Articles From This Author. It was so tiny that if you saw him in it, you couldnt believe hed be able to get himself out of it. The opposing team: the Detroit Lions. In 2013, the documentary Plimpton! 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. Several weeks later at a book party, he spotted two writers who had played in that game. Old money, would never say the word spanky, and certainly had more money than God could count. A few days after, I went to a Paris Review party and showed off my damaged nose and two black eyes to George. After returning to New York from Paris, he routinely launched fireworks at his evening parties. Norman Mailer said that George Plimpton was the best-loved man in New York. The last time I heard my fathers voice, it was over the telephone. He had a way of putting it all together, of understanding fighters in the ring; he was a good analyst of boxing. To me, Mid-Atlantic English is the nom juste for a related but distinct phenomenon (which is also mentioned in Wikipedia). Update: This post is #2 in the announcer-speak series. **. Billy Collins, poet:Im one of these people who went from crashing Georges parties in the 70s to being invited in the 80s. George Plimpton writer, publisher, amateur lion tamer died in 2003 after 50 years as the founding editor of The Paris Review. Between 1945 and 1948, Plimpton was a soldier in the United States Army. . Among other challenges for Sports Illustrated, he attempted to play top-level bridge, and spent some time as a high-wire circus performer. YESTERDAY IS NOT FAR AWAY. Isnt that what they call it. Plimpton was an optimist, a teller of amusing and amazing stories. 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. Dan Rather certainly marks the definitive end of the newsreel style and the ascendance of the folksy vernacular: those rustic analogies! Youd be on the phone with him and get to the end of the conversation, and youd say I love you, Dad, and at most, hed reply, without subject or object, Love, like he was signing a letter. It was as if some old gentlemans code prohibited us from interacting as human beings. [33] A later attempt, fired at Cape Canaveral, rose approximately 50 feet (15m) into the air and broke 700 windows in Titusville, Florida. Plimpton entered Harvard as a member of the Class of 1948, but did not graduate until 1950 due to intervening military service. 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. History / Biographical Note Biographical Note. See below!) 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. With the evolution of talkies in the late 1920s, voice was first heard in motion pictures. 08:37 Dinner at Elaine's. by George Plimpton. In 1955 or 56, he went back to New York. On Sept. 26, George Plimpton died in his sleep, at the age of 76. From what other people had told me, I knew a little bit about itthat my father (and mother) had been right by Bobbys side in California when he was shot, that my father had tackled Sirhan Sirhan to the ground, and wrestled the gun from his handbut not a word of it came from my dad himself. He did these jobs, and many others, as an amateur.. How widespread, numerically and geographically? In the offices of the Paris Review, he displayed far more discerning tastes. The funny thing about Harris was that he did not start out with that accent - as I suspect George Gershwin did not. Of course, I think he enjoyed the odd persona his voice and mannerisms conferred on him. Hows your mom? hed always ask me. If you are in the big league, God help us all. His father co-founded the law firm Debevoise Plimpton. And I, of course, was looking them over, too. And you are going to come with me. (And, OK, Im not a linguist, but Im married to one!) Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yogaand his future in baseball. Mr . Mid-Atlantic. What exactly is a Boston Brahmin accent? 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. Except at parties. To me, it meant admission to this little exclusive club at the Paris Review. Plimpton and Dudley were the parents of twin daughters Laura Dudley Plimpton and Olivia Hartley Plimpton. Ill try to give a representative range, and I am grateful for the care and thought that have gone into these responses. He very much approved. **Get a life. Larchmont Lockjaw? 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. Friends were almost always happy to see him because you knew he was bound to improve your mood. 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". A friend of the New England Sedgwick family, Plimpton edited Edie: An American Biography with Jean Stein in 1982. He was an actor and writer, known for Good Will Hunting (1997), Nixon (1995) and Just Cause (1995). By George Plimpton. A reader writes: Ive wondered about this myself when I see old Jimmy Cagney moviesand the date of his last starring role might give us a hint towards the date range of the change: "One, Two, Three" in 1961. They spoke in this manner, and it seemed perfectly natural, evocative of a background spent among the gentry of the northeast.. Hed have that and a scotch on the rocks, his favorite drink. The wife is also old money, as Phlosphr mentions, and she talks exactly the same way. Big, tall, good-looking guy, easy-going. George was not vainhe didnt care a whit about his image. 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. But he could easily have said, Alice, I have enough trouble raising money for my magazine.. Her mother, a writer and critic for Commonweal and Catholic World. 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. Look out, Wilson! 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. 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"). He rounded first as if he were about to go for a double, then glided back to the base, with fans waving and cheering. 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. 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. His final interview appeared in The New York Sports Express of October 2, 2003 by journalist Dave Hollander. [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 was immensely generous in every waygenerous about sharing the work and about giving one a chance to edit things. I just heard that George Plimpton has died. 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. These are some of the things my father could not say: Shit. Fuck. I love you. His curses were never actually curse-words, though it was perhaps because of this that they held such weight. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. 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. Jean Stein became his co-editor. In the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated, Plimpton pulled off a widely reported April Fools' Day prank. He could have done whatever he wanted. He was smooth. 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. I have worked as poetry editor with editors on other magazines; only with George has the experience been entirely agreeable. Please educate me. Plimpton was married twice. By George Plimpton. George Plimpton. The title of the PBS documentary - "Plimpton! [citation needed]. **Mid-Atlantic. This brings us back to the why things changed question. Hed go on to move freely through so many worlds and circles, without ever not speaking in that singular accentthough it probably would have made life easier for him if hed adopted a new way of talking (after all, as a journalist in the locker rooms, where slang and cursing were art-forms, my dads stiff, formal tongue made him stick out like an egret among ducks). 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. When he found a story to be short of the mark, he rejected it no matter who the author wasan old friend, a Pulitzer winner, an unknown. The book offers memories of Plimpton from among other writers, such as Norman Mailer, William Styron, Gay Talese and Gore Vidal, and was written with the cooperation of both his ex-wife and his widow. I dont give a rats ass about informing anyone about the death of Plimpton. It was then that the majority of audiences first heard Hollywood actors speaking predominantly in Mid-Atlantic English, British expatriates John Houseman, Henry Daniell, Anthony Hopkins, Camilla Luddington, and Angela Cartwright exemplified the accent, as did [a long list of North Americans, from Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly to Richard Chamberlain and Christopher Plummer]. He had, for instance, a series of antiquated phrases and terms of affection. [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. Back to Plimpton I dont remember the LL affect at all. He smiled broadly, signaled for the coach to send Lupica in to run for him, and trotted back to the sidelines. And so it seemed only fitting to commemorate his death with the form he made his own.Meghan ORourke. He was so open to life and all its new and unexpected situations. Thurston Howell III had the Larchmont Lockjaw accent. George Plimpton (1927-2003) was a journalist and the first editor-in-chief of The Paris Review. 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. When Muhammad Ali was fighting, George Plimpton was always there. We had the book party for my selected poems, Sailing Alone Around the Room, at Georges house on Sept 10, 2001.
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