All rights reserved. Read more in this thread (long). A friend of the New England Sedgwick family, Plimpton edited Edie: An American Biography with Jean Stein in 1982. Call me back.. In another cartoon in The New Yorker, a patient looks up at the masked surgeon about to operate on him and asks, "Wait a minute! I feel that his work on this and many other language-related matters should be far more widely known than it is. History / Biographical Note Biographical Note. It is the kind of study . Vault. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. Plimpton brought the Left Bank to NYCpeople like Peter Mathiessen, William Styron, Terry Southern. 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. $ 3.99 - $ 27.44. They all sound just like George. This kept his magazine fresh for 50 years. [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]. He thought Castro might come. 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. He was 76.. It was always as if one were setting out with him on a special adventure. 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. George . To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Talking about sports with Georgeor, even better, reading George about sportswas more fun than sports themselves. Peter even came with us on our honeymoon in Ravello, though George didnt. Where are you?, Im at dinner with my wife, I said. In his July 1936 obituary, the New York Times described George Arthur Plimpton (13 July 1855-1 July 1936) as an "internationally known publisher and collector, college trustee and philanthropist." As the materials in the George A. Plimpton Papers testify, those four areas of activity dominated Plimpton's public and private lives. He was an actor and writer, known for Good Will Hunting (1997), Nixon (1995) and Just Cause (1995). After finishing at Harvard in 1950, he attended King's College, Cambridge, from 1950 to 1952, and graduated with third class honors in English. He liked the fact that I had broken my nose in defeat. Are you saying that the denizens of Larchmont sound like Plimpton did? On Sept. 26, George Plimpton died in his sleep, at the age of 76. George Plimpton. 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. He knew we were just as good as he was, but in a different field. 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. (This is not to belittle Lowell Thomas, but to recognize the artifice that served him so well in his career). 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. Get book recommendations, fiction, poetry, and dispatches from the world of literature in your in-box. Was it me? The point of the flipped prestige markers is that generally the fewer the Rs, the fancier the person. I only wish I could not tell him again, just one more time. With a little more practice, you could give us boys in the big leagues a run for our money. A similar phenomenon can be noted in the use, well into the 1980s, of the recorded sound of teletype machines in the background of newscasts, a sound still faintly evoked by the bip-bip-bip patterns of music that often introduces news broadcasts, even though teletype machines are long gone The subconscious association of this pattern of sound with news is fading fast with the passing of the years and will undoubtedly disappear entirely in the coming decade as surely as the over-enunciated style of radio speech of the 30s disappeared within a generation of its no longer being needed. Another entertainment-related explanation for the shift, right about the time of the Eisenhower-Kennedy transition: The plumby announcer voice that hovers over the Atlantic midway between the Eastern Seaboard and England was mortally wounded in 1959. Just listen to very early recordings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, back even before microphones, when singers had to yell directly into a large cone and over-enunciate so that their voices would be recorded into something intelligible on a spinning wax cylinder or disk. Even the most basic conversation was often a struggle. [citation needed]. 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. My dad could never say what he feltnot reallyand neither can any of us. Cambridge. This book is the party that was George's life-and it's a big one-attended by scores of famous people, as well as. And the many candidates for the crown of Last American to Speak This Way. He appeared in the PBS American Masters documentary on Andy Warhol. Its something different, and Ive not encountered that in the mid-Atlantic. And you are going to come with me. (And, OK, Im not a linguist, but Im married to one!) 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 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. Robert Silvers, editor, the New York Review of Books:I met George on the Ile Saint-Louis in 1953 as I was leaving NATO headquarters. They spoke in this manner, and it seemed perfectly natural, evocative of a background spent among the gentry of the northeast. 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. 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. [47][48] You can. It was so violent that it brought a lot of people to the windows. ), this isnt some kind of morbid contest to see who can be the first to inform the board of some celebritys death. This brings us back to the why things changed question. Oh, I suppose we should all just lavish praise upon Carnac the Magnificent now for bringing this to your attention, is that it? Those of us whose families are from Larchmont (that would be me) just call it lockjaw. * But looking back on it, its funny, too. News children today have no concept of the Mid-Atlantic accent. 