Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yogaand his future in baseball. 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. He smiled broadly, signaled for the coach to send Lupica in to run for him, and trotted back to the sidelines. Plimpton appeared in the 1989 documentary The Tightrope Dancer which featured the life and the work of the artist Vali Myers. He has the same type of patrician upper-class New Yorker accent as Jane Wyatt. His dish was Spaghetti Bolognese. I just heard that George Plimpton has died. After the technology improved the need to speak so histrionically went away, and so did "announcer English.". & FDR, George Plimpton, William F. Buckley, etc. :rolleyes: Ive got news for you, buddy, youre not even second in line! George Plimpton's duplex apartment on the Upper East Side hit the market for $5.495 million on April 18. 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. Here's how Geroge Plimpton and his team created a prodigious pitcher out of thin air. [33] A later attempt, fired at Cape Canaveral, rose approximately 50 feet (15m) into the air and broke 700 windows in Titusville, Florida. But the gentleman amateur - a Harvard. 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. Its our anniversary. I think the term Old Money or patrician pretty much says it. [37] His son, Taylor, described it as a mixture of "old New England, old New York, tinged with a hint of King's College King's English."[14]. He also served as editor of the Harvard Lampoon. Rose Styron, wife of William Styron and former Paris Review editor:My husband Bill was with George when he started the Paris Review. The conservative thinker may have shared an accent with some other men of the same age and social class, but his mannerisms and gestures made him entirely uniqueand occasionally prone to. He thought Castro might come. If you are in the big league, God help us all. In this campaign, Plimpton touted the superiority regarding the graphics and sounds of Intellivision video games over the Atari 2600.[24]. The funny thing about Harris was that he did not start out with that accent - as I suspect George Gershwin did not. 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. I havent heard that he is dead, but if so RIP George. Look out, Wilson! The Paris Review was a testimony to his literary taste and his sense of glamour. 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. 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. At the time, he was getting ready to pitch for the Yankees,and we would throw pitches across 72nd Street in preparation. [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 once said that, in writing Paper Lion, he wanted to reveal the "humor and grace" of football. He looked like a very eccentric old Englishman. Mr. Plimpton was born in Manhattan in 1927 and raised in Huntington, L.I. The Dudleys established the 36-acre (15ha) Highstead Arboretum in Redding, Connecticut. Vault. Mr . **Mid-Atlantic. [citation needed], In the movie Plimpton! All the good guys have got to go. 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. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. 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. Back to Plimpton I dont remember the LL affect at all. But Labov said that in post-World War II New York, fancier people started becoming rhotic, and recovering their Rs. He had, for instance, a series of antiquated phrases and terms of affection. Was this sheer affectation? Plimpton was associated with the literary magazine in Paris, Merlin, which folded because the State Department withdrew its support.[why?] Indeed, the police deposition the filmmakers managed to uncover may be the only time my dad ever spoke about the tragedy, publicly or privately. Powered by Discourse, best viewed with JavaScript enabled. He was previously married to Sara Whitehead Dudley and Freddy Medora Espy. The opposing team: the Detroit Lions. 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. Exeter Academy after an incident involving a And his apartment, with those windows that looked out onto the East River, became a famous landmark in NYC. Finally I did. 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. 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. On Sept. 26, George Plimpton died in his sleep, at the age of 76. 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. He hosted Disney Channel's Mouseterpiece Theater (a Masterpiece Theatre spoof which featured Disney cartoon shorts). tweedy demeanor and Oxford accent. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. Shoot! hed hiss, when he was mad. Paul McCartney and his then-girlfriend Heather showed up. **Those of us whose families are from Larchmont (that would be me) just call it lockjaw. After running the pilot, Rod Serling realized the narration needed a less pompous sounding and more natural voice himself. Between 1945 and 1948, Plimpton was a soldier in the United States Army. How to find out, and whether you should care. That was the last party for a while., I just got back from a road trip from Michigan. 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 it, as does/did William Buckley, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Julia Child. Im having a harder time coming up with clear examples from the other side of the Atlantic, but Ive heard Alfred Molina (Londoner), and Catherine Zeta-Jones (Welsh) put on a Mid-Atlantic accent from time to time.. I think all the editors who worked at the magazine can recount a time when they ascended to his office to argue for a particular story that had been submitted, certain that George hadnt read it or hadnt read it closely enough, only to stand gape-mouthed as he reeled off, from memory, its every deficiency. 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 . 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. 2023 Cond Nast. Kaltenborn was a famous mid . (A variation is the Locust Valley Lockjaw.). He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review. He appeared in commercials for Oldsmobile and Intellivision, and appeared. :rolleyes: Ive got news for you, buddy, youre not even second in line! George Plimpton. 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. 