He had, for instance, a series of antiquated phrases and terms of affection. For his grandfather, the publisher and philanthropist, see, Calvin Gay Plimpton and Priscilla G. Lewis were the parents of, He was widely reviled for years after the war by Southern whites, who gave him the nickname "Beast Butler." Now the interview is perfect!. (The filmmakers assembled his voice-over from recorded speeches and other archival footage.) Plimpton and Dudley were the parents of twin daughters Laura Dudley Plimpton and Olivia Hartley Plimpton. He looked like a very eccentric old Englishman. He was also an accomplished birdwatcher. George was the one who read my name out to the commissioner. It was always a surprise. You can. I enjoy doing it. Thats it, George cried out. I never thought that George slept. Its something different, and Ive not encountered that in the mid-Atlantic. 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. It was horrifying.. It's a Scottish accent that's been modified somewhat for a mainstream audience that tends to associate them with Groundskeeper Willie. . He did not appear last year, or the year before, and we feared he was done with us. (Did Eisenhower speak the newsreel style? (This is not to belittle Lowell Thomas, but to recognize the artifice that served him so well in his career). Peter even came with us on our honeymoon in Ravello, though George didnt. Researcher and writer Samuel Arbesman filed with NASA to name an asteroid after Plimpton; NASA issued the certificate 7932 Plimpton in 2009. Her mother, a writer and critic for Commonweal and Catholic World. The Dudleys established the 36-acre (15ha) Highstead Arboretum in Redding, Connecticut. (Why do I even bother?) So it was that my father played himself not just in movies and on TV, but in life, too. The risky pleasures of Plimpton's classic of participatory sportswriting, Paper Lion. 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. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. 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. 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. 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. All the good guys have got to go. ), this isnt some kind of morbid contest to see who can be the first to inform the board of some celebritys death. Shadow Box. Middle class? Where are you?, Im at dinner with my wife, I said. Plimpton entered Harvard as a member of the Class of 1948, but did not graduate until 1950 due to intervening military service. George Plimpton is beautifully connected. "I've decided to stay over here in . Get book recommendations, fiction, poetry, and dispatches from the world of literature in your in-box. But the average person never talked that way. 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! **Get a life. Starring George Plimpton as Himself, directed by Tom Bean and Luke Poling, was released. In early 1959, George Plimpton was preparing to watch an execution in Cuba. Ive always heard it referred to as a patrician accent. George Plimpton's duplex apartment on the Upper East Side hit the market for $5.495 million on April 18. At one point, there was a tremendous Wagnerian thunder and lighting storm. [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. He loved the ones that made a lot of noise and racket and excitement. I think he came down [to the shooting of Paper Lion in] Florida once. Ever. George Plimpton boxed with Archie Moore, played quarterback for the Detroit Lions, and played percussion for the New York Philharmonic. [citation needed]. Sign up for the Books & Fiction newsletter. 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. I had made about five thousand egg and tuna sandwiches. 3 people found this helpful . On Sept. 26, George Plimpton died in his sleep, at the age of 76. 08:37 Dinner at Elaine's. by George Plimpton. He would have a beer with you. In 1992, Plimpton married Sarah Whitehead Dudley, a graduate of Columbia University and a freelance writer. On Saturday Night Live, even the great impersonator Dana Carvey couldnt get it quite right. I just knew it was going to be something terrible. Is your language rhotic? Call me back.. That made him a great storyteller. 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. George was a little more in-depth than a lot of us, of course, with his education and all. 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?. Even Orson Welles on occasion. He had a way of putting it all together, of understanding fighters in the ring; he was a good analyst of boxing. Plimpton has grown. 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 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. It came from a different era, shouldnt have still existed, but nevertheless, there it wasold New England, old New York, tinged with a hint of Kings College Kings English. 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. At Harvard, Plimpton was a classmate and close personal friend of Robert F. Kennedy. He was also known for "participatory journalism," including accounts of his active involvement in professional sporting events, acting in a Western, performing a comedy act at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and playing with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra[1] and then recording the experience from the point of view of an amateur. [citation needed], In the movie Plimpton! But the gentleman amateur - a Harvard. The coach for the Writers team announced that Plimpton would pinch-hit for the first batter of the game, Daily News sports columnist Mike Lupica, and the crowd roared. The name George Plimpton is synonymous with a kind of all-in participatory journalism. *Originally posted by Phlosphr * 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. . 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.. I want you to go [to the shop] pull out the biggest firework you have and go out and light it up, because you just won the firework contest in Monaco!, I was so stunned, all I could think to say was, I dont think I can get a permit that fast!, Alice Quinn, director of the Poetry Society of America, poetry editor, The New Yorker:When I was an adviser at Columbia Magazine [a journal run out of Columbia University], we were scraping barrel, with no money in the bank, and I said to the students we should have a benefit auction. Whom is it spoken bymerely the elite, old-money types? 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. 