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. As a result, this American version of a posh accent has all but disappeared even among the American upper classes. Anyhow, I asked Terry Gross from Fresh Air and George Plimpton to be auctioneers. It includes clear pronunciation of each and every consonant cluster. 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. Were taking off from Teterburo, N.J., at 4 a.m. tomorrow. The Writers won the game with a home run in extra innings, but the highlight was Plimptons hit. Articles From This Author. And so it seemed only fitting to commemorate his death with the form he made his own.Meghan ORourke. Here are five things you may not have known about him. Plimpton himself described it as a "New England cosmopolitan accent"[36] or "Eastern seaboard cosmopolitan" accent. 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. On Saturday Night Live, even the great impersonator Dana Carvey couldnt get it quite right. YESTERDAY IS NOT FAR AWAY. He had a small role in the Oscar-winning film Good Will Hunting,[22] playing a psychologist. I havent heard that he is dead, but if so RIP George. When he was on the scene, everything was a big happeningan event. The Paris Review was a testimony to his literary taste and his sense of glamour. He majored in English. 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. It was as if some old gentlemans code prohibited us from interacting as human beings. Big, tall, good-looking guy, easy-going. Prestigious prep schools and ivy league institutions (though Gore Vidal never went to college). 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. And so fuck was definitely out of the question, but what about I love you? *Originally posted by cuauhtemoc * At least, not to me, nor even to my sister, a fact she mentions in the movie. Consider his duties as host of Mousterpiece Theatre (my first intro to my father as celebrity), a childrens TV show in which he debated the adventures and psyches of Donald Duck and Goofy in that marvelously serious voice: Is Donald Duck really a strident existentialist and a hero? How wonderfulwhat fun!to have a constant reminder emerging from your lips that life was absurd, and identity, too; all of it a great game to be played at, enjoyed. He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. We were bound to play the roles of father and son, unable to simply be ourselves. I had George tell him the story of Sidd Finch. Well, perhaps it's more accurate to say that the book provided entertaining confirmation to millions of people that they -- like the author . The clearest example of the Mid-Atlantic accent is the accent of the Frasier & Niles Crane characters on the TV show Frasier. Oh, I suppose we should all just lavish praise upon Carnac the Magnificent now for bringing this to your attention, is that it? 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. . He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. . 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. Next up: some sociological explanations of why someone like George Gershwin might have tried to speak like Westbrook Van Voorhis. Plimpton was a writer-raconteur and dilettante in the best sense of the word: He co-founded an important literary magazine, the . Lewis Lapham, editor, Harpers Magazine:Georges immense enthusiasm was his primary characteristic. The funny thing about Harris was that he did not start out with that accent - as I suspect George Gershwin did not. 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. Actually, thats not far off from how my mom felt when she first met him. [40] They had two children: Medora Ames Plimpton and Taylor Ames Plimpton, who has published a memoir entitled Notes from the Night: A Life After Dark. Plimpton was associated with the literary magazine in Paris, Merlin, which folded because the State Department withdrew its support.[why?] 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. But it didnt define him, much the way he refused to be defined by the stiff, upper-crust world from which hed come. 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? 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. I have decided, he said, that I have got to jump from a plane. [citation needed], In 1963, Plimpton attended preseason training with the Detroit Lions of the National Football League as a backup quarterback, and he ran a few plays in an intrasquad scrimmage. That was the last party for a while., I just got back from a road trip from Michigan. I remember getting the news: It was my wife Madeleines birthday, Aug. 7. 08:37 Dinner at Elaine's. by George Plimpton. He wrote for the Harvard Lampoon, was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, Pi Eta, the Signet Society, and the Porcellian Club. 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. 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. 1 draft choice of the Lions in 1965. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. 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. LL is typified, I think, but an almost clenching of the teeth while talking, producing a mushy sound, if you will. The Cuban revolutionaries, led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, had just marched on Havana and ousted the US-supported dictator Fulgencio Batista. 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! 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. We had the book party for my selected poems, Sailing Alone Around the Room, at Georges house on Sept 10, 2001. Starring George Plimpton as Himself, directed by Tom Bean and Luke Poling, was released. By George Plimpton. 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! 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. Here's how Geroge Plimpton and his team created a prodigious pitcher out of thin air. 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. 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. He did not appear last year, or the year before, and we feared he was done with us. (To read Part One, click here. