It was then that the majority of audiences first heard Hollywood actors speaking predominantly in Mid-Atlantic English, British expatriates John Houseman, Henry Daniell, Anthony Hopkins, Camilla Luddington, and Angela Cartwright exemplified the accent, as did [a long list of North Americans, from Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly to Richard Chamberlain and Christopher Plummer]. The guys here in Detroit treated him like one of us. I only wish I could not tell him again, just one more time. 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. I never thought that George slept. Several readers wrote in with specimens of Americans who had gone to England and ended up speaking in this mid-Atlantic way. The funny thing about Harris was that he did not start out with that accent - as I suspect George Gershwin did not. 2023 Cond Nast. There was love thereactually, his inability to express it sometimes made him positively brim with itbut speak the words, his voice could not. 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. Peter even came with us on our honeymoon in Ravello, though George didnt. But looking back on it, its funny, too. Vault. In 1966, George Plimpton's book Paper Lion, recounting his attempt to play football with the Detroit Lions, allowed millions of Americans to vicariously live out their childhood dream of playing in the NFL. 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. 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. Hows your mom? hed always ask me. He was also an accomplished birdwatcher. 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. What exactly is a Boston Brahmin accent? George . Plimpton was an omnipresence for much of American cultural lifeboth high and lowin the last third of the 20th century. 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. . *Originally posted by cuauhtemoc * But it didnt define him, much the way he refused to be defined by the stiff, upper-crust world from which hed come. **Get a life. Get book recommendations, fiction, poetry, and dispatches from the world of literature in your in-box. He was so open to life and all its new and unexpected situations. rejoiced in the name of Euphemia van Renssalaer Wyatt. [32] When lit, the firework remained on the ground and exploded, blasting a crater 35 feet (11m) wide and 10 feet (3.0m) deep. 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. *Originally posted by bordelond * Middle class? I believe the accent was at one time known as Larchmont Lockjaw. Its strange to think, but he would have been eighty-five this year: fourteen years older than my mom, fifty years older than me. 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. I remember getting the news: It was my wife Madeleines birthday, Aug. 7. Norman Mailer, author:George had a rare gift. 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. Katharine Hepburn spoke this way, on and off screen until she died. Queen Elizabeth doesnt say car, and neither did Franklin D. Roosevelt, nor did the newsreel announcers or movie actors of his day. They were born to Plimpton and his second wife, Sarah Dudley, 26 years younger than he, who is chairwoman of the East Harlem Tutorial Program, for which he was a trustee. silk-stockinged New Englander - private schools (he was So, pairing the Cagney hint with the Kennedy Inaugural, could we date the changeover to 1961? George Plimpton gives an auction winner a star-studded walk through the legendary NYC eatery Elaine's. As a result, this American version of a posh accent has all but disappeared even among the American upper classes. Plimpton appeared in the 1989 documentary The Tightrope Dancer which featured the life and the work of the artist Vali Myers. How do I know you're not George Plimpton? 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. 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. [citation needed]. The coach for the Writers team announced that Plimpton would pinch-hit for the first batter of the game, Daily News sports columnist Mike Lupica, and the crowd roared. Isnt that what they call it. How to find out, and whether you should care. 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. Sign up for the Books & Fiction newsletter. For his grandfather, the publisher and philanthropist, see, Calvin Gay Plimpton and Priscilla G. Lewis were the parents of, He was widely reviled for years after the war by Southern whites, who gave him the nickname "Beast Butler." "He speaks with an oddly mannered accent, sounding as though on the verge of a stammer, polite, genteel, perhaps just a little Woosterish. 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? 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 . But the average person never talked that way. Plimpton died on September 25, 2003, in his New York City apartment from a heart attack later determined to have been caused by a catecholamine surge. By George Plimpton. 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. He was an actor and writer, known for Good Will Hunting (1997), Nixon (1995) and Just Cause (1995). *Originally posted by Phlosphr * 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. I can understand your frustration, but celebrities die every day. He hosted Disney Channel's Mouseterpiece Theater (a Masterpiece Theatre spoof which featured Disney cartoon shorts). Plimpton scowled, and said he was perfectly capable of running for himself. Losing, he knew, always makes a better story than winning. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. And his apartment, with those windows that looked out onto the East River, became a famous landmark in NYC. [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." The presentation was called Freedom of the American Road and was made 60 years ago, in 1955, as part of the campaign to build support for the new Interstate Highway system. The 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. It includes clear pronunciation of each and every consonant cluster. No one realized till the next day that this was the weather that created the extreme blue skies of Sept. 11a condition I since learned that pilots call severe clear. The next day, friends called and said, That was the last party. 