The last time I heard my fathers voice, it was over the telephone. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007. After returning to New York from Paris, he routinely launched fireworks at his evening parties. At Harvard, Plimpton was a classmate and close personal friend of Robert F. Kennedy. Now, in George, Being George, 200 friends, lovers and rivals detail Plimpton's remarkable exploits. 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. You heard it and it. (The filmmakers assembled his voice-over from recorded speeches and other archival footage.) 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 .the public face of the New York intellectual: tweedy, eclectic and with a plummy accent he himself described as "Eastern seaboard cosmopolitan." . The presentation was called Freedom of the American Road and was made 60 years ago, in 1955, as part of the campaign to build support for the new Interstate Highway system. Yes indeed, George Plimpton is a man for all seasons. 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. 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. I havent heard that he is dead, but if so RIP George. Was this sheer affectation? Even Orson Welles on occasion. I didnt know he was from the Larchmont area. 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. The s. [citation needed]. All rights reserved. Plimpton, George 1927-2003(George Ames Plimpton) Source for information on Plimpton, George 1927-2003: Concise Major 21st Century Writers dictionary. But he came right down to our level. 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! $ 4.19 - $ 17.92. One of the magazine's most notable discoveries was author and screenplay writer Terry Southern, who was living in Paris at the time and formed a lifelong friendship with Plimpton, along with writer Alexander Trocchi and future classical and jazz pioneer David Amram. [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." 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. So it was that my father played himself not just in movies and on TV, but in life, too. The Writer's Chapbook A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit, and Advice from the Twentieth Century's Preeminent Writers. You're going to play for us-making some sort of big comeback." "That's right," Plimpton replied in his patrician accent. If he couldnt be taken quite seriously, that was fine with him (he took himself lightly, and relished being in on the joke). He had a small role in the Oscar-winning film Good Will Hunting,[22] playing a psychologist. Its a shot from a YouTube video that itself is a fascinating time-capsule portrait of language change. [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. Ever. 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. That phony-baloney feigned British pronunciation thing. Paul McCartney and his then-girlfriend Heather showed up. 3 people found this helpful . Where are you?, Im at dinner with my wife, I said. . 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. [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. The flipped prestige markers point here is fascinating. Plimpton's most memorable writings involved him inserting himself into a daunting situation about which he knew . The young Paris Review editor and other New York literary figures arrived during a period marked by hope for a democratic Cuba. May a diseased yak squat in your hot tub. 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). Nevertheless, its a strange thing that one of the great voices of modern storytelling had limitations, restrictions, words, and phrases it was incapable of uttering, matters it could not express: death, love, tragedy. Thurston Howell III had the Larchmont Lockjaw accent. At the time, he was getting ready to pitch for the Yankees,and we would throw pitches across 72nd Street in preparation. He was very understanding of what we did and how we did it. He was 76.. It is the kind of study . In 1992, Plimpton married Sarah Whitehead Dudley, a graduate of Columbia University and a freelance writer. He very much approved. His father co-founded the law firm Debevoise Plimpton. Starring George Plimpton as Himself, directed by Tom Bean and Luke Poling, was released. Macklem . 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. These events were recalled in his best-known book Paper Lion, which was later adapted into the 1968 feature film starring Alan Alda. He was so open to life and all its new and unexpected situations. He had it, as does/did William Buckley, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Julia Child. George Plimpton was born on March 18, 1927 in New York City, New York, USA. 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. 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, 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. Plimpton entered Harvard as a member of the Class of 1948, but did not graduate until 1950 due to intervening military service. 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. 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. George Plimpton. Manhattan DVD. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yogaand his future in baseball. Typical of George to laugh about something others saw as a defining traithe never took himself all that seriously. Queen Elizabeth doesnt say car, and neither did Franklin D. Roosevelt, nor did the newsreel announcers or movie actors of his day. 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 have decided, he said, that I have got to jump from a plane. [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]. These interviews are a collaborative effort, and, I believe, a fascinating contribution to literary history. You heard it and it could only be him. . The Paris Review was a testimony to his literary taste and his sense of glamour. He majored in English. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. 2) The Role of Broadway and Hollywood, and the Shift from Jimmy Cagney to Marlon Brando. :rolleyes: Ive got news for you, buddy, youre not even second in line! 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. Here are five things you may not have known about him. 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. Now the interview is perfect!. Few could give a toast or tell a story with equal humor. The title of the PBS documentary - "Plimpton! Plimpton appeared in the 1989 documentary The Tightrope Dancer which featured the life and the work of the artist Vali Myers.

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