In most situations, he had the remarkable quality of making everyone he talked to feel at ease, at home, welcome, no matter who they were or what they didbut for whatever strange reason there wasnt this effortlessness with me, this warmth. *Originally posted by bordelond * He was respected by all. His experience was captured in the book Out of My League. 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. The film used archival audio and video of Plimpton lecturing and reading to create a posthumous narration.
See Inside George Plimpton's Upper East Side Duplex And they founded this thing called the Paris Review and published poetry and short story writers and did interviews. Listen to Caruso singing or Bix Beiderbecke playing his cornet to hear how muffled was the recording of those sounds. Oh now, Im joking, Carnac ( see? 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. For instance: The American-British television presenter Loyd Grossman, who has described his accent as Mid-Atlantic. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review. So we got together and, after some preliminaries, he popped the question that he was really there to ask. 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. Plimpton played Tom Hanks's antagonistic father in Volunteers. Just in time for the Sixties, with all their other pressures towards some kind of anti-Eisenhower authenticity. George Plimpton. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. 1 draft choice of the Lions in 1965. Rose Styron, wife of William Styron and former Paris Review editor:My husband Bill was with George when he started the Paris Review. For more than five decades, author and journalist George Plimpton delved deeply into an array of high-profile and often physically grueling experiences, including professional baseball, boxing .
George Plimpton and Papa in Cuba - Guernica It was as if some old gentlemans code prohibited us from interacting as human beings. George Plimpton was an upper-class guy with a patrician accent who partied his way through life . The Writers won the game with a home run in extra innings, but the highlight was Plimptons hit. **Thats a common name for such an accent. It includes clear pronunciation of each and every consonant cluster. Thats a common name for such an accent. Between 1945 and 1948, Plimpton was a soldier in the United States Army. 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. rejoiced in the name of Euphemia van Renssalaer Wyatt.
An Oral History of George Plimpton: The Man Does Everything - Observer The name George Plimpton is synonymous with a kind of all-in participatory journalism. Back to Plimpton I dont remember the LL affect at all. The Wikipedia entry is indeed delightful. 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. This was his habit. Jean Stein became his co-editor. **. 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. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. Above all, he was a gentleman, one of the lasta figure so archaic, it could be easily mistaken for something else. 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. Exeter Academy after an incident involving a You're going to play for us-making some sort of big comeback." "That's right," Plimpton replied in his patrician accent. Plimpton appeared in the 1989 documentary The Tightrope Dancer which featured the life and the work of the artist Vali Myers. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. [2] His first wife, whom he married in 1968[38] and divorced in 1988, was Freddy Medora Espy, a photographer's assistant. Kim Noble, one of the announcers on the NPR affiliate in Kansas City, KCUR, speaks with a very affected Connecticut Lockjaw accent. These interviews are a collaborative effort, and, I believe, a fascinating contribution to literary history. 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. And being good at losing was one of Georges many gifts. He has the same type of patrician upper-class New Yorker accent as Jane Wyatt. Larchmont Lockjaw? Even in the UK we sometimes subtitle various Scots dialects on the news and TV and whatnot, so it makes sense that he wouldn't go full Dundee for the show. I think he came down [to the shooting of Paper Lion in] Florida once. 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.
George Plimpton | The New Yorker I havent heard that he is dead, but if so RIP George. He was a Wasp (both of his parents came from old New England families, and had ancestors on the Mayflower). 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). Well, perhaps it's more accurate to say that the book provided entertaining confirmation to millions of people that they -- like the author . Mia had the perfect model! By George Plimpton. We made $15,000-20,000. He wanted to play his own part, but they wouldnt let him. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. Plimpton would not boast of his feat, so we did. 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. (Did Eisenhower speak the newsreel style? 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. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. Read more in this thread (long). On Sept. 26, George Plimpton died in his sleep, at the age of 76. 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. Prestigious prep schools and ivy league institutions (though Gore Vidal never went to college).
George Plimpton | About the Film | American Masters | PBS A friend of the New England Sedgwick family, Plimpton edited Edie: An American Biography with Jean Stein in 1982.
Paper Lion: Confessions of a Last-String Quarterback: Plimpton, George 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. 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. 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.