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 had, for instance, a series of antiquated phrases and terms of affection. Old money, would never say the word spanky, and certainly had more money than God could count. Look out, Wilson! This was his habit. I hope not. Plimpton entered Harvard as a member of the Class of 1948, but did not graduate until 1950 due to intervening military service. George Plimpton. We all just had our own regional accentor non accent, like the flat midwest speak. Daniel Kunitz, managing editor of the Paris Review from1995-2000: I once heard George joking with William F. Buckley on the phone about how they had the last affected accents in New York. A few days after, I went to a Paris Review party and showed off my damaged nose and two black eyes to George. So it was that George Plimptons accent could not be imitated. Id like to offer a speculation, for what its worth. With the evolution of talkies in the late 1920s, voice was first heard in motion pictures. Plimpton was an optimist, a teller of amusing and amazing stories. 1. I mean, if George Plimpton wasnt my father and Id never met him, and I heard that voice emerge from his lips and matched it with his severe Roman features and his usual blue blazer, oxford shirt, and tie, I might have assumed that he was a little pompous or snooty or affected. 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. Description above from the Wikipedia article George Plimpton, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of . Plimpton and Dudley were the parents of twin daughters Laura Dudley Plimpton and Olivia Hartley Plimpton. And so fuck was definitely out of the question, but what about I love you? George was the one who read my name out to the commissioner. 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. 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. Bill Buckley, Gore Vidal, George Plimpton. Read more in this thread (long). After finishing at Harvard in 1950, he attended King's College, Cambridge, from 1950 to 1952, and graduated with third class honors in English. It includes clear pronunciation of each and every consonant cluster. He was a Wasp (both of his parents came from old New England families, and had ancestors on the Mayflower). We were bound to play the roles of father and son, unable to simply be ourselves. Plimpton was a writer-raconteur and dilettante in the best sense of the word: He co-founded an important literary magazine, the . 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. Plimpton sparred for three rounds with boxing greats Archie Moore and Sugar Ray Robinson while on assignment for Sports Illustrated. The conservative thinker may have shared an accent with some other men of the same age and social class, but his mannerisms and gestures made him entirely uniqueand occasionally prone to. Macklem . [13], Plimpton's son described him as a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant and wrote that both of Plimpton's parents were descended from Mayflower passengers.[14]. 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. In 1955 or 56, he went back to New York. 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. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. But he came right down to our level. What was our problem? At least, not to me, nor even to my sister, a fact she mentions in the movie. 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.. (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? As such, it was popular in the theatre and other forms of elite culture in that region. *Originally posted by j.c. * I think the term Old Money or patrician pretty much says it. 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"). If you say, I parked my car in Harvard Yard, you are being rhotic. . (Newsreels ran in movie theaters, of course: what better critique of the high newsreel style than the new movies that jarred against it?). She is the product of a line of the original Dutch settlers of New York and grew up in Tuxedo Park and the Gramercy Park area of Manhattan, very exclusive. Brown & Co. Re-issued George Plimpton Sports Books, 2016. As an old film buff, I am used to this voice, though it figures unevenly in old movies. Read more. *Originally posted by CBCD * Hed ask what was new in fireworks business and doodle around the facility with my dad, and he would always leave with a package of fireworks, to put on his own show. 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. 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. He was also known for "participatory journalism," including accounts of his active involvement in professional sporting events, acting in a Western, performing a comedy act at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and playing with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra[1] and then recording the experience from the point of view of an amateur. 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! My dad and I could not lose each other, but we could never quite find each other, either. 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. My dad could never say what he feltnot reallyand neither can any of us. He appeared in commercials for Oldsmobile and Intellivision, and appeared. Ive always heard it referred to as a patrician accent. Even if it had nothing else going for itsomething very far from the truth Shadow Box by George Plimpton will forever remain a bastion of boxing literature because of the image it contains of the "Near Room," a place of dreadful foreboding which Muhammad Ali once described to the famed . George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 September 25, 2003) was an American writer. But its clear that the diction I call Announcer Voice has been the object of close linguistic study. Orson Welles also comes to mind, though I noticed he spoke in this mode more often during his early days, on and off screen. 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. He was one of her original supporters and had published an article about her work in The Paris Review. Billy Collins, poet:Im one of these people who went from crashing Georges parties in the 70s to being invited in the 80s.