Bill Buckley, Gore Vidal, George Plimpton. He had the bearing of Gen. MacArthur, but the soul of Charlie Chaplin. So it went in late 1960 at one of George Plimpton's legendary soirees at 541 E. 72nd St., New York. He once said that, in writing Paper Lion, he wanted to reveal the "humor and grace" of football. So, pairing the Cagney hint with the Kennedy Inaugural, could we date the changeover to 1961? What will you be mad about ten years after youre gone?). Harris trained himself as a young man to lose his native Bronx accent - to the point that he was asked if he were British. At one point, there was a tremendous Wagnerian thunder and lighting storm. He watched the first pitch sail high for a ball, and then hit a rope into left field. He wrote for the Harvard Lampoon, was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, Pi Eta, the Signet Society, and the Porcellian Club. 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. Never heard of this decidedly imprecise term. Quite sad, as he just had a daughter not many years back. And here for the full interview). 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. Robert Silvers, editor, the New York Review of Books:I met George on the Ile Saint-Louis in 1953 as I was leaving NATO headquarters. From looking at Labovs study, I know today, as I didnt know yesterday, that linguists use the term rhotic to describe whether a person pronounces, or doesnt, the R sound before a consonant or at the end of a word. The Curious Case Of Sidd Finch. *Originally posted by cuauhtemoc * After several problems with transporting and preparing the fireworks, Plimpton and Grucci became the first competitors from the United States to win the event. If he couldnt be taken quite seriously, that was fine with him (he took himself lightly, and relished being in on the joke). 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 Except at parties. Paul McCartney and his then-girlfriend Heather showed up. 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. But Labov said that in post-World War II New York, fancier people started becoming rhotic, and recovering their Rs. In the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated, Plimpton pulled off a widely reported April Fools' Day prank. See below!) He saw athletes as heroes he. This kept his magazine fresh for 50 years. This was his habit. [3] During the summers, he lived in the hamlet of West Hills, Huntington, Suffolk County on Long Island. 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. [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. George Plimpton, Out of My League: The Classic Account of an Amateur's Ordeal in Professional Baseball, 2016, Little Now, in George, Being George, 200 friends, lovers and rivals detail Plimpton's remarkable exploits. Eerily enough, one of the messages on my answering machine was from George, with that distinctive accent of his: Hallo, its George Plimpton. By George Plimpton. Where are you?, Im at dinner with my wife, I said. Your transparent jealousy is very unbecoming, Carnac. He wrote, "I suppose in a mild way there is a lesson to be learned for the young, or the young at heart the gumption to get out and try one's wings". With a little more practice, you could give us boys in the big leagues a run for our money. 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. He plays the 'fancy pants' to our outhouse Americana," Flaherty asserted. $ 9.19 - $ 32.19. **. Actors Nathan Lane (from Jersey City, NJ) and Robin Williams (grew up in SF Bay area) often adopt this accent. He was smooth. At the time, he was getting ready to pitch for the Yankees,and we would throw pitches across 72nd Street in preparation. Why couldnt we have a good time, too? He was a great addition to the human race. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Mia had the perfect model! 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. I feel that his work on this and many other language-related matters should be far more widely known than it is. She is the product of a line of the original Dutch settlers of New York and grew up in Tuxedo Park and the Gramercy Park area of Manhattan, very exclusive. And you are going to come with me. He wanted to play his own part, but they wouldnt let him. Besides, third is a very respectable showing! Best-selling author George Plimpton shares his experience as a "Storyteller For Life" with Dean Nelson of Point Loma Nazarene University as part of PLNU's 5th Annual Writer's Symposium By The. 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. I always thought it sounded similar to the accent of William F. Buckley, Jr., who I believe was not reared in Boston. [2][43], An oral biography titled George, Being George was edited by Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., and released on October 21, 2008. Jean Stein became his co-editor. