. [26] He also appeared in an episode of the NBC sitcom Wings. Big, tall, good-looking guy, easy-going. Queen Elizabeth doesnt say car, and neither did Franklin D. Roosevelt, nor did the newsreel announcers or movie actors of his day. Shadow Box: An Amateur In The Ring -- George Plimpton On Boxing He looked like a very eccentric old Englishman. [29], With Felix Grucci, Plimpton competed in the 16th International Fireworks Festival in 1979 in Monte Carlo. He was going to put on a reading of his play Zelda, Scott, and Ernest. The Curious Case Of Sidd Finch. Why couldnt we have a good time, too? Of course, my dad had tried out for the role of himself and not gotten it, though he would go on to have a steady film career playing one version or another of a striking white-haired figure with a distinguished, chivalrous voice in bit roles in some twenty or so movies, including Reds and Good Will Hunting. Fortunately, in the upcoming film Plimpton! . They were divorced, and had been for a while, but they still talked, and visited every now and then, and they would sit on my moms porch on Long Island and look out over the pond at the birds and tell each other stories and laugh until the tears came to their eyes, but he could not ask her this directlyHow are you, Freddy? He had lost my mom, at least in part because he had been unable to communicate with her, to show his love. And similarly on the role of ridicule in speeding the move away from this accent: This is only partly facetious, but I think I know who was the American to speak "Announcer." He was a great addition to the human race. I just knew it was going to be something terrible. They all sound just like George. If you say, I pahked my cah in Hahvahd Yahd, like some vaudeville version of a Boston accent, you are non-rhotic. Besides, third is a very respectable showing! That was the last party for a while., I just got back from a road trip from Michigan. He knew we were just as good as he was, but in a different field. Researcher and writer Samuel Arbesman filed with NASA to name an asteroid after Plimpton; NASA issued the certificate 7932 Plimpton in 2009. Could it be fairly said that Plimptom had it? [23] He was also notable for his appearance in television commercials during the early 1980s, including a memorable campaign for Mattel's Intellivision. We worked at the Paris Review on the Rue Garanere for several years together. See below!) She was also the great-granddaughter on her father's side of Oakes Ames (18041873), an industrialist and congressman who was implicated in the Crdit Mobilier railroad scandal of 1872; and Governor-General of New Orleans Benjamin Franklin Butler, an American lawyer and politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States House of Representatives and later served as the 33rd Governor of Massachusetts. When Muhammad Ali was fighting, George Plimpton was always there. The clipped English of George Plimpton and William F. Buckley, Jr. were vestigial examples.. He hosted Disney Channel's Mouseterpiece Theater (a Masterpiece Theatre spoof which featured Disney cartoon shorts). He liked the fact that I had broken my nose in defeat. How to find out, and whether you should care. Off screen, George Plimpton and Gore Vidal come to mind. It took the form of a statement: I dont know writers who write about sex better than you. I rose to the bait and answered saying, Thank you. The funny thing about Harris was that he did not start out with that accent - as I suspect George Gershwin did not.
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