We worked at the Paris Review on the Rue Garanere for several years together. Back to Plimpton I dont remember the LL affect at all. George Plimpton, Out of My League: The Classic Account of an Amateur's Ordeal in Professional Baseball, 2016, Little 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. Since all we have are recordings of those long-vanished voices, we do not and cannot know whether people spoke "this way" when they were not being recorded, although I would be willing to wager that they did not. It is the kind of study .
Being, And Appreciating, George Plimpton - krvs.org Ill pick you up., I had a hard time sleeping that night, as you might imagine. [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. Bill and I met in Rome, several months after the Paris Review was startedwe were, as they say, courtingand he drove me to Paris so George and Peter [Mathiessen] could look me over. It's a Scottish accent that's been modified somewhat for a mainstream audience that tends to associate them with Groundskeeper Willie. He was immensely generous in every waygenerous about sharing the work and about giving one a chance to edit things.
Why Did William F. Buckley Jr. Talk Like That? - Slate Magazine [13], Plimpton's son described him as a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant and wrote that both of Plimpton's parents were descended from Mayflower passengers.[14]. 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.
), this isnt some kind of morbid contest to see who can be the first to inform the board of some celebritys death. And so fuck was definitely out of the question, but what about I love you? The wife is also old money, as Phlosphr mentions, and she talks exactly the same way. The Sidd Finch story was accompanied by a series of photos which managed to convince even the eagle-eyed fans . Friends were almost always happy to see him because you knew he was bound to improve your mood. 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! The Paris Review was a testimony to his literary taste and his sense of glamour. Where are you?, Im at dinner with my wife, I said.
An oral history of George Plimpton. - Slate Magazine It was so violent that it brought a lot of people to the windows.
George Plimpton - Rotten Tomatoes 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 was going to put on a reading of his play Zelda, Scott, and Ernest. (What else happened that year??? 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. Of course, I think he enjoyed the odd persona his voice and mannerisms conferred on him.
George, Being George: George Plimpton's Life as Told, Admired, Deplored Would you like Mike to run for you, George? the coach asked. By George Plimpton. Angelo Dundee, trainer for Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard:George was such a great guy. Now you know! 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. 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!
The Very Good Life Of George Plimpton - The Washington Post After the technology improved the need to speak so histrionically went away, and so did "announcer English.". [33] A later attempt, fired at Cape Canaveral, rose approximately 50 feet (15m) into the air and broke 700 windows in Titusville, Florida. That phony-baloney feigned British pronunciation thing. So it was that George Plimptons accent could not be imitated. Plimpton didnt die. There was love thereactually, his inability to express it sometimes made him positively brim with itbut speak the words, his voice could not. He smiled broadly, signaled for the coach to send Lupica in to run for him, and trotted back to the sidelines. He was so open to life and all its new and unexpected situations. 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). Jay McInerney, author:Arriving in Manhattan as a young writer, nothing was more thrilling or daunting than attending my first Paris Review party at Georges townhouse on East 72nd in the fall of 1984. 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". Plimpton was married twice. $ 4.19 - $ 17.92. For such admissions to escape my fathers lips, they always had to be a little removed somehow. Labov suspected that WWII had something to do about it. At the time, he was getting ready to pitch for the Yankees,and we would throw pitches across 72nd Street in preparation. After several problems with transporting and preparing the fireworks, Plimpton and Grucci became the first competitors from the United States to win the event. **Get a life. 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. When Plimpton, the co-founder of The Paris Review, died in 2003 at age 76, The New York Times . He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent.
George Plimpton: Writer, Quarterback, Pitcher, Boxer, Triangle Player Documentary Shows George Plimpton's Best Story Was His Own : NPR - NPR.org 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 . He Was Shot by John Wayne. Plimpton, George 1927-2003(George Ames Plimpton) Source for information on Plimpton, George 1927-2003: Concise Major 21st Century Writers dictionary. The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent, is a . He had, for instance, a series of antiquated phrases and terms of affection. 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. This book is the party that was George's life-and it's a big one-attended by scores of famous people, as well as. Here's how Geroge Plimpton and his team created a prodigious pitcher out of thin air. 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.. Talking about sports with Georgeor, even better, reading George about sportswas more fun than sports themselves.
Between 1945 and 1948, Plimpton was a soldier in the United States Army. Off screen, George Plimpton and Gore Vidal come to mind. Was it him? 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. **, In this case, Mid-Atlantic refers to speech in which the attributes of British English and American English meet halfway. 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.
