george plimpton accent george plimpton accent

Yes indeed, George Plimpton is a man for all seasons. Except at parties. 1 draft choice of the Lions in 1965. He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. 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. Plimpton played quarterback for the Detroit Lions and triangle for the New York Philharmonic, an. Plimpton would not boast of his feat, so we did. The s. 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. I didnt know he was from the Larchmont area. 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. 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. [11], His mother was Pauline Ames,[12] the daughter of botanist Oakes Ames (1874-1950) and artist Blanche Ames. A friend of the New England Sedgwick family, Plimpton edited Edie: An American Biography with Jean Stein in 1982. 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. Talking about sports with Georgeor, even better, reading George about sportswas more fun than sports themselves. By George Plimpton. And George had written it straight. Hes just trying it out and will come back and write a book about his experiences. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. 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. **. Final Twist of the Drama. * They all gathered there. Starring George Plimpton as Himself, the writer James Salter said of Plimpton that "he was writing in a genre that really doesn't permit greatness. 08:37 Dinner at Elaine's. by George Plimpton. 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. On Saturday Night Live, even the great impersonator Dana Carvey couldnt get it quite right. It was as if some old gentlemans code prohibited us from interacting as human beings. It was horrifying.. 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. Kaltenborn was a famous mid . He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review. There was love thereactually, his inability to express it sometimes made him positively brim with itbut speak the words, his voice could not. His friendships testified to what an eclectic man he was. I live in Connecticut which is both the richest and poorest state in the union - I think we still are - and we have our fair share of extremely rich folk who sit around all day in their large victorians wearing rockport loafers, no sox, khaki pants and a polo-shirt with the collar up. *Originally posted by j.c. * 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 . [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]. Was it me? #1 was Who Was the Last American to Speak This Way, #3 is Class-War Edition, and #4 is The Origin Story., Who Was the Last American to Speak This Way. We were both excitedId just come back from a weekend in Las Vegas, and hed just come back from celebrating the fortieth anniversary reunion of his Detroit Lions team at Ford Field, where the fans had given him a standing ovation, and he had raised his hatand for a moment we were no longer father and son, but just two big excited boys, each comparing adventures, and I could hear the pride in his voice, the happiness. [3] During the summers, he lived in the hamlet of West Hills, Huntington, Suffolk County on Long Island. He was a Wasp (both of his parents came from old New England families, and had ancestors on the Mayflower). Even the manliest actors, such as Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable sometimes slipped into this voice-coach mode. Think of the accent of Jane Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies. So, pairing the Cagney hint with the Kennedy Inaugural, could we date the changeover to 1961? Kennedy died the next day at Good Samaritan Hospital. Plimpton's most memorable writings involved him inserting himself into a daunting situation about which he knew . Lewis Lapham, editor, Harpers Magazine:Georges immense enthusiasm was his primary characteristic. Here are five things you may not have known about him. 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! tweedy demeanor and Oxford accent. He smiled broadly, signaled for the coach to send Lupica in to run for him, and trotted back to the sidelines. This speech pattern might be common among US expatriates in the UK, of which Grossman would seem to represent just the most ostentatious example. **Get a life. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. Plimpton was a writer-raconteur and dilettante in the best sense of the word: He co-founded an important literary magazine, the . 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. So it was that my father played himself not just in movies and on TV, but in life, too. And his apartment, with those windows that looked out onto the East River, became a famous landmark in NYC. 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.. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. Sidd Finch was a fictional character George had created for a Sports Illustrated story, supposedly the greatest and fastest pitcher in the world. Oh now, Im joking, Carnac ( see? He was "George Plimpton"-editor, host . I hope not. It is the kind of study . Congratulations Carnac, for posting about George Plimptons death at 3:44 PM. "[27], Plimpton was a member of the cast of the A&E TV series A Nero Wolfe Mystery (200102). 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. That was when Westbrook van Voorhis, the famous March of Time voice, did the intro narration of the pilot episode of The Twilight Zone. 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. The Writer's Chapbook A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit, and Advice from the Twentieth Century's Preeminent Writers. Plimpton was associated with the literary magazine in Paris, Merlin, which folded because the State Department withdrew its support.[why?] In it Van Voorhis has the formal delivery that would have seemed familiar to many mid-century listeners but which in retrospect we know was on the way out. Its something different, and Ive not encountered that in the mid-Atlantic. Researcher and writer Samuel Arbesman filed with NASA to name an asteroid after Plimpton; NASA issued the certificate 7932 Plimpton in 2009. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review. George Plimpton. He said, You better stay here, and I did, for a while. Plimpton played Tom Hanks's antagonistic father in Volunteers. "[25] He had a recurring role as the grandfather of Dr. Carter on the NBC series ER. I have worked as poetry editor with editors on other magazines; only with George has the experience been entirely agreeable. Id like to offer a speculation, for what its worth. Its a shot from a YouTube video that itself is a fascinating time-capsule portrait of language change. George Plimpton was a literary man about town who did it all, from co-founding The Paris . He was equally at home on a bicycle or getting out of a limousine with a Saudi Arabian prince. Now, in George, Being George, 200 friends, lovers and rivals detail Plimpton's remarkable exploits. (Did Eisenhower speak the newsreel style? 