"[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. And he told everyone that night, and for many years after, that hed diverted me from a career of filling prescriptions. It was a hot, sweltering day. 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 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. 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. I just heard that George Plimpton has died. (Did Eisenhower speak the newsreel style? 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. Everything he did was like this, just a bit odd. Norman Mailer said that George Plimpton was the best-loved man in New York. We made $15,000-20,000. ), this isnt some kind of morbid contest to see who can be the first to inform the board of some celebritys death. It was a great partyraucous and long. Prestigious prep schools and ivy league institutions (though Gore Vidal never went to college). (This is not to belittle Lowell Thomas, but to recognize the artifice that served him so well in his career). Plimpton's remarkable life is showcased in a documentary that is. Vault. [citation needed]. Again with thanks to Jonathan Fields, here's the continuation of George Plimpton's famous interview of Ernest Hemingway from the Paris Review, Summer 1958. In 1966, George Plimpton's book Paper Lion, recounting his attempt to play football with the Detroit Lions, allowed millions of Americans to vicariously live out their childhood dream of playing in the NFL. Researcher and writer Samuel Arbesman filed with NASA to name an asteroid after Plimpton; NASA issued the certificate 7932 Plimpton in 2009. With such a useful explanation, why do I gripe about the name? Besides, third is a very respectable showing! Its strange to think, but he would have been eighty-five this year: fourteen years older than my mom, fifty years older than me. Did he have the celebrated "Boston Brahmin" accent, or was it a psuedo-Brit affectation? George Plimpton, Out of My League: The Classic Account of an Amateur's Ordeal in Professional Baseball, 2016, Little *Originally posted by CBCD * That was the last party for a while., I just got back from a road trip from Michigan. On Sept. 26, George Plimpton died in his sleep, at the age of 76. Plimpton scowled, and said he was perfectly capable of running for himself. Harris trained himself as a young man to lose his native Bronx accent - to the point that he was asked if he were British. 2023 Cond Nast. Friends were almost always happy to see him because you knew he was bound to improve your mood. . And George had written it straight. Off screen, George Plimpton and Gore Vidal come to mind. Future Poet Laureate Donald Hall, who had met Plimpton at Exeter, was Poetry Editor. 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. Powered by Discourse, best viewed with JavaScript enabled. He had it, as does/did William Buckley, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Julia Child. [29], His enthusiasm for fireworks grew, and he was appointed Fireworks Commissioner of New York by Mayor John Lindsay,[29][30] an unofficial post he held until his death. After her transformation, I noted that Mia sounds precisely like her mother, Maureen OSullivan, who had that patrician manner of speaking on and off screen. 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. Plimpton was .the public face of the New York intellectual: tweedy, eclectic and with a plummy accent he himself described as "Eastern seaboard cosmopolitan." . He said, You better stay here, and I did, for a while. By George Plimpton. Macklem . Plimpton died on September 25, 2003, in his New York City apartment from a heart attack later determined to have been caused by a catecholamine surge. Besides, third is a very respectable showing! 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. 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. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. By George Plimpton. [35], Plimpton was known for his distinctive accent which, by Plimpton's own admission, was often mistaken for an English accent. 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. Now you know! 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. 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. And so fuck was definitely out of the question, but what about I love you? I thoroughly enjoyed listening to these men speak. He has the same type of patrician upper-class New Yorker accent as Jane Wyatt. [5][6][7][8][9][10] His father was a successful corporate lawyer and partner of the law firm Debevoise and Plimpton; he was appointed by President John F. Kennedy as U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations, serving from 1961 to 1965. Hed done it in Amsterdam, Moscow, and London; hed done it at a PEN benefit; and now he and Norman were going to do it in Cuba. Peter Matthiessen took the magazine over from Humes and ousted him as editor, replacing him with Plimpton, using it as his cover for Matthiessen's CIA activities. Plimpton would not boast of his feat, so we did. I think the term Old Money or patrician pretty much says it. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. 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. If you listen to Grossman (who is originally from Boston) starting about 15 seconds into the clip below, youll see that he uses a split-the-difference UK/US hybrid that is literally mid-Atlantic, in the sense of combining accents from both countries, but is different from the newsreel announcer voice: You should talk to William Labov [JF: I will try] , pioneering sociolinguist, whose landmark study into New York City speech led him to ask the same question you have. His father co-founded the law firm Debevoise Plimpton. 