The Dudleys established the 36-acre (15ha) Highstead Arboretum in Redding, Connecticut. He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. I dont give a rats ass about informing anyone about the death of Plimpton. 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. If he couldnt be taken quite seriously, that was fine with him (he took himself lightly, and relished being in on the joke). Now the interview is perfect!. 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.". Charles McGrath, editor of the New York Times Book Review:I dont think George had played golf in years, but he used to save up oddball tips for me and others. My dad could never say what he feltnot reallyand neither can any of us. Ive rarely heard this accent in real life but its often used by actors doing a stereotype character based on other actors impersonations! 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. Off screen, George Plimpton and Gore Vidal come to mind. Isnt that what they call it. He also served as editor of the Harvard Lampoon. 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. Your transparent jealousy is very unbecoming, Carnac. Did he have the celebrated Boston Brahmin accent, or was it a psuedo-Brit affectation? 2023 Cond Nast. "He speaks with an oddly mannered accent, sounding as though on the verge of a stammer, polite, genteel, perhaps just a little Woosterish. He was going to put on a reading of his play Zelda, Scott, and Ernest. Shadow Box. He wanted to play his own part, but they wouldnt let him. Puss, and my father enjoyed nothing more than holding the beast high in the air and making strange, affectionate sounds in that distinguished voice: Yeanngghh, Puss Yeaannngh Puss Puss Puss.) He called my sister Puss, too, sometimes, though mostly I think with her it was Kiddo, which he also called me, though there was a period in which he occasionally called me Ernie, which was the dogs name. After it was published, all of the baseball people were trying to get in touch with Sidd, but he didnt existit was an April Fools joke! His dish was Spaghetti Bolognese. I can understand your frustration, but celebrities die every day. You heard it and it could only be him. And what have we here? My moms initial impression was that he was a little hoity-toityI mean, who did this guy think he was?, But the second time they met, it was, in fact, my fathers voice that won her over. George was the one who read my name out to the commissioner. I had George tell him the story of Sidd Finch. 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 What stood in our way? [23] He was also notable for his appearance in television commercials during the early 1980s, including a memorable campaign for Mattel's Intellivision. 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. He had a way of putting it all together, of understanding fighters in the ring; he was a good analyst of boxing. That phony-baloney feigned British pronunciation thing. **Those of us whose families are from Larchmont (that would be me) just call it lockjaw. Description above from the Wikipedia article George Plimpton, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of . :rolleyes: Ive got news for you, buddy, youre not even second in line! [33] A later attempt, fired at Cape Canaveral, rose approximately 50 feet (15m) into the air and broke 700 windows in Titusville, Florida. Articles From This Author. It includes clear pronunciation of each and every consonant cluster. [41] She is the daughter of James Chittenden Dudley,[42] a managing partner of Manhattan-based investment firm Dudley and Company, and geologist Elisabeth Claypool. George Plimpton was an upper-class guy with a patrician accent who partied his way through life . Besides, third is a very respectable showing! I only wish I could not tell him again, just one more time. Its something different, and Ive not encountered that in the mid-Atlantic. :rolleyes: Ive got news for you, buddy, youre not even second in line! Dan Rather certainly marks the definitive end of the newsreel style and the ascendance of the folksy vernacular: those rustic analogies! May a diseased yak squat in your hot tub. So it was that my father played himself not just in movies and on TV, but in life, too. Peter Matthiessen took the magazine over from Humes and ousted him as editor, replacing him with Plimpton, using it as his cover for Matthiessen's CIA activities. 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 . Here's how Geroge Plimpton and his team created a prodigious pitcher out of thin air. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. (To read Part One, click here. YESTERDAY IS NOT FAR AWAY. 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.. 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. Ill try to give a representative range, and I am grateful for the care and thought that have gone into these responses. 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. 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. 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.. Plimpton was a writer-raconteur and dilettante in the best sense of the word: He co-founded an important literary magazine, the . *Originally posted by cuauhtemoc * I hope not. Are you saying that the denizens of Larchmont sound like Plimpton did? The young Paris Review editor and other New York literary figures arrived during a period marked by hope for a democratic Cuba. 