He never went all the way, though his authenticity and newly-downstyle speaking could probably be marked in the crisis/triumph stages of his reporting: the death of JFK; the Vietnam report; the moon landing. 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. I believe the accent was at one time known as Larchmont Lockjaw. LL is typified, I think, but an almost clenching of the teeth while talking, producing a mushy sound, if you will. George Plimpton writer, publisher, amateur lion tamer died in 2003 after 50 years as the founding editor of The Paris Review. But its clear that the diction I call Announcer Voice has been the object of close linguistic study. Kaltenborn was a famous mid . 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. [17], In 1953, Plimpton joined the influential literary journal The Paris Review, founded by Peter Matthiessen, Thomas H. Guinzburg, and Harold L. "Doc" Humes, becoming its first editor in chief. People two or three deep stood looking out at the East River. All rights reserved. Lewis Lapham, editor, Harpers Magazine:Georges immense enthusiasm was his primary characteristic. I knew that between the time Id asked Plimpton to do the auction and the night itself, he had probably received five invitations for a better evening, but he would never have reneged. 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. And you are going to come with me. After his discharge, Plimpton returned to Harvard and finished his undergraduate education. 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. He once said that, in writing Paper Lion, he wanted to reveal the "humor and grace" of football. When I eventually went back to be an editor at Harpers, I arrived at his flat, not having been in New York for eight years. 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. In fact, my dads farewells seemed loquacious in comparison to his mothers. Plimpton didnt die. I remember the Lowell Thomas documentary films of the 50s where Mr. Thomas' mellifluous tones and distinct radio-style pronunciation gave him a respectability that a similar huckster could hardly hope to replicate today by the mere application of such an artifice. With a little more practice, you could give us boys in the big leagues a run for our money. When George told the story, DiMaggio laughed so hard I thought he was going to fall on the floor. Queen Elizabeth doesnt say car, and neither did Franklin D. Roosevelt, nor did the newsreel announcers or movie actors of his day. On one website, I read about a Choate alumn saying one can still hear the LL (see above thread) accent on campus. I dont give a rats ass about informing anyone about the death of Plimpton. These events were recalled in his best-known book Paper Lion, which was later adapted into the 1968 feature film starring Alan Alda. I hope not. I think that perhaps Harris' portrayal of Dr. Smith made the accent so identified with cowardly buffoonery that no one in the baby boom generation and later would want to use the accent as anything other than a joke. Havent heard that term in years. Researcher and writer Samuel Arbesman filed with NASA to name an asteroid after Plimpton; NASA issued the certificate 7932 Plimpton in 2009. 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. :rolleyes: Ive got news for you, buddy, youre not even second in line! Was it him? He was an actor and writer, known for Good Will Hunting (1997), Nixon (1995) and Just Cause (1995). George Plimpton was born on March 18, 1927 in New York City, New York, USA. Hed have that and a scotch on the rocks, his favorite drink. George Plimpton is beautifully connected. He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. He was a Wasp (both of his parents came from old New England families, and had ancestors on the Mayflower). George was the one who read my name out to the commissioner. Its a joke to say 500 of my closest friends, but that would have been true with George1,000 of his closest friends, actually. In that vein, here is an oral biography of George Plimpton. Vault. 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. Shoot! hed hiss, when he was mad. On Sept. 26, George Plimpton died in his sleep, at the age of 76. I think he came down [to the shooting of Paper Lion in] Florida once. And George had written it straight. [5][6][7][8][9][10] His father was a successful corporate lawyer and partner of the law firm Debevoise and Plimpton; he was appointed by President John F. Kennedy as U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations, serving from 1961 to 1965. By George Plimpton. 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. 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. Read more. And similarly on the role of ridicule in speeding the move away from this accent: This is only partly facetious, but I think I know who was the American to speak "Announcer." He got the personality totally wrong, too. He joined us in Monte Carlo when we won the international [fireworks] competition. Ive always heard it referred to as a patrician accent. Revolutionary musket, a stairwell and a housemaster), Is it in evidence among the Gen X set of Boston, or a passing phenomenon? Plimpton appeared in the 1989 documentary The Tightrope Dancer which featured the life and the work of the artist Vali Myers. I just knew it was going to be something terrible. I had made about five thousand egg and tuna sandwiches. Spoke in a mid-Atlantic accent, reflecting a privileged Upper East Side (in New York City) upbringing. All the good guys have got to go. Plimpton also appeared in the closing credits of the 2006 film Factory Girl. [2][43], An oral biography titled George, Being George was edited by Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., and released on October 21, 2008. Her mother, a writer and critic for Commonweal and Catholic World. During my fight, my nose got badly broken in the second round, but I did last all four scheduled rounds, though I lost. 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. Now you know! Articles From This Author. 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. How to find out, and whether you should care. 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 . Were taking off from Teterburo, N.J., at 4 a.m. tomorrow. He also appeared in a featurette about Edie Sedgwick found on the Ciao! "I've decided to stay over here in . 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. 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. Manhattan DVD. Besides, third is a very respectable showing! I have decided, he said, that I have got to jump from a plane. For instance: Mid-Atlantic English was the dominant dialect among the Northeastern American upper class through the first half of the 20th century. [47][48] Oh now, Im joking, Carnac ( see? Between 1945 and 1948, Plimpton was a soldier in the United States Army. He did these jobs, and many others, as an amateur.. In this campaign, Plimpton touted the superiority regarding the graphics and sounds of Intellivision video games over the Atari 2600.[24]. Description above from the Wikipedia article George Plimpton, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of . Shadow Box. How widespread, numerically and geographically? If he couldnt be taken quite seriously, that was fine with him (he took himself lightly, and relished being in on the joke). He came from a family where such endearments were not expressed, and phone conversations were curt. Besides, third is a very respectable showing! The Writer's Chapbook A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit, and Advice from the Twentieth Century's Preeminent Writers. Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. *Originally posted by cuauhtemoc * He called his computer the machine. At dinner, when offered seconds, he would often decline by saying, Thank you, no, Ive had a gracious plenty. He called my mom Puss (this was also the name of our fat, raccoon-striped cat, though he was Mr. He wrote for the Harvard Lampoon, was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, Pi Eta, the Signet Society, and the Porcellian Club. What stood in our way? He wanted to play his own part, but they wouldnt let him. [29], His enthusiasm for fireworks grew, and he was appointed Fireworks Commissioner of New York by Mayor John Lindsay,[29][30] an unofficial post he held until his death. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review. [11], His mother was Pauline Ames,[12] the daughter of botanist Oakes Ames (1874-1950) and artist Blanche Ames. [32] When lit, the firework remained on the ground and exploded, blasting a crater 35 feet (11m) wide and 10 feet (3.0m) deep. He loved the ones that made a lot of noise and racket and excitement. George Plimpton. If you say, I pahked my cah in Hahvahd Yahd, like some vaudeville version of a Boston accent, you are non-rhotic. The wife is also old money, as Phlosphr mentions, and she talks exactly the same way. Old money, would never say the word spanky, and certainly had more money than God could count. His response was "no, just affected.". At Harvard, Plimpton was a classmate and close personal friend of Robert F. Kennedy. (And, OK, Im not a linguist, but Im married to one!) And so it seemed only fitting to commemorate his death with the form he made his own.Meghan ORourke. Big, tall, good-looking guy, easy-going. 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. Even the manliest actors, such as Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable sometimes slipped into this voice-coach mode. 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. . **. The name George Plimpton is synonymous with a kind of all-in participatory journalism. Paul McCartney and his then-girlfriend Heather showed up. So it was that my father played himself not just in movies and on TV, but in life, too. 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.