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. Plimpton scowled, and said he was perfectly capable of running for himself. Thanks for the scores of replies that have arrived in the past day, in response to my post asking why the stentorian, phony-British Announcer Voice that dominated newsreel narration, stage and movie acting, and public discourse in the United States during the first half of the 20th century had completely disappeared. Macklem . But looking back on it, its funny, too. Wed gone to dinner and the maitre d comes over and says, Felix, I got a call for you from Monaco., I pick up the phone, and I hear Georges Bostonian accent. Read more. He joined us in Monte Carlo when we won the international [fireworks] competition. But he has never employed that voice professionally, and certainly does not speak that way in real life. 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. Firstly, then-managing director of SI, Mark Mulvoy, gave Plimpton the liberty to create a hoax.Secondly, SI photographer Lane Stewart recruited his friend, Joe Berton to play the part of Sidd Finch. Plimpton has grown. Vault. Plimpton was married twice. Richard Howard, poetry editor, the Paris Review:I worked with George for 10 years on the magazine. That was when Westbrook van Voorhis, the famous March of Time voice, did the intro narration of the pilot episode of The Twilight Zone. He also appeared in the 1996 documentary When We Were Kings about the "Rumble in the Jungle" 1974 Ali-Foreman Championship fight opposite Norman Mailer crediting Muhammad Ali as a poet who composed the world's shortest poem: "Me? [2] His first wife, whom he married in 1968[38] and divorced in 1988, was Freddy Medora Espy, a photographer's assistant. During a career that spanned the second half of the 20th century, Plimpton was a quarterback for the Detroit Lions, pitched at Yankee Stadium, sparred with Archie Moore, played the triangle with. Even in the UK we sometimes subtitle various Scots dialects on the news and TV and whatnot, so it makes sense that he wouldn't go full Dundee for the show. He loved the ones that made a lot of noise and racket and excitement. 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. Plimpton was a writer-raconteur and dilettante in the best sense of the word: He co-founded an important literary magazine, the . The Sidd Finch story was accompanied by a series of photos which managed to convince even the eagle-eyed fans . ), this isnt some kind of morbid contest to see who can be the first to inform the board of some celebritys death. We were bound to play the roles of father and son, unable to simply be ourselves. (The filmmakers assembled his voice-over from recorded speeches and other archival footage.) The Wikipedia entry for it is quite detailed. I enjoy doing it. Thats it, George cried out. 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. [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. These interviews are a collaborative effort, and, I believe, a fascinating contribution to literary history. [citation needed], In the movie Plimpton! He could as easily have been my grandfather as father. 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. The primary reason [for the accent] was primitive microphone technology: "natural" voices simply did not get picked up well by the microphones of the time, and people were instructed to and learned to speak in such a way that their words could be best transmitted through the microphone to the radio waves or to recording media. For such admissions to escape my fathers lips, they always had to be a little removed somehow. Spoke in a mid-Atlantic accent, reflecting a privileged Upper East Side (in New York City) upbringing. Description above from the Wikipedia article George Plimpton, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of . LL is typified, I think, but an almost clenching of the teeth while talking, producing a mushy sound, if you will. (To read Part One, click here. Both of Plimpton's maternal grandparents were born with the surname Ames; his mother was the granddaughter of Medal of Honor recipient Adelbert Ames (1835-1933), an American sailor, soldier, and politician, and Oliver Ames, a US political figure and the 35th Governor of Massachusetts (18871890). [23] He was also notable for his appearance in television commercials during the early 1980s, including a memorable campaign for Mattel's Intellivision. You can. The Writer's Chapbook A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit, and Advice from the Twentieth Century's Preeminent Writers. Plimpton didnt die. The funny thing about Harris was that he did not start out with that accent - as I suspect George Gershwin did not. Hearing the words Dammit, Im mad as a hornet! uttered in George Plimptons voice made anger sound totally ridiculous, which is exactly what it most often is. (What else happened that year??? I received many notes like this one: The variety of English you are referring to has a name in linguistics: "Mid-Atlantic English". Brown & Co. Re-issued George Plimpton Sports Books, 2016. George Plimpton writer, publisher, amateur lion tamer died in 2003 after 50 years as the founding editor of The Paris Review. We had the book party for my selected poems, Sailing Alone Around the Room, at Georges house on Sept 10, 2001. I think he came down [to the shooting of Paper Lion in] Florida once. That tension between what was in his heart and what his voice allowed him to express is the basic tension of language we all face, only heightened. Her mother, a writer and critic for Commonweal and Catholic World. But the average person never