A heuristic approximation! His friendships testified to what an eclectic man he was. 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." And so it seemed only fitting to commemorate his death with the form he made his own.Meghan ORourke. [21] The prank was so successful that many readers believed the story, and the ensuing popularity of the joke resulted in Plimpton's writing an entire book on Finch. George had three siblings: Francis Taylor Pearsons Plimpton Jr., Oakes Ames Plimpton,[15] and Sarah Gay Plimpton. George Plimpton: what kind of accent? - Straight Dope Message Board He saw athletes as heroes he. 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. George . Get a life. Researcher and writer Samuel Arbesman filed with NASA to name an asteroid after Plimpton; NASA issued the certificate 7932 Plimpton in 2009. We had the book party for my selected poems, Sailing Alone Around the Room, at Georges house on Sept 10, 2001. [35], Plimpton was known for his distinctive accent which, by Plimpton's own admission, was often mistaken for an English accent. Self-help author and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson has a unique accent that, . Angelo Dundee, trainer for Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard:George was such a great guy. 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. Typical of George to laugh about something others saw as a defining traithe never took himself all that seriously. 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. He got the personality totally wrong, too. How to find out, and whether you should care. **Oh, I suppose we should all just lavish praise upon Carnac the Magnificent now for bringing this to your attention, is that it? Vault. 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. 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. George Ames Plimpton (1927 - 2003) - Genealogy - geni family tree 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. 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. The Scout Is a Lonely Hunter. :rolleyes: Ive got news for you, buddy, youre not even second in line! 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. They were divorced, and had been for a while, but they still talked, and visited every now and then, and they would sit on my moms porch on Long Island and look out over the pond at the birds and tell each other stories and laugh until the tears came to their eyes, but he could not ask her this directlyHow are you, Freddy? He had lost my mom, at least in part because he had been unable to communicate with her, to show his love. George Plimpton - Wikipedia Revolutionary musket, a stairwell and a housemaster), George Plimpton (1927-2003) George Plimpton was the editor of The Paris Review from its founding in 1953 until his death in 2003. Plimpton and Dudley were the parents of twin daughters Laura Dudley Plimpton and Olivia Hartley Plimpton. 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. [2] His first wife, whom he married in 1968[38] and divorced in 1988, was Freddy Medora Espy, a photographer's assistant. Hear Stories By George Plimpton. 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. After returning to New York from Paris, he routinely launched fireworks at his evening parties. He appeared in commercials for Oldsmobile and Intellivision, and appeared. 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. My Father's Voice | The New Yorker 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. He just did it because Columbia was another literary magazine. (Why do I even bother?) 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. 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. Queen Elizabeth doesnt say car, and neither did Franklin D. Roosevelt, nor did the newsreel announcers or movie actors of his day. In 1992, Plimpton married Sarah Whitehead Dudley, a graduate of Columbia University and a freelance writer. 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. Even the manliest actors, such as Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable sometimes slipped into this voice-coach mode. Plimpton also appeared in a number of feature films as an extra and in cameo appearances. 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. Please educate me. [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]. Her mother, a writer and critic for Commonweal and Catholic World. In Praise of Plimpton - Newsweek Macklem . Starring George Plimpton as Himself, directed by Tom Bean and Luke Poling, was released. He had it all going! But for now, just one more category: 3) Changing technology, changing voices. 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! Well, perhaps it's more accurate to say that the book provided entertaining confirmation to millions of people that they -- like the author . Why couldnt we have a good time, too? Anyhow, I asked Terry Gross from Fresh Air and George Plimpton to be auctioneers. Mid-Atlantic. The Paris Review was a testimony to his literary taste and his sense of glamour. He appeared in the PBS American Masters documentary on Andy Warhol. If you found him at a fancy restaurant, he was there as a guest: For his own meals he preferred cheap Chinese or bangers and mash at a local Irish pub. George Plimpton | About the Film | American Masters | PBS 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. tweedy demeanor and Oxford accent. She would not even say goodbye. To me, Mid-Atlantic English is the nom juste for a related but distinct phenomenon (which is also mentioned in Wikipedia). Writing Wednesdays: Hemingway on Fiction, Part Two - Steven Pressfield So it was that my father played himself not just in movies and on TV, but in life, too. Youll get another shot at the big time, trust me. (This is not to belittle Lowell Thomas, but to recognize the artifice that served him so well in his career). Mid-Atlantic accent - Wikipedia I had made about five thousand egg and tuna sandwiches. 3: Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". George Plimpton and Papa in Cuba - Guernica As a result, this American version of a posh accent has all but disappeared even among the American upper classes. April Fool's Day: Throwback to the time George Plimpton fooled the Announcer-Speak: The Video Highlights Reel - The Atlantic 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. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. 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. I can understand your frustration, but celebrities die every day. If you say, I pahked my cah in Hahvahd Yahd, like some vaudeville version of a Boston accent, you are non-rhotic. Vault. I saw him [last] Wednesday night at a party; we rode home together, and he told me that he was planning to go down to Cuba, to revisit the site of his famous interview with Hemingway. Read more. Would you like Mike to run for you, George? the coach asked. These events were recalled in his best-known book Paper Lion, which was later adapted into the 1968 feature film starring Alan Alda. LL is typified, I think, but an almost clenching of the teeth while talking, producing a mushy sound, if you will. 