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. That he died in his sleep was impressive. Off screen, George Plimpton and Gore Vidal come to mind. That was when Westbrook van Voorhis, the famous March of Time voice, did the intro narration of the pilot episode of The Twilight Zone. My dad and I could not lose each other, but we could never quite find each other, either. No, my fathers voice was not an act, something chosen or practiced in front of mirrors: he came from a different world, where people talked differently, and about different things; where certain things were discussed, and certain things were notand his voice simply reflected this. In all my years, Ive never heard this accent in person. silk-stockinged New Englander - private schools (he was Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007. Elaine Kaufman, owner of Elaines restaurant:Over the 40 years I knew him, George came in often, sometimes twice a week, usually on his way back from a cocktail party. My suspicion is that the shift might have begun in the switch away from the two paired styles in American movies, the classical acting of the British School and the rapid patter of popular American actors (Marx Brothers, Cagney, Powell and Loy, etc), and over to the Method Acting style of the Strasberg/Brando/Dean school. Oh now, Im joking, Carnac ( see? :rolleyes: Ive got news for you, buddy, youre not even second in line! George Plimpton was a literary man about town who did it all, from co-founding The Paris . I thought they were terrific. . Kim Noble, one of the announcers on the NPR affiliate in Kansas City, KCUR, speaks with a very affected Connecticut Lockjaw accent. Articles From This Author. Your transparent jealousy is very unbecoming, Carnac. The Paris Review was a testimony to his literary taste and his sense of glamour. *Originally posted by j.c. * The clenched jaw tight-bite bit: the lockjaw dentiloquist. 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. The first minute is a cameo by Henry Ford II, who speaks in an utterly flat Midwest rather than Mid-Atlantic accent that no one would call elegant but that would sound perfectly natural in 2015. Vault. 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! **Mid-Atlantic. 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. Plimpton was a writer-raconteur and dilettante in the best sense of the word: He co-founded an important literary magazine, the . (And, OK, Im not a linguist, but Im married to one!) 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 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. He was also an accomplished birdwatcher. 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.". Think of the accent of Jane Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies. Isnt that what they call it. 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. Was this sheer affectation? George Plimpton: what kind of accent? [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. Well have a lot more to say about Buckley and Vidal for now the leaders in the race for Last American to Talk This Way (with George Plimpton in third)in the next installment. A friend of the New England Sedgwick family, Plimpton edited Edie: An American Biography with Jean Stein in 1982. 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. YESTERDAY IS NOT FAR AWAY. Rose Styron, wife of William Styron and former Paris Review editor:My husband Bill was with George when he started the Paris Review. 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. George Plimpton was an upper-class guy with a patrician accent who partied his way through life . He majored in English. Here's a look inside the space, where the Paris Review editor hosted legendary parties. 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. By George Plimpton. He hosted Disney Channel's Mouseterpiece Theater (a Masterpiece Theatre spoof which featured Disney cartoon shorts). Plimpton also appeared in the closing credits of the 2006 film Factory Girl. 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.. 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. The Wikipedia entry is indeed delightful. Lewis Lapham, editor, Harpers Magazine:Georges immense enthusiasm was his primary characteristic. Plimpton was associated with the literary magazine in Paris, Merlin, which folded because the State Department withdrew its support.[why?] We all just had our own regional accentor non accent, like the flat midwest speak. George was not vainhe didnt care a whit about his image. Greetings From the Vortex of Unpredictability, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. I always thought it sounded similar to the accent of William F. Buckley, Jr., who I believe was not reared in Boston. Havent heard that term in years. 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. After returning to New York from Paris, he routinely launched fireworks at his evening parties. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. With the evolution of talkies in the late 1920s, voice was first heard in motion pictures. He wrote for the Harvard Lampoon, was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, Pi Eta, the Signet Society, and the Porcellian Club. In that vein, here is an oral biography of George Plimpton. He did these jobs, and many others, as an amateur.. [citation needed], Plimpton's studies at Harvard were interrupted by military service from 1945 to 1948, during which time he served in Italy as an Army tank driver. 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. Katharine Hepburn spoke this way, on and off screen until she died.
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