[40] They had two children: Medora Ames Plimpton and Taylor Ames Plimpton, who has published a memoir entitled Notes from the Night: A Life After Dark. Hear Stories By George Plimpton. He was also an accomplished birdwatcher. [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. My dad could never say what he feltnot reallyand neither can any of us. [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]. It was as if some old gentlemans code prohibited us from interacting as human beings. George Plimpton. Its a joke to say 500 of my closest friends, but that would have been true with George1,000 of his closest friends, actually. [3], He was the son of Francis T. P. Plimpton[4] and the grandson of Frances Taylor Pearsons and George Arthur Plimpton. 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. Hed ask what was new in fireworks business and doodle around the facility with my dad, and he would always leave with a package of fireworks, to put on his own show. The Paris Review was a testimony to his literary taste and his sense of glamour. "[25] He had a recurring role as the grandfather of Dr. Carter on the NBC series ER. Plimpton was an optimist, a teller of amusing and amazing stories. He rounded first as if he were about to go for a double, then glided back to the base, with fans waving and cheering. Showdown in the Pits. 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). And they founded this thing called the Paris Review and published poetry and short story writers and did interviews. He had a small role in the Oscar-winning film Good Will Hunting,[22] playing a psychologist. He knew we were just as good as he was, but in a different field. 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 was a little more in-depth than a lot of us, of course, with his education and all. But he would do this in the most charming and agreeable way. The Sidd Finch story was accompanied by a series of photos which managed to convince even the eagle-eyed fans . In it Van Voorhis has the formal delivery that would have seemed familiar to many mid-century listeners but which in retrospect we know was on the way out. Angelo Dundee, trainer for Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard:George was such a great guy. Ken Auletta, author:Sometime after age 70, when his reflexes dulled, George took to the sidelines in the Artists and Writers softball game in Easthampton, N.Y. Each year his name was announced, and each year he was hailed by the crowd, who paid more attention to him than to the game. After several problems with transporting and preparing the fireworks, Plimpton and Grucci became the first competitors from the United States to win the event. Here's how Geroge Plimpton and his team created a prodigious pitcher out of thin air. 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. George Plimpton. *Originally posted by j.c. * Youll get another shot at the big time, trust me. [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. For instance: The American-British television presenter Loyd Grossman, who has described his accent as Mid-Atlantic. Besides, third is a very respectable showing! 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! He never went all the way, though his authenticity and newly-downstyle speaking could probably be marked in the crisis/triumph stages of his reporting: the death of JFK; the Vietnam report; the moon landing. It was horrifying.. Several weeks later at a book party, he spotted two writers who had played in that game. In 1992, Plimpton married Sarah Whitehead Dudley, a graduate of Columbia University and a freelance writer. 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 . Jean Harlow, one of my favorites, is all over the map with this, sometimes sounding like a tough streetwalker, other times like a society matron, and, oddly, slipping in and out of both dialects in the same role, or even in one sentence. With the help of the New York Mets organization and several Mets players, Plimpton wrote a convincing account of a new unknown pitcher in the Mets spring training camp named Siddhartha Finch, who threw a baseball over 160mph, wore a heavy boot on one foot, and was a practicing Buddhist with a largely unknown background. I have worked as poetry editor with editors on other magazines; only with George has the experience been entirely agreeable. Larchmont Lockjaw? Ever. He was one of her original supporters and had published an article about her work in The Paris 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. 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.". On Sept. 26, George Plimpton died in his sleep, at the age of 76. George Plimpton, who died last week at his town house, on East Seventy-second Street near the river, was a serious man of serious accomplishments who just happened to have more fun than a van. The clipped, non-rhotic English accents of George Plimpton and William F. Buckley Jr. were vestigial examples. Even the manliest actors, such as Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable sometimes slipped into this voice-coach mode. Think of the accent of Jane Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies. These events were recalled in his best-known book Paper Lion, which was later adapted into the 1968 feature film starring Alan Alda. George Plimpton was born on March 18, 1927 in New York City, New York, USA. She would not even say goodbye. And you are going to come with me. I think the term Old Money or patrician pretty much says it. How widespread, numerically and geographically? **Mid-Atlantic. He was 76.. Why couldnt we have a good time, too? Articles From This Author. Is your language rhotic? In all my years, Ive never heard this accent in person. In this campaign, Plimpton touted the superiority regarding the graphics and sounds of Intellivision video games over the Atari 2600.