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. [26] He also appeared in an episode of the NBC sitcom Wings. 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. His response was "no, just affected.". Sign up for the Books & Fiction newsletter. It was a great partyraucous and long. It was so violent that it brought a lot of people to the windows. Youll get another shot at the big time, trust me. Why couldnt we have a good time, too? Premiring on June 21st at the SilverDocs festival, in Washington, D.C., and directed by Tom Bean and Luke Poling, the film contains interviews with notable friends and peers like Hugh Hefner, Peter Matthiessen, and James Lipton, though the majority of this remarkable account is narrated by none other than George Plimpton. The Left Bank really became East 72nd Street. Over the years, we held a lot of dinner parties for him, and he brought a lot of people inmany, many writers. It was as if he was trying out again. Was it him? For it was George Plimpton the writer, not the editor nor the celebrity, who was honored here . [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. When he was on the scene, everything was a big happeningan event. In the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated, Plimpton pulled off a widely reported April Fools' Day prank. Its a joke to say 500 of my closest friends, but that would have been true with George1,000 of his closest friends, actually. 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. Bill Buckley, Gore Vidal, George Plimpton. In 2013, the documentary Plimpton! The film used archival audio and video of Plimpton lecturing and reading to create a posthumous narration. Its a shot from a YouTube video that itself is a fascinating time-capsule portrait of language change. He was so open to life and all its new and unexpected situations. I have worked as poetry editor with editors on other magazines; only with George has the experience been entirely agreeable. Plimpton was married twice. He was going to put on a reading of his play Zelda, Scott, and Ernest. He was "George Plimpton"-editor, host . Plimpton, George 1927-2003(George Ames Plimpton) Source for information on Plimpton, George 1927-2003: Concise Major 21st Century Writers dictionary. At Harvard, Plimpton was a classmate and close personal friend of Robert F. Kennedy. The name George Plimpton is synonymous with a kind of all-in participatory journalism. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Starring George Plimpton as Himself, "George Plimpton, Urbane and Witty Writer, Dies at 76", "Obituary: Frances T. P. Plimpton, 82, Dies", "Obituary: Pauline A. Plimpton, 93, Author Of Works on Famed Relatives", "Milton at the Midpoint of the Last Century: One Collection of Memories", "How Failing at Exeter made a Success of George Plimpton", "Legendary Humorist, Poonster Dies at 76 | News | The Harvard Crimson", "George Plimpton, Paris Review Founder, Pitches 1980s Video Games for the Mattel Intellivision", "The Simpsons: I'm Spelling As Fast As I Can", "George Plimpton, Author And Editor, Is Dead at 76", "Professor Muhammed Ali Delivers Lecture; Poems and Parables Fill Talk on Friendship | News | The Harvard Crimson", "George Plimpton | Full Film | American Masters | PBS", "George Plimpton, Still Burning His Punk at Both Ends, Finds a Sport in Which He Can Sparkle", "George Plimpton: The Professional Amateur", "Some Really Dangerous Jobs For George Plimpton", "Being, And Appreciating, George Plimpton", "Obituary: Willard Espy, Who Delighted In Wordplay, Is Dead at 88", "George Plimpton, Writer and editor, Is Wed to Sarah W. Dudley, a Writer", "Obituary: James C. Dudley, 77, Investment Adviser", "Naming the Sky: The true story of one man's quest to give George Plimpton a permanent presence in orbit", "DEAD END-DRIVE-IN | Plimpton! [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. 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. In that vein, here is an oral biography of George Plimpton. What exactly is a Boston Brahmin accent? Mid-Atlantic. I only wish I could not tell him again, just one more time. Showdown in the Pits. (Did Eisenhower speak the newsreel style? And you are going to come with me. His final interview appeared in The New York Sports Express of October 2, 2003 by journalist Dave Hollander. He saw athletes as heroes he. A little before my time, but Kennedy certainly didnt, even if his vernacular was more formal than Brandos. 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. He was immensely generous in every waygenerous about sharing the work and about giving one a chance to edit things. This brings us back to the why things changed question. 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. News children today have no concept of the Mid-Atlantic accent. One reader writes: I've wondered whether that "announcer English" was at least partly caused by poor loudspeakers and microphones. **Oh, I suppose we should all just lavish praise upon Carnac the Magnificent now for bringing this to your attention, is that it? Anyhow, I asked Terry Gross from Fresh Air and George Plimpton to be auctioneers. With a little more practice, you could give us boys in the big leagues a run for our money. Hes just trying it out and will come back and write a book about his experiences. 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. By George Plimpton. Mia had the perfect model! The flipped prestige markers point here is fascinating. And George had written it straight. 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. Eerily enough, one of the messages on my answering machine was from George, with that distinctive accent of his: Hallo, its George Plimpton. Okay, then, are you saying that Plimpton has such as accent? He was also an accomplished birdwatcher. 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. It was horrifying.. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007. Plimpton himself described it as a "New England cosmopolitan accent"[36] or "Eastern seaboard cosmopolitan" accent. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. [3], He was the son of Francis T. P. Plimpton[4] and the grandson of Frances Taylor Pearsons and George Arthur Plimpton. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC.