In the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated, Plimpton pulled off a widely reported April Fools' Day prank. Between 2000 and 2003, Plimpton wrote the libretto to a new opera, Animal Tales, commissioned by Family Opera Initiative, with music by Kitty Brazelton directed by Grethe Barrett Holby. 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. his prose, and his down east, cultivated accent, although perhaps a bit pretentious, will remain with me as I reread one of my favorite books. 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. What exactly is a Boston Brahmin accent? Cambridge. 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. Plimpton and Dudley were the parents of twin daughters Laura Dudley Plimpton and Olivia Hartley Plimpton. Middle class? I do believe his accent was decidedly Swamp Yankee. 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. $ 9.19 - $ 32.19. 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. Okay, then, are you saying that Plimpton has such as accent? 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.". rejoiced in the name of Euphemia van Renssalaer Wyatt. I think the term Old Money or patrician pretty much says it. Plimpton played Tom Hanks's antagonistic father in Volunteers. I just heard that George Plimpton has died. As a result, this American version of a posh accent has all but disappeared even among the American upper classes. 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. Plimpton appeared in the 1989 documentary The Tightrope Dancer which featured the life and the work of the artist Vali Myers. By strange coincidence, I actually became quite good friends with his (ex-)in-laws here in Manhattan. 3 people found this helpful . The list of authors interviewed is extraordinary, and stretches from Hemingway years ago to Amy Hempel (in the 50th anniversary issue that has just been published). 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. 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. [32] When lit, the firework remained on the ground and exploded, blasting a crater 35 feet (11m) wide and 10 feet (3.0m) deep. I received many notes like this one: The variety of English you are referring to has a name in linguistics: "Mid-Atlantic English". He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review. If he couldnt be taken quite seriously, that was fine with him (he took himself lightly, and relished being in on the joke). 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. Prestigious prep schools and ivy league institutions (though Gore Vidal never went to college). A little before my time, but Kennedy certainly didnt, even if his vernacular was more formal than Brandos. . Sign up for the Books & Fiction newsletter. George Plimpton (1927-2003) George Plimpton was the editor of The Paris Review from its founding in 1953 until his death in 2003. No one realized till the next day that this was the weather that created the extreme blue skies of Sept. 11a condition I since learned that pilots call severe clear. The next day, friends called and said, That was the last party. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. The name George Plimpton is synonymous with a kind of all-in participatory journalism. [47][48] 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"). When Plimpton, the co-founder of The Paris Review, died in 2003 at age 76, The New York Times . 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. After finishing at Harvard in 1950, he attended King's College, Cambridge, from 1950 to 1952, and graduated with third class honors in English. Whom is it spoken bymerely the elite, old-money types? Yes he is gone. **Mid-Atlantic. He was respected by all. :rolleyes: Ive got news for you, buddy, youre not even second in line! Vault. 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. The title of the PBS documentary - "Plimpton! George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. 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. Speaking of which, didnt the young Jackie Kennedy have something of this, along with a kinda dreamy, airy, Monroe-esque (though many degrees less contrived) essence to it? *Originally posted by cuauhtemoc * He was smooth. Its a joke to say 500 of my closest friends, but that would have been true with George1,000 of his closest friends, actually. Oh now, Im joking, Carnac ( see? 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. Read more. If you didnt know the man, you could, I think, be fooled by the voice. [26] He also appeared in an episode of the NBC sitcom Wings. Kaltenborn was a famous mid . By George Plimpton. He was an actor and writer, known for Good Will Hunting (1997), Nixon (1995) and Just Cause (1995). [30] Plimpton later wrote the book Fireworks, and hosted an A&E Home Video with the same name featuring his many fireworks adventures with the Gruccis of New York in Monte Carlo and for the 1983 Brooklyn Bridge Centennial. Plimpton, along with former decathlete Rafer Johnson and American football star Rosey Grier, was credited with helping wrestle Sirhan Sirhan to the floor when Kennedy was assassinated following his victory in the 1968 California Democratic primary at the former Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. With such a useful explanation, why do I gripe about the name? Those of us whose families are from Larchmont (that would be me) just call it lockjaw. He very much approved. ), this isnt some kind of morbid contest to see who can be the first to inform the board of some celebritys death. [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. He was so open to life and all its new and unexpected situations. He knew we were just as good as he was, but in a different field. 