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. The film used archival audio and video of Plimpton lecturing and reading to create a posthumous narration. George Plimpton, journalist extraordinaire, trains with and then performs as Quarterback for the Baltimore Colts. 3: Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". In fact, my dads farewells seemed loquacious in comparison to his mothers. Oh now, Im joking, Carnac ( see? Showdown in the Pits. Would you admit to there being symbolism in your novels? [28], Plimpton was a demolitions expert in the post-World War II Army. 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. George Plimpton (1927-2003) George Plimpton was the editor of The Paris Review from its founding in 1953 until his death in 2003. Plimpton was an optimist, a teller of amusing and amazing stories. Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. And you are going to come with me. And the answer may explain partly why it has gone out of fashion: Jonathan Harris, the actor who played Dr. Smith on the television show "Lost in Space.". & FDR, George Plimpton, William F. Buckley, etc. Whom is it spoken bymerely the elite, old-money types? The Wikipedia entry is indeed delightful. Archie Moore, after all, had broken his nose. He was also an accomplished birdwatcher. Could it be fairly said that Plimptom had it? rejoiced in the name of Euphemia van Renssalaer Wyatt. [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." 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. [Then] this August he showed up, pulled the shirt over his head, and said he was ready to bat. George Plimpton is beautifully connected. Youll get another shot at the big time, trust me. They spoke in this manner, and it seemed perfectly natural, evocative of a background spent among the gentry of the northeast.. Since all we have are recordings of those long-vanished voices, we do not and cannot know whether people spoke "this way" when they were not being recorded, although I would be willing to wager that they did not. How to find out, and whether you should care. I always thought it sounded similar to the accent of William F. Buckley, Jr., who I believe was not reared in Boston. Share; Copied! The journal, which had operated out of his home, moved downtown. (The filmmakers assembled his voice-over from recorded speeches and other archival footage.) Plimpton appeared in the 1989 documentary The Tightrope Dancer which featured the life and the work of the artist Vali Myers. 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.. The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent, is a . Heres a sampling for today, with more planned in the days ahead. Okay, then, are you saying that Plimpton has such as accent? 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. Mr. Plimpton was born in Manhattan in 1927 and raised in Huntington, L.I. 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. Timothy Seldes, George Plimptons literary agent:Whenever George wanted me to do something for him, he would call me up and say, Hello, Old Tim. One day, I got a call, and heard his voice, and my heart sank. But for now, just one more category: 3) Changing technology, changing voices. **, In this case, Mid-Atlantic refers to speech in which the attributes of British English and American English meet halfway. Paul McCartney and his then-girlfriend Heather showed up. George . Ever. He thought Castro might come. Plimpton was .the public face of the New York intellectual: tweedy, eclectic and with a plummy accent he himself described as "Eastern seaboard cosmopolitan." . 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. And the many candidates for the crown of Last American to Speak This Way. **. **Oh, I suppose we should all just lavish praise upon Carnac the Magnificent now for bringing this to your attention, is that it? $ 9.19 - $ 32.19. 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). The Curious Case Of Sidd Finch. 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. Friends were almost always happy to see him because you knew he was bound to improve your mood. 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. Plimpton played Tom Hanks's antagonistic father in Volunteers. Ill pick you up., I had a hard time sleeping that night, as you might imagine. The title of the PBS documentary - "Plimpton! . silk-stockinged New Englander - private schools (he was Buckley clearly flaunts it, probably to set himself apart from the hoi polloi of his contemporaries. [35], Plimpton was known for his distinctive accent which, by Plimpton's own admission, was often mistaken for an English accent. They all gathered there. But he could easily have said, Alice, I have enough trouble raising money for my magazine.. Vault. I think the term Old Money or patrician pretty much says it. Just in time for the Sixties, with all their other pressures towards some kind of anti-Eisenhower authenticity. It was horrifying.. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. News children today have no concept of the Mid-Atlantic accent. As such, it was popular in the theatre and other forms of elite culture in that region. You should be very grateful. Was it him? $ 3.99 - $ 27.44. Powered by Discourse, best viewed with JavaScript enabled. History / Biographical Note Biographical Note. As an old film buff, I am used to this voice, though it figures unevenly in old movies. (Did Eisenhower speak the newsreel style? These experiences served as the basis of another football book, Mad Ducks and Bears, although much of the book dealt with the off-field escapades and observations of football friends Alex Karras ("Mad Duck") and John Gordy ("Bear"). 