[24]. And so fuck was definitely out of the question, but what about I love you? He just did it because Columbia was another literary magazine. (Every now and then he also called me Sweet Prince, as in Goodnight, Sweet Prince.), Of course, my fathers voice was odd not just in what it said, but in what it couldnt. Richard Howard, poetry editor, the Paris Review:I worked with George for 10 years on the magazine. Kaltenborn was a famous mid . Read more in this thread (long). Jean Stein became his co-editor. It was so tiny that if you saw him in it, you couldnt believe hed be able to get himself out of it. :rolleyes: Ive got news for you, buddy, youre not even second in line! Were taking off from Teterburo, N.J., at 4 a.m. tomorrow. In the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated, Plimpton pulled off a widely reported April Fools' Day prank. Please educate me. Big, tall, good-looking guy, easy-going. 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. December 17, 2022 Rafael Garca. He did these jobs, and many others, as an amateur.. 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). Finally I did. I can understand your frustration, but celebrities die every day. His friendships testified to what an eclectic man he was. The clenched jaw tight-bite bit: the lockjaw dentiloquist. Plimpton also appeared in a number of feature films as an extra and in cameo appearances. Where are you?, Im at dinner with my wife, I said. Its our anniversary. Its something different, and Ive not encountered that in the mid-Atlantic. [32] When lit, the firework remained on the ground and exploded, blasting a crater 35 feet (11m) wide and 10 feet (3.0m) deep. Ive rarely heard this accent in real life but its often used by actors doing a stereotype character based on other actors impersonations! When I eventually went back to be an editor at Harpers, I arrived at his flat, not having been in New York for eight years. That is the tendency of Americans trying to sound more British, or Brits trying to sound more Yank, to split the difference and speak in an accent whose home ground is no real country but somewhere in the middle of the sea. 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. Ill try to give a representative range, and I am grateful for the care and thought that have gone into these responses. Here's a look inside the space, where the Paris Review editor hosted legendary parties. Starring George Plimpton as Himself" - is meant as a wink-wink to Plimpton's career as a "participatory journalist." As a writer for Sports . The s. He is connected by blood to Benjamin "Beast" Butler, a rakish pol who told Abraham Lincoln he would be his running mate "only if you die within three. I'm not an expert, but Bill Labov from UPenn is, and he is quoted thusly: According to William Labov, teaching of this pronunciation declined sharply after the end of World War II. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. 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. A little before my time, but Kennedy certainly didnt, even if his vernacular was more formal than Brandos. * 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. News children today have no concept of the Mid-Atlantic accent. 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. Plimpton would not boast of his feat, so we did. After running the pilot, Rod Serling realized the narration needed a less pompous sounding and more natural voice himself. rejoiced in the name of Euphemia van Renssalaer Wyatt. He said, You better stay here, and I did, for a while. We made $15,000-20,000. Plimpton didnt die. 2) Truman v. Kaltenborn, 1949. This speech pattern might be common among US expatriates in the UK, of which Grossman would seem to represent just the most ostentatious example. 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. It's a Scottish accent that's been modified somewhat for a mainstream audience that tends to associate them with Groundskeeper Willie. Off screen, George Plimpton and Gore Vidal come to mind. And the many candidates for the crown of Last American to Speak This Way. [citation needed], In the movie Plimpton! He could as easily have been my grandfather as father. He also appeared in a featurette about Edie Sedgwick found on the Ciao! Yes he is gone. Next up: some sociological explanations of why someone like George Gershwin might have tried to speak like Westbrook Van Voorhis. Middle class? Isnt that what they call it. Plimpton has grown. He was equally at home on a bicycle or getting out of a limousine with a Saudi Arabian prince. I believe the accent was at one time known as Larchmont Lockjaw. After returning to New York from Paris, he routinely launched fireworks at his evening parties. 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. OK? 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. 3: Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. He has the same type of patrician upper-class New Yorker accent as Jane Wyatt. Ad Choices. 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. On Sept. 26, George Plimpton died in his sleep, at the age of 76. Greetings From the Vortex of Unpredictability, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. 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. (Newsreels ran in movie theaters, of course: what better critique of the high newsreel style than the new movies that jarred against it?). George also approved, I think, of the fact that I lost. Dan Rather certainly marks the definitive end of the newsreel style and the ascendance of the folksy vernacular: those rustic analogies! Plimpton appeared in the 1989 documentary The Tightrope Dancer which featured the life and the work of the artist Vali Myers. He could have done whatever he wanted. The film used archival audio and video of Plimpton lecturing and reading to create a posthumous narration. He was a Wasp (both of his parents came from old New England families, and had ancestors on the Mayflower). May a diseased yak squat in your hot tub. They all sound just like George. His final interview appeared in The New York Sports Express of October 2, 2003 by journalist Dave Hollander. 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. [11], His mother was Pauline Ames,[12] the daughter of botanist Oakes Ames (1874-1950) and artist Blanche Ames.