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. So it was that my father played himself not just in movies and on TV, but in life, too. **. Buckley clearly flaunts it, probably to set himself apart from the hoi polloi of his contemporaries. 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. Kennedy died the next day at Good Samaritan Hospital. Family (1) Spouse The clipped, non-rhotic English accents of George Plimpton and William F. Buckley Jr. were vestigial examples. When Muhammad Ali was fighting, George Plimpton was always there. He plays the 'fancy pants' to our outhouse Americana," Flaherty asserted. Butch, he says, because he always called me Butch. *Originally posted by Phlosphr * [28], Plimpton was a demolitions expert in the post-World War II Army. If you were making a speech in a large hall, or speaking on the radio, you needed to enunciate very clearly and use a lot of emphases to be sure your audience could understand what you were saying. 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. I have decided, he said, that I have got to jump from a plane. What will you be mad about ten years after youre gone?). 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! [41] She is the daughter of James Chittenden Dudley,[42] a managing partner of Manhattan-based investment firm Dudley and Company, and geologist Elisabeth Claypool. "[27], Plimpton was a member of the cast of the A&E TV series A Nero Wolfe Mystery (200102). Few could give a toast or tell a story with equal humor. Macklem . In no way do I recall Plimpton talking in a way that is typically associated with LLa style which, as I understand it, is associated with unclear pronunciation of most consonant cluster. Plimpton had a quasi-Brit patrician accent, which in no way corresponds with the official descriptions of LL that Ive read on the Net. 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. 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. "[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. 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. Mia had the perfect model! 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". He wanted to play his own part, but they wouldnt let him. * Old money, would never say the word spanky, and certainly had more money than God could count. Ill pick you up., I had a hard time sleeping that night, as you might imagine. After returning to New York from Paris, he routinely launched fireworks at his evening parties. By George Plimpton. Share; Copied! We were bound to play the roles of father and son, unable to simply be ourselves. That was when Westbrook van Voorhis, the famous March of Time voice, did the intro narration of the pilot episode of The Twilight Zone. George was a little more in-depth than a lot of us, of course, with his education and all. 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. (Every now and then he also called me Sweet Prince, as in Goodnight, Sweet Prince.), Of course, my fathers voice was odd not just in what it said, but in what it couldnt. In 1994, Plimpton appeared several times in the Ken Burns series Baseball, in which he shared some personal baseball experiences as well as other memorable events throughout the history of baseball.[20]. It is the kind of study . Plimpton himself described it as a "New England cosmopolitan accent"[36] or "Eastern seaboard cosmopolitan" accent. 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. 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. Description above from the Wikipedia article George Plimpton, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of . After running the pilot, Rod Serling realized the narration needed a less pompous sounding and more natural voice himself. George also approved, I think, of the fact that I lost. Ever. He would have a beer with you. She was also the great-granddaughter on her father's side of Oakes Ames (18041873), an industrialist and congressman who was implicated in the Crdit Mobilier railroad scandal of 1872; and Governor-General of New Orleans Benjamin Franklin Butler, an American lawyer and politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States House of Representatives and later served as the 33rd Governor of Massachusetts. [2] His first wife, whom he married in 1968[38] and divorced in 1988, was Freddy Medora Espy, a photographer's assistant. Plimpton brought the Left Bank to NYCpeople like Peter Mathiessen, William Styron, Terry Southern. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. 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. When George told the story, DiMaggio laughed so hard I thought he was going to fall on the floor. George Plimpton writer, publisher, amateur lion tamer died in 2003 after 50 years as the founding editor of The Paris Review. **. And I, of course, was looking them over, too. "I've decided to stay over here in . A lifelong New Yorker, he never tasted a bagel or an olive, and he never chewed a stick of gum. It includes clear pronunciation of each and every consonant cluster. 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. Indeed, the police deposition the filmmakers managed to uncover may be the only time my dad ever spoke about the tragedy, publicly or privately. 