That he died in his sleep was impressive. [citation needed] In 1958, prior to a post-season exhibition game at Yankee Stadium between teams managed by Willie Mays (National League) and Mickey Mantle (American League), Plimpton pitched against the National League. And so it seemed only fitting to commemorate his death with the form he made his own.Meghan ORourke. Listen to Caruso singing or Bix Beiderbecke playing his cornet to hear how muffled was the recording of those sounds. How widespread, numerically and geographically? 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?. His response was "no, just affected.". Ever. OK? ), this isnt some kind of morbid contest to see who can be the first to inform the board of some celebritys death. Just in time for the Sixties, with all their other pressures towards some kind of anti-Eisenhower authenticity. Plimpton played Tom Hanks's antagonistic father in Volunteers. 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. George was a little more in-depth than a lot of us, of course, with his education and all. 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. So it went in late 1960 at one of George Plimpton's legendary soirees at 541 E. 72nd St., New York. For instance: Mid-Atlantic English was the dominant dialect among the Northeastern American upper class through the first half of the 20th century. By George Plimpton. Several weeks later at a book party, he spotted two writers who had played in that game. And bolstering this last point, a reader who grew up in Depression-era Chicago writes: All I can think of is that people were imitating FDR. 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. It took the form of a statement: I dont know writers who write about sex better than you. I rose to the bait and answered saying, Thank you. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007. Update: This post is #2 in the announcer-speak series. They all sound just like George. Revolutionary musket, a stairwell and a housemaster), Angelo Dundee, trainer for Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard:George was such a great guy. Havent heard that term in years. (My dads been dead nearly ten years: not that he held many in his life, but what grudges could he possibly be holding on to now? Ill pick you up., I had a hard time sleeping that night, as you might imagine. Id like to offer a speculation, for what its worth. Self-help author and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson has a unique accent that, . He majored in English. All the good guys have got to go. All rights reserved. This periodical has carried great weight in the literary world, but has never been financially strong; for its first half-century, it was allegedly largely financed by its publishers and by Plimpton. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. The clipped, non-rhotic English accents of George Plimpton and William F. Buckley Jr. were vestigial examples. Ill try to give a representative range, and I am grateful for the care and thought that have gone into these responses. He could as easily have been my grandfather as father. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. Talking about sports with Georgeor, even better, reading George about sportswas more fun than sports themselves. With a little more practice, you could give us boys in the big leagues a run for our money. I feel that his work on this and many other language-related matters should be far more widely known than it is. A graduate of Harvard University and King's College, Cambridge, Plimpton was recruited to Paris by Peter Matthiessen in 1952 and signed on to the project shortly thereafter. The clenched jaw tight-bite bit: the lockjaw dentiloquist. The Cuban revolutionaries, led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, had just marched on Havana and ousted the US-supported dictator Fulgencio Batista. That life couldnt contain him, hed burst its seams like it was an old coat two sizes too small. We were bound to play the roles of father and son, unable to simply be ourselves. Youll get another shot at the big time, trust me. 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. 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! Plimpton was married twice. The risky pleasures of Plimpton's classic of participatory sportswriting, Paper Lion. Aldas version was always angry or consternated, like a character in a Woody Allen film, while my dad, though he certainly faced hurdles as an amateur in the world of the professional, bore his humiliations with a comic lightness and charmmuch of which emanated from that befuddled, self-deprecating professors voice. Several readers wrote in with specimens of Americans who had gone to England and ended up speaking in this mid-Atlantic way. He got the personality totally wrong, too. One reader writes: I've wondered whether that "announcer English" was at least partly caused by poor loudspeakers and microphones. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. And the many candidates for the crown of Last American to Speak This Way. She was the daughter of writers Willard R. Espy[39] and Hilda S. Cole, who had, earlier in her career, been a publicity agent for Kate Smith and Fred Waring. Here are five things you may not have known about him. What fine manners he had! I do believe his accent was decidedly Swamp Yankee. A friend of the New England Sedgwick family, Plimpton edited Edie: An American Biography with Jean Stein in 1982. Middle class? It was so violent that it brought a lot of people to the windows. Now you know! But for now, just one more category: 3) Changing technology, changing voices. Final Twist of the Drama. Of course, I think he enjoyed the odd persona his voice and mannerisms conferred on him. George Plimpton was born on March 18, 1927 in New York City, New York, USA. Think of the accent of Jane Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies. 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. 3: Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". 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. 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. 