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. Greetings From the Vortex of Unpredictability, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. History / Biographical Note Biographical Note. 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.. Several readers wrote in with specimens of Americans who had gone to England and ended up speaking in this mid-Atlantic way. 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. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. [47][48] I remember the Lowell Thomas documentary films of the 50s where Mr. Thomas' mellifluous tones and distinct radio-style pronunciation gave him a respectability that a similar huckster could hardly hope to replicate today by the mere application of such an artifice. 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. I have worked as poetry editor with editors on other magazines; only with George has the experience been entirely agreeable. Famed participatory journalist George Plimpton (1927-2003) was a writer, editor, amateur sportsman, actor, and friend to many. 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. Everything he did was like this, just a bit odd. tweedy demeanor and Oxford accent. The Writers won the game with a home run in extra innings, but the highlight was Plimptons hit. George Plimpton, Out of My League: The Classic Account of an Amateur's Ordeal in Professional Baseball, 2016, Little After finishing at Harvard in 1950, he attended King's College, Cambridge, from 1950 to 1952, and graduated with third class honors in English. Dan Rather certainly marks the definitive end of the newsreel style and the ascendance of the folksy vernacular: those rustic analogies! [2] His first wife, whom he married in 1968[38] and divorced in 1988, was Freddy Medora Espy, a photographer's assistant. It was a hot, sweltering day. [citation needed]. [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. #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. As an old film buff, I am used to this voice, though it figures unevenly in old movies. George Plimpton gives an auction winner a star-studded walk through the legendary NYC eatery Elaine's. A little before my time, but Kennedy certainly didnt, even if his vernacular was more formal than Brandos. Eerily enough, one of the messages on my answering machine was from George, with that distinctive accent of his: Hallo, its George Plimpton. Havent heard that term in years. 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. Congratulations Carnac, for posting about George Plimptons death at 3:44 PM. Listen to Caruso singing or Bix Beiderbecke playing his cornet to hear how muffled was the recording of those sounds. Its our anniversary. He once said that, in writing Paper Lion, he wanted to reveal the "humor and grace" of football. Sometimes, we used to have quarrels, because he thought I took too many poems: Are you turning this magazine into a poetry magazine? he would say. Well, perhaps it's more accurate to say that the book provided entertaining confirmation to millions of people that they -- like the author . Mr . Just when Jim and I thought we had finished, and we had been working a long time, George, who loved the result of our efforts, decided he wanted to talk to me as well. I dont give a rats ass about informing anyone about the death of Plimpton. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. Oh now, Im joking, Carnac ( see? Talking about sports with Georgeor, even better, reading George about sportswas more fun than sports themselves. 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. He died on September 26, 2003 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. 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. [Then] this August he showed up, pulled the shirt over his head, and said he was ready to bat. [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. Plimpton sparred for three rounds with boxing greats Archie Moore and Sugar Ray Robinson while on assignment for Sports Illustrated. At least, not to me, nor even to my sister, a fact she mentions in the movie. He was immensely generous in every waygenerous about sharing the work and about giving one a chance to edit things. George Plimpton, who has died aged 76, became a best-selling author by not only writing about sporting heroes but by participating in those sports as well. Ive rarely heard this accent in real life but its often used by actors doing a stereotype character based on other actors impersonations! In fact, my dads farewells seemed loquacious in comparison to his mothers. You heard it and it. [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]. 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. 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. He could have done whatever he wanted. Hemingway on Fiction, Part Two. Next up: some sociological explanations of why someone like George Gershwin might have tried to speak like Westbrook Van Voorhis. Update: This post is #2 in the announcer-speak series. Old money, would never say the word spanky, and certainly had more money than God could count. Even the manliest actors, such as Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable sometimes slipped into this voice-coach mode. 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. How do I know you're not George Plimpton? His father co-founded the law firm Debevoise Plimpton. He was a Wasp (both of his parents came from old New England families, and had ancestors on the Mayflower). [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. He wrote for the Harvard Lampoon, was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, Pi Eta, the Signet Society, and the Porcellian Club. Plimpton brought the Left Bank to NYCpeople like Peter Mathiessen, William Styron, Terry Southern. Never heard of this decidedly imprecise term. I havent heard that he is dead, but if so RIP George. Actually, thats not far off from how my mom felt when she first met him. 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. She would not even say goodbye. Self-help author and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson has a unique accent that, . [33] A later attempt, fired at Cape Canaveral, rose approximately 50 feet (15m) into the air and broke 700 windows in Titusville, Florida. Quite sad, as he just had a daughter not many years back. Heres a sampling for today, with more planned in the days ahead. In this campaign, Plimpton touted the superiority regarding the graphics and sounds of Intellivision video games over the Atari 2600.[24]. . When he was on the scene, everything was a big happeningan event. 