Famed participatory journalist George Plimpton (1927-2003) was a writer, editor, amateur sportsman, actor, and friend to many. One reader writes: I've wondered whether that "announcer English" was at least partly caused by poor loudspeakers and microphones. 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. Off screen, George Plimpton and Gore Vidal come to mind. Too old-fashioned. 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.
An Evening With George Plimpton - 2000 - YouTube Shed wandered out to the balcony of a lonely Manhattan cocktail party, and was standing out there, smoking a cigarette and looking down mournfully at the street far below, when from behind her she heard a voice: I know a better way down.. Read more in this thread (long). 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. Did he have the celebrated "Boston Brahmin" accent, or was it a psuedo-Brit affectation? Heres a sampling for today, with more planned in the days ahead. 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 most basic conversation was often a struggle. 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?. I hope not. 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. Plimpton and Dudley were the parents of twin daughters Laura Dudley Plimpton and Olivia Hartley Plimpton. $ 4.19 - $ 17.92. Ive always heard it referred to as a patrician accent. He had the bearing of Gen. MacArthur, but the soul of Charlie Chaplin. So think of Margaret Anderson or Amanda and you can place George. **. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman.
George Ames Plimpton (1927 - 2003) - Genealogy - geni family tree He said, You better stay here, and I did, for a while. NYC speech in the sixties, in some ways, flipped prestige markers. Youll get another shot at the big time, trust me. [35], Plimpton was known for his distinctive accent which, by Plimpton's own admission, was often mistaken for an English accent. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review. George Plimpton was born on March 18, 1927 in New York City, New York, USA. Next up: some sociological explanations of why someone like George Gershwin might have tried to speak like Westbrook Van Voorhis.
[28], Plimpton was a demolitions expert in the post-World War II Army. A heuristic approximation! He hosted Disney Channel's Mouseterpiece Theater (a Masterpiece Theatre spoof which featured Disney cartoon shorts). Bill Buckley, Gore Vidal, George Plimpton. & FDR, George Plimpton, William F. Buckley, etc. Read more in this thread (long). Larchmont Lockjaw? After his discharge, Plimpton returned to Harvard and finished his undergraduate education. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. Isnt that what they call it. At the time, he was getting ready to pitch for the Yankees,and we would throw pitches across 72nd Street in preparation. And similarly on the role of ridicule in speeding the move away from this accent: This is only partly facetious, but I think I know who was the American to speak "Announcer."
An Oral History of George Plimpton: The Man Does Everything - Observer He did not appear last year, or the year before, and we feared he was done with us. As an old film buff, I am used to this voice, though it figures unevenly in old movies. I just heard that George Plimpton has died. 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. Harris trained himself as a young man to lose his native Bronx accent - to the point that he was asked if he were British. With the evolution of talkies in the late 1920s, voice was first heard in motion pictures. (To read Part One, click here. After finishing at Harvard in 1950, he attended King's College, Cambridge, from 1950 to 1952, and graduated with third class honors in English. Of course, I think he enjoyed the odd persona his voice and mannerisms conferred on him. George had three siblings: Francis Taylor Pearsons Plimpton Jr., Oakes Ames Plimpton,[15] and Sarah Gay Plimpton. He had, for instance, a series of antiquated phrases and terms of affection.
George Plimpton : Movies - CinemaOne In 2013, the documentary Plimpton! Where are you?, Im at dinner with my wife, I said. Oh now, Im joking, Carnac ( see? You're going to play for us-making some sort of big comeback." "That's right," Plimpton replied in his patrician accent. 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. He got the personality totally wrong, too.
Mid-Atlantic accent - Wikipedia 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. In fact, my dads farewells seemed loquacious in comparison to his mothers. So, pairing the Cagney hint with the Kennedy Inaugural, could we date the changeover to 1961? George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 September 25, 2003) was an American writer. Spoke in a mid-Atlantic accent, reflecting a privileged Upper East Side (in New York City) upbringing. That is, until I saw the documentarythe assassination of his dear friend Bobby Kennedy. 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. He could have done whatever he wanted. His father co-founded the law firm Debevoise Plimpton. And they founded this thing called the Paris Review and published poetry and short story writers and did interviews. [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. *Originally posted by j.c. * You heard it and it. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Several weeks later at a book party, he spotted two writers who had played in that game. But Labov said that in post-World War II New York, fancier people started becoming rhotic, and recovering their Rs.
'Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself' review 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. Vault. Archie Moore, after all, had broken his nose. Plimpton was an optimist, a teller of amusing and amazing stories. Buckley clearly flaunts it, probably to set himself apart from the hoi polloi of his contemporaries. The film used archival audio and video of Plimpton lecturing and reading to create a posthumous narration. George also approved, I think, of the fact that I lost. The clipped English of George Plimpton and William F. Buckley, Jr. were vestigial examples.. Plimpton appeared in the 1989 documentary The Tightrope Dancer which featured the life and the work of the artist Vali Myers. By George Plimpton. Dan Rather certainly marks the definitive end of the newsreel style and the ascendance of the folksy vernacular: those rustic analogies! 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. Here's a look inside the space, where the Paris Review editor hosted legendary parties. He was immensely generous in every waygenerous about sharing the work and about giving one a chance to edit things. Prestigious prep schools and ivy league institutions (though Gore Vidal never went to college). 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. "I've decided to stay over here in . How do I know you're not George Plimpton?