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. 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. [19] Another sports book, Open Net, saw him train as an ice hockey goalie with the Boston Bruins, even playing part of a National Hockey League preseason game. George Plimpton, Out of My League: The Classic Account of an Amateur's Ordeal in Professional Baseball, 2016, Little OK? My dad could never say what he feltnot reallyand neither can any of us. There was one more matter I never heard my dad discuss. He was a great addition to the human race. Quite sad, as he just had a daughter not many years back. And so it seemed only fitting to commemorate his death with the form he made his own.Meghan ORourke. (Why do I even bother?) Read more. 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. 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. 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. silk-stockinged New Englander - private schools (he was 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. Congratulations Carnac, for posting about George Plimptons death at 3:44 PM. But he came right down to our level. He rounded first as if he were about to go for a double, then glided back to the base, with fans waving and cheering. Larchmont Lockjaw? 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?. He hosted Disney Channel's Mouseterpiece Theater (a Masterpiece Theatre spoof which featured Disney cartoon shorts). George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. Was this sheer affectation? Plimpton and Dudley were the parents of twin daughters Laura Dudley Plimpton and Olivia Hartley Plimpton. 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. It was a hot, sweltering day. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. Is it in evidence among the Gen X set of Boston, or a passing phenomenon? If you say, I pahked my cah in Hahvahd Yahd, like some vaudeville version of a Boston accent, you are non-rhotic. 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. Old money, would never say the word spanky, and certainly had more money than God could count. Jean Harlow, one of my favorites, is all over the map with this, sometimes sounding like a tough streetwalker, other times like a society matron, and, oddly, slipping in and out of both dialects in the same role, or even in one sentence. Along with all the other things he does, George is an editor of the Paris Review, a literary quarterly published by the Aga Khan's uncle, Sadrudin, and his apartment is overstuffed with the comforts and legends of its use as a literary salon. :rolleyes: Ive got news for you, buddy, youre not even second in line! [citation needed], Outside the literary world, Plimpton was famous for competing in professional sporting events and then recording the experience from the point of view of an amateur. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yogaand his future in baseball. 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. After several problems with transporting and preparing the fireworks, Plimpton and Grucci became the first competitors from the United States to win the event. If you didnt know the man, you could, I think, be fooled by the voice. Even Orson Welles on occasion. Archie Moore, after all, had broken his nose. Few could give a toast or tell a story with equal humor. Greetings From the Vortex of Unpredictability, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. [29], With Felix Grucci, Plimpton competed in the 16th International Fireworks Festival in 1979 in Monte Carlo. He was stationed primarily in Italy, where he worked as a tank driver. [26] He also appeared in an episode of the NBC sitcom Wings. When he was on the scene, everything was a big happeningan event. That he died in his sleep was impressive. 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. Share; Copied! Harvard (where he edited the Lampoon), Kings College, Peter Matthiesen, author, co-founder of the Paris Review:I was in Liberia, of all places, and George met me in Monrovia. He also served as editor of the Harvard Lampoon. Of course, my dad had tried out for the role of himself and not gotten it, though he would go on to have a steady film career playing one version or another of a striking white-haired figure with a distinguished, chivalrous voice in bit roles in some twenty or so movies, including Reds and Good Will Hunting. Fortunately, in the upcoming film Plimpton! 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. What exactly is a Boston Brahmin accent? Hed have that and a scotch on the rocks, his favorite drink. 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. 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! . And you are going to come with me. May a diseased yak squat in your hot tub. I enjoy doing it. Thats it, George cried out. 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. He was immensely generous in every waygenerous about sharing the work and about giving one a chance to edit things. George Plimpton (1927-2003) was a journalist and the first editor-in-chief of The Paris Review. He was one of her original supporters and had published an article about her work in The Paris Review. He was so open to life and all its new and unexpected situations. 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. Norman Mailer said that George Plimpton was the best-loved man in New York. . Over the years, we held a lot of dinner parties for him, and he brought a lot of people inmany, many writers. 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. 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. 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. All the good guys have got to go. Mia had the perfect model! Too old-fashioned. Its a joke to say 500 of my closest friends, but that would have been true with George1,000 of his closest friends, actually. Please educate me. Rose Styron, wife of William Styron and former Paris Review editor:My husband Bill was with George when he started the Paris Review. 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 had a small role in the Oscar-winning film Good Will Hunting,[22] playing a psychologist. Thurston Howell III had the Larchmont Lockjaw accent. "[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. (To read Part One, click here. The wife is also old money, as Phlosphr mentions, and she talks exactly the same way. We were going to go looking for strange birds. 