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. Now, in George, Being George, 200 friends, lovers and rivals detail Plimpton's remarkable exploits. Plimpton was .the public face of the New York intellectual: tweedy, eclectic and with a plummy accent he himself described as "Eastern seaboard cosmopolitan." . George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. BTW, I cant imagine a presidential candidate today getting anywhere close to a nomination with FDRs accent, cigarette holder, and aristocratic bearing. Among other challenges for Sports Illustrated, he attempted to play top-level bridge, and spent some time as a high-wire circus performer. Plimpton was married twice. With the evolution of talkies in the late 1920s, voice was first heard in motion pictures. He could as easily have been my grandfather as father. Plimpton himself described it as a "New England cosmopolitan accent"[36] or "Eastern seaboard cosmopolitan" accent. 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. Congratulations Carnac, for posting about George Plimptons death at 3:44 PM. But it didnt define him, much the way he refused to be defined by the stiff, upper-crust world from which hed come. 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. 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. When Plimpton, the co-founder of The Paris Review, died in 2003 at age 76, The New York Times . Return of the Big Bopper. 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. Plimpton didnt die. 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.". Powered by Discourse, best viewed with JavaScript enabled. He came from a family where such endearments were not expressed, and phone conversations were curt. He has the same type of patrician upper-class New Yorker accent as Jane Wyatt. Showdown in the Pits. You heard it and it could only be him. 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! 26 Feb 2023 12:18:23 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? By strange coincidence, I actually became quite good friends with his (ex-)in-laws here in Manhattan. Shoot! hed hiss, when he was mad. George Plimpton Wiki: Salary, Married, Wedding, Spouse, Family . "[25] He had a recurring role as the grandfather of Dr. Carter on the NBC series ER. After returning to New York from Paris, he routinely launched fireworks at his evening parties. He had the bearing of Gen. MacArthur, but the soul of Charlie Chaplin. The Writer's Chapbook A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit, and Advice from the Twentieth Century's Preeminent Writers. 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? Labov suspected that WWII had something to do about it. Bill Buckley, Gore Vidal, George Plimpton. (Newsreels ran in movie theaters, of course: what better critique of the high newsreel style than the new movies that jarred against it?). He was equally at home on a bicycle or getting out of a limousine with a Saudi Arabian prince. The wife is also old money, as Phlosphr mentions, and she talks exactly the same way. 2023 Cond Nast. (A variation is the Locust Valley Lockjaw.). rejoiced in the name of Euphemia van Renssalaer Wyatt. Plimpton[2] was born in New York City on March 18, 1927, and spent his childhood there, attending St. Bernard's School and growing up in an apartment duplex on Manhattan's Upper East Side located at 1165 Fifth Avenue. Ill pick you up., I had a hard time sleeping that night, as you might imagine. 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. Billy Collins, poet:Im one of these people who went from crashing Georges parties in the 70s to being invited in the 80s. Vault. 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. He was one of her original supporters and had published an article about her work in The Paris Review. The journal, which had operated out of his home, moved downtown. There was love thereactually, his inability to express it sometimes made him positively brim with itbut speak the words, his voice could not. 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. But for now, just one more category: 3) Changing technology, changing voices. Family (1) Spouse He just did it because Columbia was another literary magazine. *Originally posted by j.c. * In 2013, the documentary Plimpton! He was 76. [23] He was also notable for his appearance in television commercials during the early 1980s, including a memorable campaign for Mattel's Intellivision. What fine manners he had! Off screen, George Plimpton and Gore Vidal come to mind. Were taking off from Teterburo, N.J., at 4 a.m. tomorrow. The Curious Case Of Sidd Finch. 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. He was an actor and writer, known for Good Will Hunting (1997), Nixon (1995) and Just Cause (1995). The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent, is a . Is it in evidence among the Gen X set of Boston, or a passing phenomenon? What exactly is a Boston Brahmin accent? H.V. [28], Plimpton was a demolitions expert in the post-World War II Army. Harris trained himself as a young man to lose his native Bronx accent - to the point that he was asked if he were British. If you say, I pahked my cah in Hahvahd Yahd, like some vaudeville version of a Boston accent, you are non-rhotic. The Paris Review was a testimony to his literary taste and his sense of glamour. 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 is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review. [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. I didnt know he was from the Larchmont area. Think of the accent of Jane Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies. Oh, I suppose we should all just lavish praise upon Carnac the Magnificent now for bringing this to your attention, is that it? That phony-baloney feigned British pronunciation thing. *Originally posted by cuauhtemoc * I dont give a rats ass about informing anyone about the death of Plimpton. 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. (My dads been dead nearly ten years: not that he held many in his life, but what grudges could he possibly be holding on to now? Norman Mailer said that George Plimpton was the best-loved man in New York. Archie Moore, after all, had broken his nose. The clipped English of George Plimpton and William F. Buckley, Jr. were vestigial examples.. Except at parties. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. 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. Whats the matter?, Well, he said. I just heard that George Plimpton has died.
Shouldice Clinic Wait Times,
Articles G