talked that way. And I felt such love for my sweet old excited dad at that moment that I thought I would do him the favor of not telling him so, of leaving it unsaid. Plimpton sparred for three rounds with boxing greats Archie Moore and Sugar Ray Robinson while on assignment for Sports Illustrated. During my fight, my nose got badly broken in the second round, but I did last all four scheduled rounds, though I lost. And he stood there ebullient and charming all night; he bid on many items himself. Congratulations Carnac, for posting about George Plimptons death at 3:44 PM. Several readers wrote in with specimens of Americans who had gone to England and ended up speaking in this mid-Atlantic way. YESTERDAY IS NOT FAR AWAY. :rolleyes: Ive got news for you, buddy, youre not even second in line! George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. By George Plimpton. George Plimpton gives an auction winner a star-studded walk through the legendary NYC eatery Elaine's. Finally I did. Angelo Dundee, trainer for Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard:George was such a great guy. In fact, my dads farewells seemed loquacious in comparison to his mothers. He was so open to life and all its new and unexpected situations. Harvard (where he edited the Lampoon), Kings College, George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. Whom is it spoken bymerely the elite, old-money types? Future Poet Laureate Donald Hall, who had met Plimpton at Exeter, was Poetry Editor. He got the personality totally wrong, too. Shadow Box. He was an actor and writer, known for Good Will Hunting (1997), Nixon (1995) and Just Cause (1995). I had George tell him the story of Sidd Finch. These events were recalled in his best-known book Paper Lion, which was later adapted into the 1968 feature film starring Alan Alda. Now you know! Thats a common name for such an accent. What exactly is a Boston Brahmin accent? 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. He did not appear last year, or the year before, and we feared he was done with us. At least, not to me, nor even to my sister, a fact she mentions in the movie. Ad Choices. The clipped, non-rhotic English accents of George Plimpton and William F. Buckley Jr. were vestigial examples. I thought Id died and gone to Olympus. How do I know you're not George Plimpton? OK? Look out, Wilson! Queen Elizabeth doesnt say car, and neither did Franklin D. Roosevelt, nor did the newsreel announcers or movie actors of his day. It was as if some old gentlemans code prohibited us from interacting as human beings. 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! The Writers won the game with a home run in extra innings, but the highlight was Plimptons hit. BTW, I cant imagine a presidential candidate today getting anywhere close to a nomination with FDRs accent, cigarette holder, and aristocratic bearing. He had been in the war, if briefly (stationed in Italy towards the end of it, hed missed action, but met the Pope, an early sign of the great good fortuneone of his favorite phrasesthat marked his life). Mr . 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 respected by all. I believe the accent was at one time known as Larchmont Lockjaw. Volume 7, 2003-2005, pages 429-432. $ 4.19 - $ 17.92. 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. Plimpton played quarterback for the Detroit Lions and triangle for the New York Philharmonic, an. I just heard that George Plimpton has died. 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. In another cartoon in The New Yorker, a patient looks up at the masked surgeon about to operate on him and asks, "Wait a minute! All rights reserved. . With the evolution of talkies in the late 1920s, voice was first heard in motion pictures. Speaking of which, didnt the young Jackie Kennedy have something of this, along with a kinda dreamy, airy, Monroe-esque (though many degrees less contrived) essence to it? 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. 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. He had a small role in the Oscar-winning film Good Will Hunting,[22] playing a psychologist. I remember getting the news: It was my wife Madeleines birthday, Aug. 7. Whats the matter?, Well, he said. Powered by Discourse, best viewed with JavaScript enabled. The most recent was about how to extend the swing though impact, and the trick, George said, was to station an imaginary dwarf several feet in front of your ball and then (you have to re-create those broad Plimptonian vowels here) smack the dwarf in the ass. I dont know whether it works, because I cant think of it without laughing. [45], Plimpton is the protagonist of the semi-fictional George Plimpton's Video Falconry, a 1983 ColecoVision game postulated by humorist John Hodgman and recreated by video game auteur Tom Fulp.[46]. And later I woke upat 6 a.m. Later I called up George, I said, What happened?, I thought it over, he said, and I took mercy on you. On Sept. 26, George Plimpton died in his sleep, at the age of 76. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. 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. 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.
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