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. I had George tell him the story of Sidd Finch. George Plimpton boxed with Archie Moore, played quarterback for the Detroit Lions, and played percussion for the New York Philharmonic. Plimpton revisited pro football in 1971,[18] this time joining the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Colts and seeing action in an exhibition game against his previous team, the Lions. It was a hot, sweltering day. I can understand your frustration, but celebrities die every day. Think of the accent of Jane Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies. Here's a look inside the space, where the Paris Review editor hosted legendary parties. Big, tall, good-looking guy, easy-going. Get a life. 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). Jean Stein became his co-editor. Those of us whose families are from Larchmont (that would be me) just call it lockjaw. On Sept. 26, George Plimpton died in his sleep, at the age of 76. And I, of course, was looking them over, too. 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. And his apartment, with those windows that looked out onto the East River, became a famous landmark in NYC. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. 2) The Role of Broadway and Hollywood, and the Shift from Jimmy Cagney to Marlon Brando. He was respected by all. After the technology improved the need to speak so histrionically went away, and so did "announcer English.". He was 76. In 1955 or 56, he went back to New York. He knew we were just as good as he was, but in a different field. He had it, as does/did William Buckley, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Julia Child. Here's how Geroge Plimpton and his team created a prodigious pitcher out of thin air. The point of the flipped prestige markers is that generally the fewer the Rs, the fancier the person. For instance: The American-British television presenter Loyd Grossman, who has described his accent as Mid-Atlantic. December 17, 2022 Rafael Garca. Manhattan DVD. He was also an accomplished birdwatcher. He also appeared in a featurette about Edie Sedgwick found on the Ciao! Is your language rhotic? Oh now, Im joking, Carnac ( see? George Plimpton's duplex apartment on the Upper East Side hit the market for $5.495 million on April 18. 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." Isnt that what they call it. *Originally posted by bordelond * On Saturday Night Live, even the great impersonator Dana Carvey couldnt get it quite right. You're going to play for us-making some sort of big comeback." "That's right," Plimpton replied in his patrician accent. Bill and I met in Rome, several months after the Paris Review was startedwe were, as they say, courtingand he drove me to Paris so George and Peter [Mathiessen] could look me over. 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. (To read Part One, click here. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. He wrote for the Harvard Lampoon, was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, Pi Eta, the Signet Society, and the Porcellian Club. You should be very grateful. $ 4.19 - $ 17.92. 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. 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. In that vein, here is an oral biography of George Plimpton. Whee!! 08:37 Dinner at Elaine's. by George Plimpton. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to these men speak. By George Plimpton. $ 3.99 - $ 27.44. Gay Talese, author:As a young man not long out of university, at 26, 27 years of age, George Plimpton went with his friends to Paris to be benighted in the tradition of Paris culture. Vault. 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. Richard Howard, poetry editor, the Paris Review:I worked with George for 10 years on the magazine. The picture at the top of this post is of the same Westbrook Van Voorhis who epitomized FDR-era announcer-speak but didnt fit the sensibility of the early-cool-cat-era Twilight Zone. In early 1959, George Plimpton was preparing to watch an execution in Cuba. I have a memory of George emerging out of the bush, with a terrible sunburn on his nose and face and legs; he was in safari gear, none of it hanging together very well, and over it all he was wearing a nice blue blazer. 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]. (Newsreels ran in movie theaters, of course: what better critique of the high newsreel style than the new movies that jarred against it?). 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. 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 was previously married to Sara Whitehead Dudley and Freddy Medora Espy. He had the bearing of Gen. MacArthur, but the soul of Charlie Chaplin. Archie Moore, after all, had broken his nose. Plimpton was an optimist, a teller of amusing and amazing stories. Did he have the celebrated "Boston Brahmin" accent, or was it a psuedo-Brit affectation? Articles From This Author. So it was that my father played himself not just in movies and on TV, but in life, too. After his discharge, Plimpton returned to Harvard and finished his undergraduate education. And George had written it straight. At one point, there was a tremendous Wagnerian thunder and lighting storm. I dont give a rats ass about informing anyone about the death of Plimpton. 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. This speech pattern might be common among US expatriates in the UK, of which Grossman would seem to represent just the most ostentatious example. He hosted Disney Channel's Mouseterpiece Theater (a Masterpiece Theatre spoof which featured Disney cartoon shorts). Friends were almost always happy to see him because you knew he was bound to improve your mood. It was as if some old gentlemans code prohibited us from interacting as human beings. 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. 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 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. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Next up: some sociological explanations of why someone like George Gershwin might have tried to speak like Westbrook Van Voorhis. George Plimpton is beautifully connected. George Plimpton (1927-2003) was a journalist and the first editor-in-chief of The Paris Review. Greetings From the Vortex of Unpredictability, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. And they founded this thing called the Paris Review and published poetry and short story writers and did interviews. At least, not to me, nor even to my sister, a fact she mentions in the movie. 