George Plimpton is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent.
39 Facts About George Plimpton
2.
George Plimpton was 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 and then recording the experience from the point of view of an amateur.
3.
George Plimpton was the son of Francis T P Plimpton and the grandson of Frances Taylor Pearsons and George Arthur Plimpton.
4.
George Plimpton's father was a successful corporate lawyer and partner of the law firm Debevoise and Plimpton; he was appointed by President John F Kennedy as US deputy ambassador to the United Nations, serving from 1961 to 1965.
5.
George Plimpton's mother was Pauline Ames, the daughter of botanist Oakes Ames and artist Blanche Ames.
6.
George Plimpton was the great-granddaughter on her father's side of Oakes Ames, an industrialist and congressman who was implicated in the Credit Mobilier railroad scandal of 1872; and Governor-General of New Orleans Benjamin Franklin Butler, an American lawyer and politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States House of Representatives and later served as the 33rd Governor of Massachusetts.
7.
George Plimpton wrote for the Harvard Lampoon, was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, Pi Eta, the Signet Society, and the Porcellian Club.
8.
George Plimpton entered Harvard as a member of the Class of 1948, but did not graduate until 1950 due to intervening military service.
9.
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.
10.
Peter Matthiessen took the magazine over from Humes and ousted him as editor, replacing him with George Plimpton, using it as his cover for Matthiessen's CIA activities.
11.
George Plimpton was associated with the literary magazine in Paris, Merlin, which folded because the State Department withdrew its support.
12.
Outside the literary world, George Plimpton was famous for competing in professional sporting events and then recording the experience from the point of view of an amateur.
13.
In 1958, prior to a post-season exhibition game at Yankee Stadium between teams managed by Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, George Plimpton pitched against the National League.
14.
George Plimpton's experience was captured in the book Out of My League.
15.
In 1963, George 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.
16.
George Plimpton revisited pro football in 1971, this time joining the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Colts and seeing action in an exhibition game against his previous team, the Lions.
17.
In 1994, George Plimpton appeared several times in the Ken Burns series Baseball, in which he shared some personal baseball experiences as well as other memorable events throughout the history of baseball.
18.
The prank was so successful that many readers believed the story, and the ensuing popularity of the joke resulted in George Plimpton's writing an entire book on Finch.
19.
George Plimpton appeared in the PBS American Masters documentary on Andy Warhol.
20.
George Plimpton appeared in the closing credits of the 2006 film Factory Girl.
21.
Between 2000 and 2003, George 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.
22.
George Plimpton appeared in a number of feature films as an extra and in cameo appearances.
23.
George Plimpton had a small role in the Oscar-winning film Good Will Hunting, playing a psychologist.
24.
George Plimpton was notable for his appearance in television commercials during the early 1980s, including a memorable campaign for Mattel's Intellivision.
25.
George Plimpton hosted Disney Channel's Mouseterpiece Theater.
26.
George Plimpton appeared in an episode of the NBC sitcom Wings.
27.
George Plimpton appeared in the 1989 documentary The Tightrope Dancer which featured the life and the work of the artist Vali Myers.
28.
George Plimpton was one of her original supporters and had published an article about her work in The Paris Review.
29.
The film used archival audio and video of George Plimpton lecturing and reading to create a posthumous narration.
30.
George Plimpton was a demolitions expert in the post-World War II Army.
31.
George Plimpton was known for his distinctive accent which, by George Plimpton's own admission, was often mistaken for an English accent.
32.
George Plimpton himself described it as a "New England cosmopolitan accent" or "Eastern seaboard cosmopolitan" accent.
33.
George Plimpton was the daughter of writers Willard R Espy and Hilda S Cole, who had, earlier in her career, been a publicity agent for Kate Smith and Fred Waring.
34.
In 1992, George Plimpton married Sarah Whitehead Dudley, a graduate of Columbia University and a freelance writer.
35.
George Plimpton is the daughter of James Chittenden Dudley, a managing partner of Manhattan-based investment firm Dudley and Company, and geologist Elisabeth Claypool.
36.
At Harvard, Plimpton was a classmate and close personal friend of Robert F Kennedy.
37.
George 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.
38.
An oral biography titled George, Being George was edited by Nelson W Aldrich Jr.
39.
Researcher and writer Samuel Arbesman filed with NASA to name an asteroid after George Plimpton; NASA issued the certificate 7932 George Plimpton in 2009.