George Plimpton

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George Ames Plimpton
Born March 18, 1927
New York City, New York
Died September 25, 2003
New York City, New York
Education St. Bernard's School
Phillips Exeter Academy
Daytona Beach High School
Harvard University
University of Cambridge
Occupation Journalist, writer, editor, actor
Spouse Freddy Medora Espy (1968–1988)
Sarah Whitehead (1991–2003)
Children Medora Ames
Taylor Ames
Laura Plimpton
Olivia Plimpton
Notable credit(s) The Paris Review

George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 – September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, editor, and actor.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Plimpton was born in New York. He attended St. Bernard's School, Phillips Exeter Academy, and Daytona Beach High School, where he received his High School diploma [1] before entering Harvard University in July 1944. He wrote for the Harvard Lampoon, was a member of the Hasty Pudding-Institute of 1770, Pi Eta and Phoenix-S.K. His field of concentration was English. Plimpton entered Harvard as a member of the Class of 1948, but didn't graduated until 1950 due to intervening military service. He was also an accomplished birdwatcher.

Plimpton was first married to Freddy Medora Espy, a photographer's assistant, from 1968 to 1988. They had two children: Medora Ames Plimpton and Taylor Ames Plimpton. In 1991 he married Sarah Whitehead Dudley, with whom he had twin girls, Laura and Olivia.

His studies were interrupted by military service lasting from 1945 to 1948 during which he served as a tank driver in Italy for the U.S. Army. After graduating from Harvard, he attended King's College at Cambridge University in England. He earned a second baccalaureate degree at Cambridge and took a master's in English there in 1952.

In 1953, Plimpton joined the influential literary journal The Paris Review, founded by Peter Matthiessen, Thomas H. Guinzburg, and Harold L. Humes, becoming its first editor in chief. This periodical carries great weight in the literary world, but has never been financially strong; for its first half-century, it was largely financed by its publishers and by Plimpton. Poet laureate Donald Hall, who had met Plimpton at Exeter was Poetry Editor. One of the magazine's most notable discoveries was author Terry Southern, who was living in Paris at the time and formed a lifelong friendship with Plimpton.

At Harvard, Plimpton was a classmate and close personal friend of Robert Kennedy. Plimpton, along with former decathlete Rafer Johnson, was credited with helping wrestle Sirhan Sirhan to the ground when Kennedy was assassinated following his victory in the 1968 California Democratic primary at the former The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

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. In 1960, prior to the second of baseball's two All-Star games, Plimpton pitched against the National League. His experience was captured in the book Out of My League. (He intended to face both line-ups, but tired badly and was relieved by Ralph Houk.) Plimpton sparred for three rounds with boxing greats Archie Moore and Sugar Ray Robinson, while on assignment for Sports Illustrated.

In 1963, Plimpton attended preseason training with the Detroit Lions of the National Football League as a backup quarterback and ran a few plays in an intrasquad scrimmage. These events were recalled in his best-known book Paper Lion which was later adapted into a feature film starring Alan Alda, released in 1968. Plimpton revisited pro football in 1972, this time joining the Baltimore Colts and seeing action in an exhibition game against his previous team, the Lions. 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 of football friends such as Alex Karras and Bobby Layne. Another sports book, Open Net, saw him train as an ice hockey goalie with the Boston Bruins.

Plimpton's classic The Bogey Man chronicles his attempt to play professional golf on the PGA Tour during the Nicklaus and Palmer era of the 1960s. Among other challenges for Sports Illustrated, he attempted to play top-level bridge and spent some time as a high-wire circus performer. Some of these events, such as his stint with the Colts, and an attempt at stand-up comedy, were presented on the ABC television network as a series of specials. After being demolished at tennis by Pancho Gonzales, he wrote that he considered himself to be a fairly accomplished tennis player and that the drubbing by Gonzales was the most surprising of his ventures against the great athletes of his time.

A 6 November 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." 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! How do I know you're not George Plimpton?"[2] A feature in Mad Magazine 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 day with Jerry Lewis.

Plimpton also appeared in a number of feature films, as an extra and in cameo appearances. He had a small role in the Oscar-winning film, Good Will Hunting. He was also notable for his appearance in television commercials during the early 1980s. Among the most memorable are his role as spokesperson for Mattel's Intellivision in a blunt and aggressive ad campaign that advocated the superiority of their video games over those of their competitor, Atari 2600. He was also the host of the Disney Channel's Mouseterpiece Theater (a Masterpiece Theatre spoof which featured classic Disney cartoon shorts). He appeared in an episode of The Simpsons, "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can", as host of the "Spellympics." He also had a recurring role as the grandfather of the Dr. Carter character on the long-running NBC medical television series, ER.

A longtime fireworks aficionado, Plimpton wrote the book Fireworks and hosted an A&E Home Video with the same name. He was appointed Fireworks Commissioner of New York by Mayor John Lindsay, an unofficial post he held until his death.

Shortly before his death, George Plimpton wrote the libretto to a new family opera-musical entitled Animal Tales, in collaboration with Grethe Barrett Holby. The piece had been commissioned by Grethe Barrett Holby's Family Opera Initiative with composition by Kitty Brazelton. George explained Animal Tales by saying "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."

A personal friend of the New England Sedgwick family, Plimpton edited Edie: An American Biography with Jean Stein in 1982. He also appeared in a brief interview footage about Edie Sedgwick in the DVD extra for the film Ciao! Manhattan. In addition, he appeared in the PBS American Masters documentary on Andy Warhol.

Plimpton died of natural causes at his apartment in New York City at the age of 76.

[edit] Selected works

[edit] Books

  • Out Of My League
  • Paper Lion about his experience playing professional football
  • The Bogey Man about his experiences travelling with the PGA Tour
  • Open Net
  • Above New York's introduction, the book by Robert Cameron
  • Mad Ducks and Bears
  • The X Factor: A Quest for Excellence
  • One More July about the last NFL training camp of former Packer and future coach Bill Curry
  • The Curious Case of Sidd Finch; a novel that was an extension of a Sports Illustrated April Fools piece about a fictitious baseball pitcher who could throw over 160 mph (250 km/h)
  • Truman Capote

[edit] Film appearances

[edit] Television appearances

Voice, Baseball, PBS 1994

[edit] References

  1. ^ "How Failing at Exeter made a Success of George Plimpton," Phillips Exeter Academy Bulletin, Spring, 2002.
  2. ^ "George Plimpton: The Professional Amateur," Gerald Clarke, Time, Sept. 21, 1970.

[edit] External links and printed references

  • Walter, Eugene; Katherine Clark (2002). Milking the Moon: A Southerner's Story of Life on This Planet. New York: Three Rivers Press. ISBN 0-609-80965-2.  The author describes his years of working with Plimpton in Paris.


Persondata
NAME Plimpton, George Ames
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Journalist, writer, editor, actor
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City, New York
DATE OF DEATH September 25, 2003
PLACE OF DEATH New York City, New York
Languages