Plimpton, George 1927-2003 | Encyclopedia.com I received many notes like this one: The variety of English you are referring to has a name in linguistics: "Mid-Atlantic English". [2], In 1975, in Bellport, Long Island, Plimpton, with Fireworks by Grucci attempted to break the record for the world's largest firework. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review. He had the bearing of Gen. MacArthur, but the soul of Charlie Chaplin. He was previously married to Sara Whitehead Dudley and Freddy Medora Espy. He could as easily have been my grandfather as father. Is it in evidence among the Gen X set of Boston, or a passing phenomenon? Norman Mailer said that George Plimpton was the best-loved man in New York. At Harvard, Plimpton was a classmate and close personal friend of Robert F. Kennedy. That was how it was in New York in those days, George just dragged it out a bit longer." Dudley Plimpton suspects the excess contributed to Plimpton's death in his sleep in 2003, at the age of 76. You heard it and it. 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. .
5 Things You Didn't Know About George Plimpton | Mental Floss And so when it was time to say goodbye, we did so simplyno awkwardness, no strangled expressions of affectionand this is why, even though it was the last time we ever spoke, and I would never get the chance again, I do not regret not telling him that I loved him. [37] His son, Taylor, described it as a mixture of "old New England, old New York, tinged with a hint of King's College King's English."[14]. The Scout Is a Lonely Hunter. 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. Bill, who was from the South, kept saying to me, Can you believe Georges not English? Bill Buckley, Gore Vidal, George Plimpton. Was this sheer affectation? Plimpton entered Harvard as a member of the Class of 1948, but did not graduate until 1950 due to intervening military service. The clipped, non-rhotic English accents of George Plimpton and William F. Buckley Jr. were vestigial examples. Vault. Typical of George to laugh about something others saw as a defining traithe never took himself all that seriously. Consider his duties as host of Mousterpiece Theatre (my first intro to my father as celebrity), a childrens TV show in which he debated the adventures and psyches of Donald Duck and Goofy in that marvelously serious voice: Is Donald Duck really a strident existentialist and a hero? How wonderfulwhat fun!to have a constant reminder emerging from your lips that life was absurd, and identity, too; all of it a great game to be played at, enjoyed. For instance: Mid-Atlantic English was the dominant dialect among the Northeastern American upper class through the first half of the 20th century. George Plimpton was an upper-class guy with a patrician accent who partied his way through life .
List of books by author George Plimpton - ThriftBooks She would not even say goodbye. The title of the PBS documentary - "Plimpton! It was a hot, sweltering day. And bolstering this last point, a reader who grew up in Depression-era Chicago writes: All I can think of is that people were imitating FDR. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Rose Styron, wife of William Styron and former Paris Review editor:My husband Bill was with George when he started the Paris Review. We made $15,000-20,000. The opposing team: the Detroit Lions. I feel that his work on this and many other language-related matters should be far more widely known than it is. **. 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. Paul McCartney and his then-girlfriend Heather showed up. Charles McGrath, editor of the New York Times Book Review:I dont think George had played golf in years, but he used to save up oddball tips for me and others. On one website, I read about a Choate alumn saying one can still hear the LL (see above thread) accent on campus. 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.". Even the manliest actors, such as Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable sometimes slipped into this voice-coach mode. George was not vainhe didnt care a whit about his image. Think of the accent of Jane Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies. Shoot! hed hiss, when he was mad. We were going to go looking for strange birds. 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. They all gathered there. In fact, my dads farewells seemed loquacious in comparison to his mothers.
Writing Wednesdays: Hemingway on Fiction, Part Two - Steven Pressfield He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent.
**. I think the term Old Money or patrician pretty much says it. 2023 Cond Nast. At one point, there was a tremendous Wagnerian thunder and lighting storm. Vault. The clearest example of the Mid-Atlantic accent is the accent of the Frasier & Niles Crane characters on the TV show Frasier. 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've decided to stay over here in . 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). ), this isnt some kind of morbid contest to see who can be the first to inform the board of some celebritys death. He just did it because Columbia was another literary magazine. After running the pilot, Rod Serling realized the narration needed a less pompous sounding and more natural voice himself. [2] His first wife, whom he married in 1968[38] and divorced in 1988, was Freddy Medora Espy, a photographer's assistant. (And, OK, Im not a linguist, but Im married to one!) You're going to play for us-making some sort of big comeback." "That's right," Plimpton replied in his patrician accent. Plimpton was associated with the literary magazine in Paris, Merlin, which folded because the State Department withdrew its support.[why?] Ive rarely heard this accent in real life but its often used by actors doing a stereotype character based on other actors impersonations! But he could easily have said, Alice, I have enough trouble raising money for my magazine.. If he couldnt be taken quite seriously, that was fine with him (he took himself lightly, and relished being in on the joke). 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. Description above from the Wikipedia article George Plimpton, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of . Middle class? But for now, just one more category: 3) Changing technology, changing voices. Here are five things you may not have known about him. 2) Truman v. Kaltenborn, 1949. Peter Matthiesen, author, co-founder of the Paris Review:I was in Liberia, of all places, and George met me in Monrovia. When he was on the scene, everything was a big happeningan event. He was 76. The 16th at Cypress Point is one of the famous golf holes of the world, certainly one of the most difficult and demanding par 3's. 