1) The linguists have a name for it: they call it Mid-Atlantic English. I dont like this name, for reasons Ill explain in a minute. You heard it and it could only be him. Plimpton was an omnipresence for much of American cultural lifeboth high and lowin the last third of the 20th century. **. . There was one more matter I never heard my dad discuss. That phony-baloney feigned British pronunciation thing. We had the book party for my selected poems, Sailing Alone Around the Room, at Georges house on Sept 10, 2001. Anyhow, I asked Terry Gross from Fresh Air and George Plimpton to be auctioneers. The Left Bank really became East 72nd Street. George Plimpton: what kind of accent? 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. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. But Labov said that in post-World War II New York, fancier people started becoming rhotic, and recovering their Rs. This was his habit. Losing, he knew, always makes a better story than winning. He was an actor and writer, known for Good Will Hunting (1997), Nixon (1995) and Just Cause (1995). Paul McCartney and his then-girlfriend Heather showed up. During my fight, my nose got badly broken in the second round, but I did last all four scheduled rounds, though I lost. [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. Starring George Plimpton as Himself, directed by Tom Bean and Luke Poling, was released. (The filmmakers assembled his voice-over from recorded speeches and other archival footage.) **. I just knew it was going to be something terrible. 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. [citation needed], In the movie Plimpton! *Originally posted by cuauhtemoc * While I don't normally think of Lithgow as speaking with a Mid-Atlantic accent, he does a great job affecting one for the role. Bill, who was from the South, kept saying to me, Can you believe Georges not English? He could have been a fight trainer, a fight manager! 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? [23] He was also notable for his appearance in television commercials during the early 1980s, including a memorable campaign for Mattel's Intellivision. By George Plimpton. Thurston Howell III had the Larchmont Lockjaw 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. He was equally at home on a bicycle or getting out of a limousine with a Saudi Arabian prince. Okay, then, are you saying that Plimpton has such as accent? If you didnt know the man, you could, I think, be fooled by the voice. 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. [31][32][33] His firework, a Roman candle named "Fat Man",[31][32][33] weighed 720 pounds (330kg)[31] and was expected to rise to 1,000 feet (300m)[33] or more[31] and deliver a wide starburst. So, pairing the Cagney hint with the Kennedy Inaugural, could we date the changeover to 1961? George Plimpton gives an auction winner a star-studded walk through the legendary NYC eatery Elaine's. [35], Plimpton was known for his distinctive accent which, by Plimpton's own admission, was often mistaken for an English accent. In all my years, Ive never heard this accent in person. Is it in evidence among the Gen X set of Boston, or a passing phenomenon? [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. And so when it was time to say goodbye, we did so simplyno awkwardness, no strangled expressions of affectionand this is why, even though it was the last time we ever spoke, and I would never get the chance again, I do not regret not telling him that I loved him. After running the pilot, Rod Serling realized the narration needed a less pompous sounding and more natural voice himself. Billy Collins, poet:Im one of these people who went from crashing Georges parties in the 70s to being invited in the 80s. It was always a surprise. [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. So we got together and, after some preliminaries, he popped the question that he was really there to ask. What exactly is a Boston Brahmin 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. 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. 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. Please educate me. But he came right down to our level. . Volume 7, 2003-2005, pages 429-432. 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. 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. Plimpton appeared in the 1989 documentary The Tightrope Dancer which featured the life and the work of the artist Vali Myers. Off screen, George Plimpton and Gore Vidal come to mind. History / Biographical Note Biographical Note. 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. 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. He Was Shot by John Wayne. 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. Where are you?, Im at dinner with my wife, I said. George had three siblings: Francis Taylor Pearsons Plimpton Jr., Oakes Ames Plimpton,[15] and Sarah Gay Plimpton. A heuristic approximation! Louis Begley, novelist:Jim Atlas interviewed me for an Art of Fiction piece in the Paris Review, a feature of the magazine that George invented and brought to perfection. It includes clear pronunciation of each and every consonant cluster. He was stationed primarily in Italy, where he worked as a tank driver. He thought Castro might come. Her mother, a writer and critic for Commonweal and Catholic World. What stood in our way? "I've decided to stay over here in . George Plimpton. There was love thereactually, his inability to express it sometimes made him positively brim with itbut speak the words, his voice could not. George Plimpton Wiki: Salary, Married, Wedding, Spouse, Family . The clipped English of George Plimpton and William F. Buckley, Jr. were vestigial examples.. 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. Interesting that the two competitors for his anchor chair were both fully vernacular speakers from the South and West: Mudd and Rather. 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. He appeared in commercials for Oldsmobile and Intellivision, and appeared. 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. 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 appeared in the 1989 documentary The Tightrope Dancer which featured the life and the work of the artist Vali Myers. The Curious Case Of Sidd Finch. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. *Originally posted by Phlosphr * Plimpton didnt die. Brown & Co. Re-issued George Plimpton Sports Books, 2016. My fathers voice was like one of those supposedly extinct deep-sea creatures that wash up on the shores of Argentina every now and then.
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