By George Plimpton. What stood in our way? 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. (A variation is the Locust Valley Lockjaw.). He could have done whatever he wanted. * Ive always heard it referred to as a patrician accent. At one point, there was a tremendous Wagnerian thunder and lighting storm. In his July 1936 obituary, the New York Times described George Arthur Plimpton (13 July 1855-1 July 1936) as an "internationally known publisher and collector, college trustee and philanthropist." As the materials in the George A. Plimpton Papers testify, those four areas of activity dominated Plimpton's public and private lives. The Wikipedia entry is indeed delightful. [33] A later attempt, fired at Cape Canaveral, rose approximately 50 feet (15m) into the air and broke 700 windows in Titusville, Florida. Plimpton brought the Left Bank to NYCpeople like Peter Mathiessen, William Styron, Terry Southern. 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. You should be very grateful. He also appeared in a featurette about Edie Sedgwick found on the Ciao! *Originally posted by cuauhtemoc * 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. [3] During the summers, he lived in the hamlet of West Hills, Huntington, Suffolk County on Long Island. He was not himself interested in poetry, but he read all of the poems every quarter, and he would tell me what he thought of them. When he was on the scene, everything was a big happeningan event. If he couldnt be taken quite seriously, that was fine with him (he took himself lightly, and relished being in on the joke). He also served as editor of the Harvard Lampoon. [citation needed], In 1963, Plimpton attended preseason training with the Detroit Lions of the National Football League as a backup quarterback, and he ran a few plays in an intrasquad scrimmage. [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. With such a useful explanation, why do I gripe about the name? 3: Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". 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 . Ever. At the time, he was getting ready to pitch for the Yankees,and we would throw pitches across 72nd Street in preparation. Larchmont Lockjaw? That life couldnt contain him, hed burst its seams like it was an old coat two sizes too small. This speech pattern might be common among US expatriates in the UK, of which Grossman would seem to represent just the most ostentatious example. What exactly is a Boston Brahmin accent? O ne afternoon this summer, I sat in George Plimpton's study waiting for the gentleman editor, participatory journalist, and beloved gadfly of American letters to arrive. So we got together and, after some preliminaries, he popped the question that he was really there to ask. He had a small role in the Oscar-winning film Good Will Hunting,[22] playing a psychologist. I think the term Old Money or patrician pretty much says it. 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. The last time I heard my fathers voice, it was over the telephone. On Sept. 26, George Plimpton died in his sleep, at the age of 76. He looked for ways in which he could make himself a ridiculous figure, and not only on the football field, but in all walks of life. I can understand your frustration, but celebrities die every day. Manhattan DVD. Hed have that and a scotch on the rocks, his favorite drink. 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. 1 draft choice of the Lions in 1965. Kim Noble, one of the announcers on the NPR affiliate in Kansas City, KCUR, speaks with a very affected Connecticut Lockjaw accent. Showdown in the Pits. Whee!! My dad and I could not lose each other, but we could never quite find each other, either. I had George tell him the story of Sidd Finch. In 1955 or 56, he went back to New York. **Those of us whose families are from Larchmont (that would be me) just call it lockjaw. Youll get another shot at the big time, trust me. Vault. 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. Indeed, the police deposition the filmmakers managed to uncover may be the only time my dad ever spoke about the tragedy, publicly or privately. Butch, he says, because he always called me Butch. He had it all going! Back to Plimpton I dont remember the LL affect at all. 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. [2][43], An oral biography titled George, Being George was edited by Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., and released on October 21, 2008. How to find out, and whether you should care. He modestly shrugged off the compliment, but his bright smile betrayed his pleasureand ours. In the offices of the Paris Review, he displayed far more discerning tastes. Plimpton's The Bogey Man chronicles his attempt to play professional golf on the PGA Tour during the Nicklaus and Palmer era of the 1960s. He Was Shot by John Wayne. He was smooth. 