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. In all my years, Ive never heard this accent in person. All rights reserved. George Plimpton. I'm not an expert, but Bill Labov from UPenn is, and he is quoted thusly: According to William Labov, teaching of this pronunciation declined sharply after the end of World War II. Somehow Georgehad gotten it into his head that I was on the verge of becoming a pharmacist before he had called me up a year earlier to tell me the Paris Review was publishing a story I had submittedperhaps because of the pharmacological bent of the subject matter. **Mid-Atlantic. Labov suspected that WWII had something to do about it. That phony-baloney feigned British pronunciation thing. Kim Noble, one of the announcers on the NPR affiliate in Kansas City, KCUR, speaks with a very affected Connecticut Lockjaw accent. I think it was an affectation people adopted because they thought it made them sound much more intelligent! [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]. Hear Stories By George Plimpton. So it was that my father played himself not just in movies and on TV, but in life, too. You heard it and it. 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. The last time I heard my fathers voice, it was over the telephone. Peter even came with us on our honeymoon in Ravello, though George didnt. George Plimpton: what kind of accent? He joined us in Monte Carlo when we won the international [fireworks] competition. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. 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. Queen Elizabeth doesnt say car, and neither did Franklin D. Roosevelt, nor did the newsreel announcers or movie actors of his day. Quite sad, as he just had a daughter not many years back. Kennedy died the next day at Good Samaritan Hospital. 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. 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. . The name George Plimpton is synonymous with a kind of all-in participatory journalism. 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. 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. Among other challenges for Sports Illustrated, he attempted to play top-level bridge, and spent some time as a high-wire circus performer. After several problems with transporting and preparing the fireworks, Plimpton and Grucci became the first competitors from the United States to win the event. I think he came down [to the shooting of Paper Lion in] Florida once. Hows your mom? hed always ask me. The Writer's Chapbook A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit, and Advice from the Twentieth Century's Preeminent Writers. Hed have that and a scotch on the rocks, his favorite drink. I havent heard that he is dead, but if so RIP George. But its clear that the diction I call Announcer Voice has been the object of close linguistic study. It was so tiny that if you saw him in it, you couldnt believe hed be able to get himself out of it. I received many notes like this one: The variety of English you are referring to has a name in linguistics: "Mid-Atlantic English". Never heard of this decidedly imprecise term. He was so open to life and all its new and unexpected situations. George had three siblings: Francis Taylor Pearsons Plimpton Jr., Oakes Ames Plimpton,[15] and Sarah Gay Plimpton. 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 . 1. Except at parties. 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. Ive known him forsix months and I just now learned hes not English!. On Sept. 26, George Plimpton died in his sleep, at the age of 76. Final Twist of the Drama. I hope not. **. NYC speech in the sixties, in some ways, flipped prestige markers. George also approved, I think, of the fact that I lost. 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. Ive always heard it referred to as a patrician accent. See below!) A reader writes: Ive wondered about this myself when I see old Jimmy Cagney moviesand the date of his last starring role might give us a hint towards the date range of the change: "One, Two, Three" in 1961. But Labov said that in post-World War II New York, fancier people started becoming rhotic, and recovering their Rs. He was one of her original supporters and had published an article about her work in The Paris Review. [3] During the summers, he lived in the hamlet of West Hills, Huntington, Suffolk County on Long Island. **Thats a common name for such an accent. 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. I didnt know he was from the Larchmont area. Suddenly, a New York cop remembered a long-ago murder. 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. Get a life. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. Plimpton and Dudley were the parents of twin daughters Laura Dudley Plimpton and Olivia Hartley Plimpton. After the technology improved the need to speak so histrionically went away, and so did "announcer English.". It sounds like Somerset Maugham, was a favorite putdown. He got the personality totally wrong, too. Vault. "He speaks with an oddly mannered accent, sounding as though on the verge of a stammer, polite, genteel, perhaps just a little Woosterish. I thought they were terrific. Few could give a toast or tell a story with equal humor. His experience was captured in the book Out of My League. Exeter Academy after an incident involving a For instance: Mid-Atlantic English was the dominant dialect among the Northeastern American upper class through the first half of the 20th century. For such admissions to escape my fathers lips, they always had to be a little removed somehow. 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. Ad Choices. ), this isnt some kind of morbid contest to see who can be the first to inform the board of some celebritys death. During my fight, my nose got badly broken in the second round, but I did last all four scheduled rounds, though I lost. *Originally posted by bordelond * [2] His first wife, whom he married in 1968[38] and divorced in 1988, was Freddy Medora Espy, a photographer's assistant. Starring George Plimpton as Himself" - is meant as a wink-wink to Plimpton's career as a "participatory journalist." As a writer for Sports . And I felt such love for my sweet old excited dad at that moment that I thought I would do him the favor of not telling him so, of leaving it unsaid. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. Old money, would never say the word spanky, and certainly had more money than God could count. This brings us back to the why things changed question. That he died in his sleep was impressive. Even the manliest actors, such as Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable sometimes slipped into this voice-coach mode.