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. [2][43], An oral biography titled George, Being George was edited by Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., and released on October 21, 2008. Famed participatory journalist George Plimpton (1927-2003) was a writer, editor, amateur sportsman, actor, and friend to many. Even Orson Welles on occasion. A heuristic approximation! Plimpton played quarterback for the Detroit Lions and triangle for the New York Philharmonic, an. He did these jobs, and many others, as an amateur.. And being good at losing was one of Georges many gifts. That was when Westbrook van Voorhis, the famous March of Time voice, did the intro narration of the pilot episode of The Twilight Zone. [33] A later attempt, fired at Cape Canaveral, rose approximately 50 feet (15m) into the air and broke 700 windows in Titusville, Florida. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. H.V. Plimpton's remarkable life is showcased in a documentary that is. Jean Stein became his co-editor. He was 76. The enormously popular speech styles of Brando and Dean (and I could add Elvis Presley) clearly pushed vernacular style into a kind of mainstream acceptability, then desirability. 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]. 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. In all my years, Ive never heard this accent in person. Plimpton also appeared in a number of feature films as an extra and in cameo appearances. 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. After running the pilot, Rod Serling realized the narration needed a less pompous sounding and more natural voice himself. See below!) Shadow Box. One reader writes: I've wondered whether that "announcer English" was at least partly caused by poor loudspeakers and microphones. We were bound to play the roles of father and son, unable to simply be ourselves. Daniel Kunitz, managing editor of the Paris Review from1995-2000: I once heard George joking with William F. Buckley on the phone about how they had the last affected accents in New York. [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. 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. He modestly shrugged off the compliment, but his bright smile betrayed his pleasureand ours. Plimpton, George 1927-2003(George Ames Plimpton) Source for information on Plimpton, George 1927-2003: Concise Major 21st Century Writers dictionary. Read more. "[25] He had a recurring role as the grandfather of Dr. Carter on the NBC series ER. Prestigious prep schools and ivy league institutions (though Gore Vidal never went to college). In the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated, Plimpton pulled off a widely reported April Fools' Day prank. [23] He was also notable for his appearance in television commercials during the early 1980s, including a memorable campaign for Mattel's Intellivision. [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. [28], Plimpton was a demolitions expert in the post-World War II Army. George Plimpton writer, publisher, amateur lion tamer died in 2003 after 50 years as the founding editor of The Paris Review. It includes clear pronunciation of each and every consonant cluster. **Those of us whose families are from Larchmont (that would be me) just call it lockjaw. George Plimpton boxed with Archie Moore, played quarterback for the Detroit Lions, and played percussion for the New York Philharmonic. So we got together and, after some preliminaries, he popped the question that he was really there to ask. "[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. A little before my time, but Kennedy certainly didnt, even if his vernacular was more formal than Brandos. The last time I heard my fathers voice, it was over the telephone. Anyhow, I asked Terry Gross from Fresh Air and George Plimpton to be auctioneers. His final interview appeared in The New York Sports Express of October 2, 2003 by journalist Dave Hollander. Mia had the perfect model! Big, tall, good-looking guy, easy-going. In finally hearing the great storyteller tell the one story he would not tell, I could hear, too, his long, reverent silence on the subjectand it reveals his integrity as a journalist, and as a man. 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. Plimpton would not boast of his feat, so we did. Harris trained himself as a young man to lose his native Bronx accent - to the point that he was asked if he were British. What will you be mad about ten years after youre gone?). Middle class? Plimpton appeared in the 1989 documentary The Tightrope Dancer which featured the life and the work of the artist Vali Myers. *Originally posted by cuauhtemoc * At the time, he was getting ready to pitch for the Yankees,and we would throw pitches across 72nd Street in preparation. 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. Is your language rhotic? Could it be fairly said that Plimptom had it? Norman Mailer said that George Plimpton was the best-loved man in New York. 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. *Originally posted by j.c. * I havent heard that he is dead, but if so RIP George. The presentation was called Freedom of the American Road and was made 60 years ago, in 1955, as part of the campaign to build support for the new Interstate Highway system. (The filmmakers assembled his voice-over from recorded speeches and other archival footage.) 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. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. That tension between what was in his heart and what his voice allowed him to express is the basic tension of language we all face, only heightened. If you say, I pahked my cah in Hahvahd Yahd, like some vaudeville version of a Boston accent, you are non-rhotic. As Poling puts it, George was known as an unrivaled raconteur and, in making a film of his life story, it only seemed natural to allow him to tell it.. . People two or three deep stood looking out at the East River. 