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.. 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. Ad Choices. Plimpton was .the public face of the New York intellectual: tweedy, eclectic and with a plummy accent he himself described as "Eastern seaboard cosmopolitan." . [21] The prank was so successful that many readers believed the story, and the ensuing popularity of the joke resulted in Plimpton's writing an entire book on Finch. I didnt know he was from the Larchmont area. Vault. [3], He was the son of Francis T. P. Plimpton[4] and the grandson of Frances Taylor Pearsons and George Arthur Plimpton. He did not appear last year, or the year before, and we feared he was done with us. **Thats a common name for such an accent. He joined us in Monte Carlo when we won the international [fireworks] competition. Next up: some sociological explanations of why someone like George Gershwin might have tried to speak like Westbrook Van Voorhis. It was as if he was trying out again. He died on September 26, 2003 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. Here's a look inside the space, where the Paris Review editor hosted legendary parties. 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). 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. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. Well, perhaps it's more accurate to say that the book provided entertaining confirmation to millions of people that they -- like the author . The flipped prestige markers point here is fascinating. To me, Mid-Atlantic English is the nom juste for a related but distinct phenomenon (which is also mentioned in Wikipedia). With a little more practice, you could give us boys in the big leagues a run for our money. I think it was an affectation people adopted because they thought it made them sound much more intelligent! [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. 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. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yogaand his future in baseball. 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. 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. He was 76.. 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. If you are in the big league, God help us all. Plimpton would not boast of his feat, so we did. Several readers wrote in with specimens of Americans who had gone to England and ended up speaking in this mid-Atlantic way. He came from a family where such endearments were not expressed, and phone conversations were curt. 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. Researcher and writer Samuel Arbesman filed with NASA to name an asteroid after Plimpton; NASA issued the certificate 7932 Plimpton in 2009. I dont give a rats ass about informing anyone about the death of Plimpton. It was as if some old gentlemans code prohibited us from interacting as human beings. (Newsreels ran in movie theaters, of course: what better critique of the high newsreel style than the new movies that jarred against it?).
When George Plimpton Met the Best Bartender in Brooklyn 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.
Paper Lion: Confessions of a Last-String Quarterback: Plimpton, George *Originally posted by Phlosphr * Revolutionary musket, a stairwell and a housemaster), Plimpton was an optimist, a teller of amusing and amazing stories. "[34] A feature in Mad titled "Some Really Dangerous Jobs for George Plimpton" spotlighted him trying to swim across Lake Erie, strolling through New York's Times Square in the middle of the night, and spending a week with Jerry Lewis. Above all, he was a gentleman, one of the lasta figure so archaic, it could be easily mistaken for something else. Whats the matter?, Well, he said. But it didnt define him, much the way he refused to be defined by the stiff, upper-crust world from which hed come. He also appeared in a featurette about Edie Sedgwick found on the Ciao! Get book recommendations, fiction, poetry, and dispatches from the world of literature in your in-box. 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! Among other challenges for Sports Illustrated, he attempted to play top-level bridge, and spent some time as a high-wire circus performer. George Plimpton gives an auction winner a star-studded walk through the legendary NYC eatery Elaine's. 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.
In Praise of Plimpton - Newsweek My fathers voice was like one of those supposedly extinct deep-sea creatures that wash up on the shores of Argentina every now and then. One reader writes: I've wondered whether that "announcer English" was at least partly caused by poor loudspeakers and microphones. "He speaks with an oddly mannered accent, sounding as though on the verge of a stammer, polite, genteel, perhaps just a little Woosterish. [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. It includes clear pronunciation of each and every consonant cluster. 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. 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. 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. Vault.
See Inside George Plimpton's Upper East Side Duplex How do I know you're not George Plimpton? And the many candidates for the crown of Last American to Speak This Way. Plimpton has grown. They all sound just like George. Starring George Plimpton as Himself, which documents his life, adventures, and work as participatory journalist and editor of the Paris Review, my dad will be playing himself one more time. Thats a common name for such an accent. [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. . Just in time for the Sixties, with all their other pressures towards some kind of anti-Eisenhower authenticity. In 1994, Plimpton appeared several times in the Ken Burns series Baseball, in which he shared some personal baseball experiences as well as other memorable events throughout the history of baseball.[20]. 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. He had it all going! Felix Grucci Jr., of Fireworks by Grucci (Plimpton wrote about the Grucci family, widely held to be the first family of fireworks, in Fireworks: A History and Celebration):George had a very big passion for fireworks. This was his habit. 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?. I just heard that George Plimpton has died. $ 9.19 - $ 32.19. He was equally at home on a bicycle or getting out of a limousine with a Saudi Arabian prince.