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 came from a different era, shouldnt have still existed, but nevertheless, there it wasold New England, old New York, tinged with a hint of Kings College Kings English. He watched the first pitch sail high for a ball, and then hit a rope into left field. That he died in his sleep was impressive. 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. 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. December 17, 2022 Rafael Garca. In all my years, Ive never heard this accent in person. But for now, just one more category: 3) Changing technology, changing voices. Between 1945 and 1948, Plimpton was a soldier in the United States Army. 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. 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. The Wikipedia entry for it is quite detailed. [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." Finally I did. He died on September 26, 2003 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He came from a family where such endearments were not expressed, and phone conversations were curt. Plimpton would not boast of his feat, so we did. 2) The Role of Broadway and Hollywood, and the Shift from Jimmy Cagney to Marlon Brando. Yes he is gone. The opposing team: the Detroit Lions. Friends were almost always happy to see him because you knew he was bound to improve your mood. [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. Plimpton didnt die. 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. * OK? 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. I always thought it sounded similar to the accent of William F. Buckley, Jr., who I believe was not reared in Boston. Manhattan DVD. silk-stockinged New Englander - private schools (he was Think of the accent of Jane Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies. In the offices of the Paris Review, he displayed far more discerning tastes. One thinks of the glorious character actress, Kathleen Freeman, as the voice coach Phoebe Dinsmore in Singing in the Rain: Round tones, Miss Lamont. In Woody Allens Radio Days, Mia Farrow has an impossibly thick Brooklyn accent until she takes voice lessons and becomes a successful radio purveyor of celebrity gossip. History / Biographical Note Biographical Note. I enjoy doing it. Thats it, George cried out. George was not vainhe didnt care a whit about his image. I believe the accent was at one time known as Larchmont Lockjaw. 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. Bill Buckley, Gore Vidal, George Plimpton. Showdown in the Pits. Its strange to think, but he would have been eighty-five this year: fourteen years older than my mom, fifty years older than me. [35], Plimpton was known for his distinctive accent which, by Plimpton's own admission, was often mistaken for an English accent. 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. 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. 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. I feel that his work on this and many other language-related matters should be far more widely known than it is. There was one more matter I never heard my dad discuss. That made him a great storyteller. Alan Alda, portraying my dad in the movie version of Paper Lion (his book on playing quarterback for the Detroit Lions), didnt bother with his voice at all. 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! He wrote, "I suppose in a mild way there is a lesson to be learned for the young, or the young at heart the gumption to get out and try one's wings". Kennedy died the next day at Good Samaritan Hospital. After running the pilot, Rod Serling realized the narration needed a less pompous sounding and more natural voice himself. The funny thing about Harris was that he did not start out with that accent - as I suspect George Gershwin did not. Isnt that what they call it. [11], His mother was Pauline Ames,[12] the daughter of botanist Oakes Ames (1874-1950) and artist Blanche Ames. Norman Mailer said that George Plimpton was the best-loved man in New York. George Plimpton gives an auction winner a star-studded walk through the legendary NYC eatery Elaine's. 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. See below!) tweedy demeanor and Oxford accent. [citation needed], In the movie Plimpton! All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. 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. [28], Plimpton was a demolitions expert in the post-World War II Army. Plimpton entered Harvard as a member of the Class of 1948, but did not graduate until 1950 due to intervening military service. . **. George Plimpton, journalist extraordinaire, trains with and then performs as Quarterback for the Baltimore Colts. 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. He was also an accomplished birdwatcher. He looked like a very eccentric old Englishman. It was a great partyraucous and long. [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. My fathers voice was like one of those supposedly extinct deep-sea creatures that wash up on the shores of Argentina every now and then. 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. I do believe his accent was decidedly Swamp Yankee. He was one of her original supporters and had published an article about her work in The Paris Review. 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). I just heard that George Plimpton has died. Hed have that and a scotch on the rocks, his favorite drink.
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