George Plimpton | Military Wiki | Fandom Whee!! But the average person never talked that way. Angelo Dundee, trainer for Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard:George was such a great guy. One thinks of the glorious character actress, Kathleen Freeman, as the voice coach Phoebe Dinsmore in Singing in the Rain: Round tones, Miss Lamont. In Woody Allens Radio Days, Mia Farrow has an impossibly thick Brooklyn accent until she takes voice lessons and becomes a successful radio purveyor of celebrity gossip. George Plimpton.
George Plimpton Detroit Lions | The Pop History Dig Book excerpt - George Plimpton on why Hole 16 at Cypress Point is one Plimpton has grown. 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. I remember the Lowell Thomas documentary films of the 50s where Mr. Thomas' mellifluous tones and distinct radio-style pronunciation gave him a respectability that a similar huckster could hardly hope to replicate today by the mere application of such an artifice. *Originally posted by cuauhtemoc * [45], Plimpton is the protagonist of the semi-fictional George Plimpton's Video Falconry, a 1983 ColecoVision game postulated by humorist John Hodgman and recreated by video game auteur Tom Fulp.[46]. **. Puss, and my father enjoyed nothing more than holding the beast high in the air and making strange, affectionate sounds in that distinguished voice: Yeanngghh, Puss Yeaannngh Puss Puss Puss.) He called my sister Puss, too, sometimes, though mostly I think with her it was Kiddo, which he also called me, though there was a period in which he occasionally called me Ernie, which was the dogs name. All the good guys have got to go. 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. 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. Her mother, a writer and critic for Commonweal and Catholic World. If you say, I pahked my cah in Hahvahd Yahd, like some vaudeville version of a Boston accent, you are non-rhotic. Its strange to think, but he would have been eighty-five this year: fourteen years older than my mom, fifty years older than me. He modestly shrugged off the compliment, but his bright smile betrayed his pleasureand ours. He was smooth. Plimpton played quarterback for the Detroit Lions and triangle for the New York Philharmonic, an. *
List of books by author George Plimpton - ThriftBooks 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. 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. Final Twist of the Drama. By strange coincidence, I actually became quite good friends with his (ex-)in-laws here in Manhattan. Plimpton, George 1927-2003(George Ames Plimpton) Source for information on Plimpton, George 1927-2003: Concise Major 21st Century Writers dictionary. 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! I havent heard that he is dead, but if so RIP George. Now, in George, Being George, 200 friends, lovers and rivals detail Plimpton's remarkable exploits. **Get a life. Sidd Finch was a fictional character George had created for a Sports Illustrated story, supposedly the greatest and fastest pitcher in the world. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review. Now you know! 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.
The Detroit Lions let a reporter play QB. Can you guess how it went He was so open to life and all its new and unexpected situations. [2] His first wife, whom he married in 1968[38] and divorced in 1988, was Freddy Medora Espy, a photographer's assistant. For instance: The American-British television presenter Loyd Grossman, who has described his accent as Mid-Atlantic. . What exactly is a Boston Brahmin accent? 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. Return of the Big Bopper. [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. George Plimpton, Out of My League: The Classic Account of an Amateur's Ordeal in Professional Baseball, 2016, Little
With 'Paper Lion,' George Plimpton Played Pro Football So We Didn't Have To Mona Abboud remembers George Plimpton - Orlando Sentinel "[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. How to find out, and whether you should care. He looked like a very eccentric old Englishman. [citation needed] Some of these events, such as his stint with the Colts, and an attempt at stand-up comedy, were presented on the ABC television network as a series of specials. *Originally posted by Phlosphr * A lifelong New Yorker, he never tasted a bagel or an olive, and he never chewed a stick of gum. He was very understanding of what we did and how we did it.
George Plimpton Broke My Arm. The risky pleasures of Plimpton's | by And he told everyone that night, and for many years after, that hed diverted me from a career of filling prescriptions. 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. **. For such admissions to escape my fathers lips, they always had to be a little removed somehow. 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). Did he have the celebrated Boston Brahmin accent, or was it a psuedo-Brit affectation? Even if it had nothing else going for itsomething very far from the truth Shadow Box by George Plimpton will forever remain a bastion of boxing literature because of the image it contains of the "Near Room," a place of dreadful foreboding which Muhammad Ali once described to the famed . It was so violent that it brought a lot of people to the windows. Get a life. 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.
Lionel on Twitter: "News children today have no concept of the Mid The Blacklisted Journalist,George Plimpton, 76 Death Claims Another of That life couldnt contain him, hed burst its seams like it was an old coat two sizes too small. And so it seemed only fitting to commemorate his death with the form he made his own.Meghan ORourke. Is your language rhotic? 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. We were bound to play the roles of father and son, unable to simply be ourselves. "[25] He had a recurring role as the grandfather of Dr. Carter on the NBC series ER. 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! Ad Choices. George Plimpton writer, publisher, amateur lion tamer died in 2003 after 50 years as the founding editor of The Paris Review. Kim Noble, one of the announcers on the NPR affiliate in Kansas City, KCUR, speaks with a very affected Connecticut Lockjaw accent. Macklem . I just heard that George Plimpton has died. Bill, who was from the South, kept saying to me, Can you believe Georges not English?