An Evening With George Plimpton - 2000 - YouTube 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. Ive rarely heard this accent in real life but its often used by actors doing a stereotype character based on other actors impersonations! He smiled broadly, signaled for the coach to send Lupica in to run for him, and trotted back to the sidelines. Lewis Lapham, editor, Harpers Magazine:Georges immense enthusiasm was his primary characteristic. (A variation is the Locust Valley Lockjaw.). *Originally posted by cuauhtemoc * (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? Dan Rather certainly marks the definitive end of the newsreel style and the ascendance of the folksy vernacular: those rustic analogies! Share; Copied! [2], In 1975, in Bellport, Long Island, Plimpton, with Fireworks by Grucci attempted to break the record for the world's largest firework. Isnt that what they call it. Congratulations Carnac, for posting about George Plimptons death at
3:44 PM. The Wikipedia entry for it is quite detailed. 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. :rolleyes: Ive got news for you, buddy, youre not even second in line! He could have been a fight trainer, a fight manager! He just did it because Columbia was another literary magazine. 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.. Off screen, George Plimpton and Gore Vidal come to mind. I have worked as poetry editor with editors on other magazines; only with George has the experience been entirely agreeable. Vault. Besides, third is a very respectable showing! He was going to put on a reading of his play Zelda, Scott, and Ernest. [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. Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. Starring George Plimpton as Himself, "George Plimpton, Urbane and Witty Writer, Dies at 76", "Obituary: Frances T. P. Plimpton, 82, Dies", "Obituary: Pauline A. Plimpton, 93, Author Of Works on Famed Relatives", "Milton at the Midpoint of the Last Century: One Collection of Memories", "How Failing at Exeter made a Success of George Plimpton", "Legendary Humorist, Poonster Dies at 76 | News | The Harvard Crimson", "George Plimpton, Paris Review Founder, Pitches 1980s Video Games for the Mattel Intellivision", "The Simpsons: I'm Spelling As Fast As I Can", "George Plimpton, Author And Editor, Is Dead at 76", "Professor Muhammed Ali Delivers Lecture; Poems and Parables Fill Talk on Friendship | News | The Harvard Crimson", "George Plimpton | Full Film | American Masters | PBS", "George Plimpton, Still Burning His Punk at Both Ends, Finds a Sport in Which He Can Sparkle", "George Plimpton: The Professional Amateur", "Some Really Dangerous Jobs For George Plimpton", "Being, And Appreciating, George Plimpton", "Obituary: Willard Espy, Who Delighted In Wordplay, Is Dead at 88", "George Plimpton, Writer and editor, Is Wed to Sarah W. Dudley, a Writer", "Obituary: James C. Dudley, 77, Investment Adviser", "Naming the Sky: The true story of one man's quest to give George Plimpton a permanent presence in orbit", "DEAD END-DRIVE-IN | Plimpton! Please educate me. For instance: Mid-Atlantic English was the dominant dialect among the Northeastern American upper class through the first half of the 20th century. 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. The first minute is a cameo by Henry Ford II, who speaks in an utterly flat Midwest rather than Mid-Atlantic accent that no one would call elegant but that would sound perfectly natural in 2015. **. George Ames Plimpton (1927 - 2003) - Genealogy - geni family tree 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. 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. A lordly accent acquired at St. Bernard's and burnished later at Cambridge, in England, enhanced his distinguished aura, as did elevated stature and a silver head of hair which might have encouraged a career in politics but mercifully did not. 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. History / Biographical Note Biographical Note. 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. Of course, I think he enjoyed the odd persona his voice and mannerisms conferred on him. Paul McCartney and his then-girlfriend Heather showed up. 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. She was having lunch at P. J. Clarkes with the publisher Bennet Cerf and his son Chris, and my dad swooped over to the table (he was wearing a cape) and introduced himself in that ridiculously gallant voice: Bennet, Chris, what a pleasant surprise! Plimpton also appeared in a number of feature films as an extra and in cameo appearances. The Sidd Finch story was accompanied by a series of photos which managed to convince even the eagle-eyed fans . How widespread, numerically and geographically? George was a little more in-depth than a lot of us, of course, with his education and all. In the offices of the Paris Review, he displayed far more discerning tastes. He plays the 'fancy pants' to our outhouse Americana," Flaherty asserted. So it was that my father played himself not just in movies and on TV, but in life, too. So think of Margaret Anderson or Amanda and you can place George. Starring George Plimpton as Himself, directed by Tom Bean and Luke Poling, was released. He Was Shot by John Wayne. It was always a surprise. Plimpton didnt die. I dont give a rats ass about informing anyone about the death of Plimpton. Never heard of this decidedly imprecise term. It was as if he was trying out again. Plimpton was married twice. Spoke in a mid-Atlantic accent, reflecting a privileged Upper East Side (in New York City) upbringing. Being, And Appreciating, George Plimpton - krvs.org Bill Buckley, Gore Vidal, George Plimpton. Thanks for the scores of replies that have arrived in the past day, in response to my post asking why the stentorian, phony-British Announcer Voice that dominated newsreel narration, stage and movie acting, and public discourse in the United States during the first half of the 20th century had completely disappeared. Bill, who was from the South, kept saying to me, Can you believe Georges not English? Plimpton was an optimist, a teller of amusing and amazing stories. George Plimpton The Movie Database (TMDB) No matter where he was, or who he wasquarterback, trapeze artist, Philharmonic triangle-playerhis voice never changed, proving that you can be whomever you want to be without ever abandoning yourself. George Plimpton gives an auction winner a star-studded walk through the legendary NYC eatery Elaine's. Tom Nowatzke, fullback, Detroit Lions (In the 1960s, Plimpton briefly played with the Detroit Lions asresearch for