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. If you say, I parked my car in Harvard Yard, you are being rhotic. **Your transparent jealousy is very unbecoming, Carnac. George Plimpton (1927-2003) was a journalist and the first editor-in-chief of The Paris Review. . BTW, I cant imagine a presidential candidate today getting anywhere close to a nomination with FDRs accent, cigarette holder, and aristocratic bearing. Shootout at Rio Lobo", "The Smaller the Ball, the Better the Book: A Game Theory of Literature", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Plimpton&oldid=1137974740, This page was last edited on 7 February 2023, at 10:19. Future Poet Laureate Donald Hall, who had met Plimpton at Exeter, was Poetry Editor. The Left Bank really became East 72nd Street. He was going to put on a reading of his play Zelda, Scott, and Ernest. He had a way of putting it all together, of understanding fighters in the ring; he was a good analyst of boxing. That was the last party for a while., I just got back from a road trip from Michigan. Was this sheer affectation? Queen Elizabeth doesnt say car, and neither did Franklin D. Roosevelt, nor did the newsreel announcers or movie actors of his day. **Mid-Atlantic. When George told the story, DiMaggio laughed so hard I thought he was going to fall on the floor. 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. It was horrifying.. Plimpton embedded with the Detroit Lions for their three week training camp, an adventure which culminated with him playing quarterback in their annual intra-team preseason scrimmage. These experiences served as the basis of another football book, Mad Ducks and Bears, although much of the book dealt with the off-field escapades and observations of football friends Alex Karras ("Mad Duck") and John Gordy ("Bear"). Is your language rhotic? The Sidd Finch story was accompanied by a series of photos which managed to convince even the eagle-eyed fans . & FDR, George Plimpton, William F. Buckley, etc. I received many notes like this one: The variety of English you are referring to has a name in linguistics: "Mid-Atlantic English". But looking back on it, its funny, too. "[44], In 2006, the musician Jonathan Coulton wrote the song entitled "A Talk with George", a part of his 'Thing a Week' series, in tribute to Plimpton's many adventures and approach to life. In 1992, Plimpton married Sarah Whitehead Dudley, a graduate of Columbia University and a freelance writer. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007. George was the one who read my name out to the commissioner. After it was published, all of the baseball people were trying to get in touch with Sidd, but he didnt existit was an April Fools joke! OK? Plimpton and Dudley were the parents of twin daughters Laura Dudley Plimpton and Olivia Hartley Plimpton. It includes clear pronunciation of each and every consonant cluster. So it went in late 1960 at one of George Plimpton's legendary soirees at 541 E. 72nd St., New York. 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 feel that his work on this and many other language-related matters should be far more widely known than it is. For more than five decades, author and journalist George Plimpton delved deeply into an array of high-profile and often physically grueling experiences, including professional baseball, boxing . George Plimpton is beautifully connected. Orson Welles notably spoke in a mid-Atlantic accent in the 1941 film Citizen Kane, as did many of his co-stars, such as Joseph Cotten. 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. Few could give a toast or tell a story with equal humor. Actually, thats not far off from how my mom felt when she first met him. There was intellectual heft in the Plimpton genes too: one Ames was a Professor of Botany, another was Governor of Massachusetts, another relation was a publisher, and yet another a writer-philanthropist fascinated with the subject of how the great figures of the past were educated Young Georges educational path was precisely that of a His father co-founded the law firm Debevoise Plimpton. "[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. Heres a sampling for today, with more planned in the days ahead. In the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated, Plimpton pulled off a widely reported April Fools' Day prank. 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." Jonathan Ames, author:Back in the fall of 1999, in preparation for my one and only boxing match, I read George Plimptons great book, Shadow Box, where he recounted his foray into the world of boxing and his famous encounter with Archie Moore. I have decided, he said, that I have got to jump from a plane. Firstly, then-managing director of SI, Mark Mulvoy, gave Plimpton the liberty to create a hoax.Secondly, SI photographer Lane Stewart recruited his friend, Joe Berton to play the part of Sidd Finch. 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. He plays the 'fancy pants' to our outhouse Americana," Flaherty asserted. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yogaand his future in baseball. George Plimpton was born on March 18, 1927 in New York City, New York, USA. 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. Richard Howard, poetry editor, the Paris Review:I worked with George for 10 years on the magazine. Havent heard that term in years. Among other challenges for Sports Illustrated, he attempted to play top-level bridge, and spent some time as a high-wire circus performer. 