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. That phony-baloney feigned British pronunciation thing. Sign up for the Books & Fiction newsletter. During our time in Paris, he had a famous little car, a dark blue Peugeotit was mine originally; I sold it to himand it had to be seen to be believed. But its clear that the diction I call Announcer Voice has been the object of close linguistic study. I think he came down [to the shooting of Paper Lion in] Florida once. The 16th at Cypress Point is one of the famous golf holes of the world, certainly one of the most difficult and demanding par 3's. Actors Nathan Lane (from Jersey City, NJ) and Robin Williams (grew up in SF Bay area) often adopt this accent. But it didnt define him, much the way he refused to be defined by the stiff, upper-crust world from which hed come. OK? "[25] He had a recurring role as the grandfather of Dr. Carter on the NBC series ER. 1 draft choice of the Lions in 1965. People two or three deep stood looking out at the East River. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. 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]. Lewis Lapham, editor, Harpers Magazine:Georges immense enthusiasm was his primary characteristic. What fine manners he had! [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 previously married to Sara Whitehead Dudley and Freddy Medora Espy. Now the interview is perfect!. Book excerpt - George Plimpton on why Hole 16 at Cypress Point is one Mr. Plimpton was born in Manhattan in 1927 and raised in Huntington, L.I. The Writer's Chapbook A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit, and Advice from the Twentieth Century's Preeminent Writers. Above all, he was a gentleman, one of the lasta figure so archaic, it could be easily mistaken for something else. Middle class? 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. A friend of the New England Sedgwick family, Plimpton edited Edie: An American Biography with Jean Stein in 1982. He was a great addition to the human race. It was always a surprise. With a little more practice, you could give us boys in the big leagues a run for our money. On Sept. 26, George Plimpton died in his sleep, at the age of 76. George Plimpton Biography - life, family, children, wife, school, son Over the years, we held a lot of dinner parties for him, and he brought a lot of people inmany, many writers. He also served as editor of the Harvard Lampoon. So think of Margaret Anderson or Amanda and you can place George. Return of the Big Bopper. Powered by Discourse, best viewed with JavaScript enabled. I didnt know he was from the Larchmont area. [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." What exactly is a Boston Brahmin 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. During my fight, my nose got badly broken in the second round, but I did last all four scheduled rounds, though I lost. Famed participatory journalist George Plimpton (1927-2003) was a writer, editor, amateur sportsman, actor, and friend to many. Description above from the Wikipedia article George Plimpton, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of . 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. 'Plimpton!' documentary looks at George Plimpton's lives [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]. **. Ill pick you up., I had a hard time sleeping that night, as you might imagine. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007. 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. **. Oh now, Im joking, Carnac ( see? I thought they were terrific. 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. Been there, done that | Books | The Guardian For more than fifty years, his friends made a circle whose circumference was vast and whose center was a fashionable tenement on New York's East Seventy-second street. Archie Moore, after all, had broken his nose. 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 . It came from a different era, shouldn't have still existed, but nevertheless, there it wasold New England, old New York, tinged with a hint of King's College King's English. He did these jobs, and many others, as an amateur.. He did not appear last year, or the year before, and we feared he was done with us. 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. You should be very grateful. At one point, there was a tremendous Wagnerian thunder and lighting storm. He thought Castro might come. 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. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review. Brown & Co. Re-issued George Plimpton Sports Books, 2016. 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. 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. George Plimpton, journalist extraordinaire, trains with and then performs as Quarterback for the Baltimore Colts. BTW, I cant imagine a presidential candidate today getting anywhere close to a nomination with FDRs accent, cigarette holder, and aristocratic bearing. Plimpton was an omnipresence for much of American cultural lifeboth high and lowin the last third of the 20th century. If he couldnt be taken quite seriously, that was fine with him (he took himself lightly, and relished being in on the joke). George Plimpton. When I eventually went back to be an editor at Harpers, I arrived at his flat, not having been in New York for eight years. Few could give a toast or tell a story with equal humor. He was one of her original supporters and had published an article about her work in The Paris Review. Interesting that the two competitors for his anchor chair were both fully vernacular speakers from the South and West: Mudd and Rather. Is it in evidence among the Gen X set of Boston, or a passing phenomenon? After finishing at Harvard in 1950, he attended King's College, Cambridge, from 1950 to 1952, and graduated with third class honors in English. 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. I knew that between the time Id asked Plimpton to do the auction and the night itself, he had probably received five invitations for a better evening, but he would never have reneged. Family (1) Spouse 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. 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. What accent does Logan have in the show? : r/SuccessionTV I only wish I could not tell him again, just one more time. Congratulations Carnac, for posting about George Plimptons death at
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