the best-selling book Paper Lion, which was later made into a film):I was the No. I hope not. George Plimpton: what kind of accent? - Straight Dope Message Board 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. I had George tell him the story of Sidd Finch. At least, not to me, nor even to my sister, a fact she mentions in the movie. He was immensely generous in every waygenerous about sharing the work and about giving one a chance to edit things. In 1992, Plimpton married Sarah Whitehead Dudley, a graduate of Columbia University and a freelance writer. He was 76. Greetings From the Vortex of Unpredictability, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. Losing, he knew, always makes a better story than winning. George Plimpton - Wikipedia A heuristic approximation! Return of the Big Bopper. Shadow Box. I believe the accent was at one time known as Larchmont Lockjaw. But for now, just one more category: 3) Changing technology, changing voices. Why couldnt we have a good time, too? Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007. To me, Mid-Atlantic English is the nom juste for a related but distinct phenomenon (which is also mentioned in Wikipedia). The Detroit Lions let a reporter play QB. Can you guess how it went There was love thereactually, his inability to express it sometimes made him positively brim with itbut speak the words, his voice could not. He was 76.. 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. . After several problems with transporting and preparing the fireworks, Plimpton and Grucci became the first competitors from the United States to win the event. Okay, then, are you saying that Plimpton has such as accent? He looked for ways in which he could make himself a ridiculous figure, and not only on the football field, but in all walks of life. Revolutionary musket, a stairwell and a housemaster), Its something different, and Ive not encountered that in the mid-Atlantic. (To read Part One, click here. An oral history of George Plimpton. - Slate Magazine 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. We worked at the Paris Review on the Rue Garanere for several years together. Look out, Wilson! Its strange to think, but he would have been eighty-five this year: fourteen years older than my mom, fifty years older than me. If you were making a speech in a large hall, or speaking on the radio, you needed to enunciate very clearly and use a lot of emphases to be sure your audience could understand what you were saying. Best-selling author George Plimpton shares his experience as a "Storyteller For Life" with Dean Nelson of Point Loma Nazarene University as part of PLNU's 5th Annual Writer's Symposium By The. 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. For it was George Plimpton the writer, not the editor nor the celebrity, who was honored here . And here for the full interview). 1. 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. 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. Hes just trying it out and will come back and write a book about his experiences. Here are five things you may not have known about him. Being, And Appreciating, George Plimpton : NPR Plimpton scowled, and said he was perfectly capable of running for himself. They spoke in this manner, and it seemed perfectly natural, evocative of a background spent among the gentry of the northeast.. "[34] A feature in Mad titled "Some Really Dangerous Jobs for George Plimpton" spotlighted him trying to swim across Lake Erie, strolling through New York's Times Square in the middle of the night, and spending a week with Jerry Lewis. He was one of her original supporters and had published an article about her work in The Paris Review. In the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated, Plimpton pulled off a widely reported April Fools' Day prank. [citation needed]. 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. The Very Good Life Of George Plimpton - The Washington Post **, In this case, Mid-Atlantic refers to speech in which the attributes of British English and American English meet halfway. All rights reserved. Researcher and writer Samuel Arbesman filed with NASA to name an asteroid after Plimpton; NASA issued the certificate 7932 Plimpton in 2009. In Praise of Plimpton - Newsweek [29], With Felix Grucci, Plimpton competed in the 16th International Fireworks Festival in 1979 in Monte Carlo. News children today have no concept of the Mid-Atlantic accent. But Labov said that in post-World War II New York, fancier people started becoming rhotic, and recovering their Rs. Im having a harder time coming up with clear examples from the other side of the Atlantic, but Ive heard Alfred Molina (Londoner), and Catherine Zeta-Jones (Welsh) put on a Mid-Atlantic accent from time to time.. His dish was Spaghetti Bolognese. Oh, I suppose we should all just lavish praise upon Carnac the Magnificent now for bringing this to your attention, is that it? Are you saying that the denizens of Larchmont sound like Plimpton did? **. In the 50s Plimpton and staff came to New York, where they kept the Review going for half a century. After finishing at Harvard in 1950, he attended King's College, Cambridge, from 1950 to 1952, and graduated with third class honors in English. I received many notes like this one: The variety of English you are referring to has a name in linguistics: "Mid-Atlantic English". How to find out, and whether you should care. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. 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. With the evolution of talkies in the late 1920s, voice was first heard in motion pictures. 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. His friendships testified to what an eclectic man he was. At Harvard, Plimpton was a classmate and close personal friend of Robert F. Kennedy. Norman Mailer, author:George had a rare gift. Speaking of which, didnt the young Jackie Kennedy have something of this, along with a kinda dreamy, airy, Monroe-esque (though many degrees less contrived) essence to it? George had three siblings: Francis Taylor Pearsons Plimpton Jr., Oakes Ames Plimpton,[15] and Sarah Gay Plimpton. What was our problem? **Those of us whose families are from Larchmont (that would be me) just call it lockjaw. George A. Plimpton Papers, 1634-1956 | Rare Book & Manuscript Library **. One reader writes: I've wondered whether that "announcer English" was at least partly caused by poor loudspeakers and microphones. Volume 7, 2003-2005, pages 429-432. 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.
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