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. When Plimpton, the co-founder of The Paris Review, died in 2003 at age 76, The New York Times . 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. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review. [2] His first wife, whom he married in 1968[38] and divorced in 1988, was Freddy Medora Espy, a photographer's assistant. 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. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. 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. You're going to play for us-making some sort of big comeback." "That's right," Plimpton replied in his patrician accent. Harvard (where he edited the Lampoon), Kings College, (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? [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. He died on September 26, 2003 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. The coach for the Writers team announced that Plimpton would pinch-hit for the first batter of the game, Daily News sports columnist Mike Lupica, and the crowd roared. 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. Its our anniversary. Plimpton's most memorable writings involved him inserting himself into a daunting situation about which he knew . Brown & Co. Re-issued George Plimpton Sports Books, 2016. Heres a sampling for today, with more planned in the days ahead. He wanted to play his own part, but they wouldnt let him. . 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 was a writer-raconteur and dilettante in the best sense of the word: He co-founded an important literary magazine, the . [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. 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. And so fuck was definitely out of the question, but what about I love you? On Saturday Night Live, even the great impersonator Dana Carvey couldnt get it quite right. silk-stockinged New Englander - private schools (he was Update: This post is #2 in the announcer-speak series. 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. I do believe his accent was decidedly Swamp Yankee. 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. Hemingway on Fiction, Part Two. Read more in this thread (long). When George told the story, DiMaggio laughed so hard I thought he was going to fall on the floor. Its a joke to say 500 of my closest friends, but that would have been true with George1,000 of his closest friends, actually. For instance: Mid-Atlantic English was the dominant dialect among the Northeastern American upper class through the first half of the 20th century. 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. . George Plimpton: what kind of accent? Plimpton sparred for three rounds with boxing greats Archie Moore and Sugar Ray Robinson while on assignment for Sports Illustrated. Plimpton played Tom Hanks's antagonistic father in Volunteers. When he was on the scene, everything was a big happeningan event. 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. It was a hot, sweltering day. And he stood there ebullient and charming all night; he bid on many items himself. In 1955 or 56, he went back to New York. 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. Lewis Lapham, editor, Harpers Magazine:Georges immense enthusiasm was his primary characteristic. Eerily enough, one of the messages on my answering machine was from George, with that distinctive accent of his: Hallo, its George Plimpton. He had, for instance, a series of antiquated phrases and terms of affection. 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 said, You better stay here, and I did, for a while. Final Twist of the Drama. But he came right down to our level. I dont give a rats ass about informing anyone about the death of Plimpton. I received many notes like this one: The variety of English you are referring to has a name in linguistics: "Mid-Atlantic English". May a diseased yak squat in your hot tub. Just when Jim and I thought we had finished, and we had been working a long time, George, who loved the result of our efforts, decided he wanted to talk to me as well. Ill try to give a representative range, and I am grateful for the care and thought that have gone into these responses. That is, until I saw the documentarythe assassination of his dear friend Bobby Kennedy. **, In this case, Mid-Atlantic refers to speech in which the attributes of British English and American English meet halfway. Plimpton was associated with the literary magazine in Paris, Merlin, which folded because the State Department withdrew its support.[why?] A few days after, I went to a Paris Review party and showed off my damaged nose and two black eyes to George. The Dudleys established the 36-acre (15ha) Highstead Arboretum in Redding, Connecticut. Congratulations Carnac, for posting about George Plimptons death at 3:44 PM. Think of the accent of Jane Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies. George Plimpton, who died last week at his town house, on East Seventy-second Street near the river, was a serious man of serious accomplishments who just happened to have more fun than a van. George Plimpton was a literary man about town who did it all, from co-founding The Paris . There was intellectual heft in the Plimpton genes too: one Ames was a Professor of Botany, another was Governor of Massachusetts, another relation was a publisher, and yet another a writer-philanthropist fascinated with the subject of how the great figures of the past were educated Young Georges educational path was precisely that of a Plimpton didnt die. I just heard that George Plimpton has died. Oh now, Im joking, Carnac ( see? 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.
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