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. That is the tendency of Americans trying to sound more British, or Brits trying to sound more Yank, to split the difference and speak in an accent whose home ground is no real country but somewhere in the middle of the sea. Here's a look inside the space, where the Paris Review editor hosted legendary parties. [47][48] He grew up in New York City with bona fide WASP credentials; became the longtime editor of the Paris Review, working with many of the great novelists of the day; contributed to the New Journalism. For such admissions to escape my fathers lips, they always had to be a little removed somehow. 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, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. LL is typified, I think, but an almost clenching of the teeth while talking, producing a mushy sound, if you will. 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. I think he came down [to the shooting of Paper Lion in] Florida once. **, In this case, Mid-Atlantic refers to speech in which the attributes of British English and American English meet halfway. 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 the offices of the Paris Review, he displayed far more discerning tastes. They spoke in this manner, and it seemed perfectly natural, evocative of a background spent among the gentry of the northeast. Now the interview is perfect!. Could it be fairly said that Plimptom had it? George Plimpton writer, publisher, amateur lion tamer died in 2003 after 50 years as the founding editor of The Paris Review. And they founded this thing called the Paris Review and published poetry and short story writers and did interviews. 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. Starring George Plimpton as Himself" - is meant as a wink-wink to Plimpton's career as a "participatory journalist." As a writer for Sports . 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. You're going to play for us-making some sort of big comeback." "That's right," Plimpton replied in his patrician accent. I believe the accent was at one time known as Larchmont Lockjaw. *Originally posted by CBCD * Ever. She would not even say goodbye. Its our anniversary. Jay McInerney, author:Arriving in Manhattan as a young writer, nothing was more thrilling or daunting than attending my first Paris Review party at Georges townhouse on East 72nd in the fall of 1984. Did he have the celebrated Boston Brahmin accent, or was it a psuedo-Brit affectation? 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. Did he have the celebrated "Boston Brahmin" accent, or was it a psuedo-Brit affectation? Buckley clearly flaunts it, probably to set himself apart from the hoi polloi of his contemporaries. Future Poet Laureate Donald Hall, who had met Plimpton at Exeter, was Poetry Editor. *Originally posted by Phlosphr * Are you saying that the denizens of Larchmont sound like Plimpton did? 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. 2023 Cond Nast. George Plimpton was an upper-class guy with a patrician accent who partied his way through life . Starring George Plimpton as Himself, directed by Tom Bean and Luke Poling, was released. 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. 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. Interesting that the two competitors for his anchor chair were both fully vernacular speakers from the South and West: Mudd and Rather. What exactly is a Boston Brahmin accent? I can understand your frustration, but celebrities die every day. Losing, he knew, always makes a better story than winning. Anyhow, I asked Terry Gross from Fresh Air and George Plimpton to be auctioneers. Plimpton also appeared in a number of feature films as an extra and in cameo appearances. George was the one who read my name out to the commissioner. Would you admit to there being symbolism in your novels? 2) Truman v. Kaltenborn, 1949. You should be very grateful. The last time I heard my fathers voice, it was over the telephone. It was as if he was trying out again. That life couldnt contain him, hed burst its seams like it was an old coat two sizes too small. George also approved, I think, of the fact that I lost. 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. :rolleyes: Ive got news for you, buddy, youre not even second in line! He wanted to play his own part, but they wouldnt let him. *Originally posted by bordelond * NEW YORK -- George Plimpton, the self-deprecating author of "Paper Lion" and other sporting adventures and a patron to Philip Roth, Jack Kerouac and countless other writers, has died. 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. 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. Ive rarely heard this accent in real life but its often used by actors doing a stereotype character based on other actors impersonations! Plimpton entered Harvard as a member of the Class of 1948, but did not graduate until 1950 due to intervening military service. George Plimpton, the New York aristocrat and literary journalist whose career was a happy lifelong competition between scholarly pursuits and madcap attempts -- chronicled in self-deprecating. 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. 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. George Plimpton's duplex apartment on the Upper East Side hit the market for $5.495 million on April 18. Isnt that what they call it. *Originally posted by cuauhtemoc * 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. The flipped prestige markers point here is fascinating. Even the most basic conversation was often a struggle. **Mid-Atlantic. Articles From This Author. 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. 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. [citation needed], Plimpton's studies at Harvard were interrupted by military service from 1945 to 1948, during which time he served in Italy as an Army tank driver. Whether on the football field or on a golf course or in a poem or an essay, the notion of human talent in whatever form excited him. After St. Bernard's School, Plimpton attended Phillips Exeter Academy (from which he was expelled just shy of graduation), and Daytona Beach High School, where he received his high school diploma,[16] before entering Harvard College in July 1944. Queen Elizabeth doesnt say car, and neither did Franklin D. Roosevelt, nor did the newsreel announcers or movie actors of his day. 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. 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.