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). The fake English announcer voice lingered on sporadically until the end of the Johnson administration in newsreels, which themselves ceased production around the same time, but Rod Serlings decision sounded the death knell for that accent. He was a great addition to the human race. $ 9.19 - $ 32.19. [2], In 1975, in Bellport, Long Island, Plimpton, with Fireworks by Grucci attempted to break the record for the world's largest firework. The clearest example of the Mid-Atlantic accent is the accent of the Frasier & Niles Crane characters on the TV show Frasier. I just heard that George Plimpton has died. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. Discussing the accent he used for Washington in an interview with The Onion AV Club, he explained: The accent back then was probably nothing like what we think of as a Southern accent now or a New England accent now, so we tried to find the root of the accents. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. I always thought it sounded similar to the accent of William F. Buckley, Jr., who I believe was not reared in Boston. One reader writes: I've wondered whether that "announcer English" was at least partly caused by poor loudspeakers and microphones. 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. News children today have no concept of the Mid-Atlantic accent. (Why do I even bother?) Several readers wrote in with specimens of Americans who had gone to England and ended up speaking in this mid-Atlantic way. "I've decided to stay over here in . Never heard of this decidedly imprecise term. How do I know you're not George Plimpton? 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. So it was that George Plimptons accent could not be imitated. 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! History / Biographical Note Biographical Note. He once said that, in writing Paper Lion, he wanted to reveal the "humor and grace" of football. 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. Friends were almost always happy to see him because you knew he was bound to improve your mood. 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. I didnt know he was from the Larchmont area. The Writer's Chapbook A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit, and Advice from the Twentieth Century's Preeminent Writers. And what have we here? My moms initial impression was that he was a little hoity-toityI mean, who did this guy think he was?, But the second time they met, it was, in fact, my fathers voice that won her over. Now, in George, Being George, 200 friends, lovers and rivals detail Plimpton's remarkable exploits. Here's a look inside the space, where the Paris Review editor hosted legendary parties. Your transparent jealousy is very unbecoming, Carnac. [23] He was also notable for his appearance in television commercials during the early 1980s, including a memorable campaign for Mattel's Intellivision. 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. Okay, then, are you saying that Plimpton has such as accent? 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. 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. Its our anniversary. I enjoy doing it. Thats it, George cried out. Isnt that what they call it. Thurston Howell III had the Larchmont Lockjaw accent. 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. I just heard that George Plimpton has died. 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. 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.". I saw him [last] Wednesday night at a party; we rode home together, and he told me that he was planning to go down to Cuba, to revisit the site of his famous interview with Hemingway. Timothy Seldes, George Plimptons literary agent:Whenever George wanted me to do something for him, he would call me up and say, Hello, Old Tim. One day, I got a call, and heard his voice, and my heart sank. Those of us whose families are from Larchmont (that would be me) just call it lockjaw. 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! I havent heard that he is dead, but if so RIP George. George . Ill try to give a representative range, and I am grateful for the care and thought that have gone into these responses. He was equally at home on a bicycle or getting out of a limousine with a Saudi Arabian prince. People two or three deep stood looking out at the East River. His dish was Spaghetti Bolognese. He was respected by all. 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. Harvard (where he edited the Lampoon), Kings College, 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. The Curious Case Of Sidd Finch. His response was "no, just affected.". It was as if some old gentlemans code prohibited us from interacting as human beings. 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. rejoiced in the name of Euphemia van Renssalaer Wyatt. Plimpton appeared in the 1989 documentary The Tightrope Dancer which featured the life and the work of the artist Vali Myers. Here's how Geroge Plimpton and his team created a prodigious pitcher out of thin air. He appeared in the PBS American Masters documentary on Andy Warhol. *Originally posted by CBCD * 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. 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. 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.