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. Even the manliest actors, such as Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable sometimes slipped into this voice-coach mode. Look out, Wilson! Talking about sports with Georgeor, even better, reading George about sportswas more fun than sports themselves. His high Boston accent might have been heard as an influential transitional hybrid, and its interesting how prominent parodies of the speech of Brando, Dean, and Kennedy were at the time: seems a sign that we were noticing a marked change. On Saturday Night Live, even the great impersonator Dana Carvey couldnt get it quite right. **Oh, I suppose we should all just lavish praise upon Carnac the Magnificent now for bringing this to your attention, is that it? 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. Now the interview is perfect!. The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent, is a . Ive always heard it referred to as a patrician accent. Labov suspected that WWII had something to do about it. In 1992, Plimpton married Sarah Whitehead Dudley, a graduate of Columbia University and a freelance writer. Self-help author and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson has a unique accent that, . [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. It was horrifying.. The risky pleasures of Plimpton's classic of participatory sportswriting, Paper Lion. Everything he did was like this, just a bit odd. Was this sheer affectation? 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. You heard it and it. 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. A friend of the New England Sedgwick family, Plimpton edited Edie: An American Biography with Jean Stein in 1982. They all sound just like George. 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. The journal, which had operated out of his home, moved downtown. Would you like Mike to run for you, George? the coach asked. That was the last party for a while., I just got back from a road trip from Michigan. . But he could easily have said, Alice, I have enough trouble raising money for my magazine.. His friendships testified to what an eclectic man he was. I'm not an expert, but Bill Labov from UPenn is, and he is quoted thusly: According to William Labov, teaching of this pronunciation declined sharply after the end of World War II. 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. Vault. Oh now, Im joking, Carnac ( see? How widespread, numerically and geographically? And his apartment, with those windows that looked out onto the East River, became a famous landmark in NYC. [23] He was also notable for his appearance in television commercials during the early 1980s, including a memorable campaign for Mattel's Intellivision. Harris trained himself as a young man to lose his native Bronx accent - to the point that he was asked if he were British. Angelo Dundee, trainer for Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard:George was such a great guy. It's a Scottish accent that's been modified somewhat for a mainstream audience that tends to associate them with Groundskeeper Willie. His final interview appeared in The New York Sports Express of October 2, 2003 by journalist Dave Hollander. The Wikipedia entry is indeed delightful. But he came right down to our level. Manhattan DVD. He had a small role in the Oscar-winning film Good Will Hunting,[22] playing a psychologist. He had the bearing of Gen. MacArthur, but the soul of Charlie Chaplin. 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. Its something different, and Ive not encountered that in the mid-Atlantic. The limited frequency response of the recording technology of the late 19th and early 20th centuries has left us with only a pale, and sometimes caricatural image of the original sound. Plimpton played quarterback for the Detroit Lions and triangle for the New York Philharmonic, an. Both of Plimpton's maternal grandparents were born with the surname Ames; his mother was the granddaughter of Medal of Honor recipient Adelbert Ames (1835-1933), an American sailor, soldier, and politician, and Oliver Ames, a US political figure and the 35th Governor of Massachusetts (18871890). For instance: Mid-Atlantic English was the dominant dialect among the Northeastern American upper class through the first half of the 20th century. 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. He also appeared in the 1996 documentary When We Were Kings about the "Rumble in the Jungle" 1974 Ali-Foreman Championship fight opposite Norman Mailer crediting Muhammad Ali as a poet who composed the world's shortest poem: "Me? He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Thats a common name for such an accent. The Sidd Finch story was accompanied by a series of photos which managed to convince even the eagle-eyed fans . [29], With Felix Grucci, Plimpton competed in the 16th International Fireworks Festival in 1979 in Monte Carlo. Anyhow, I asked Terry Gross from Fresh Air and George Plimpton to be auctioneers. 08:37 Dinner at Elaine's. by George Plimpton. Congratulations Carnac, for posting about George Plimptons death at
3:44 PM. Norman Mailer, author:George had a rare gift. He could have been a fight trainer, a fight manager! To me, Mid-Atlantic English is the nom juste for a related but distinct phenomenon (which is also mentioned in Wikipedia). Suddenly, a New York cop remembered a long-ago murder. But Labov said that in post-World War II New York, fancier people started becoming rhotic, and recovering their Rs. Why couldnt we have a good time, too? So we got together and, after some preliminaries, he popped the question that he was really there to ask. [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. We had the book party for my selected poems, Sailing Alone Around the Room, at Georges house on Sept 10, 2001. If you say, I parked my car in Harvard Yard, you are being rhotic.
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