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

Biography

Plimpton was born in New York. He attended St. Bernard's School, Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard University, where he was an editor of the Harvard Lampoon.

From 1945 to 1948, he served as a tank driver in Italy for the U.S. Army. Later, he attended King's College at Cambridge University in England.

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.

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 pre-season training with the Detroit Lions as a backup quarterback and ran a few plays from scrimmage in an exhibition game. These events were recalled in his best-known book Paper Lion which was later adapted into a feature film starring Alan Alda. Another book, Open Net, saw him train as an ice hockey goalie with the Boston Bruins. His classic The Bogey Man chronicles his attempt to play professional golf on the PGA Tour during the Nicklaus and Palmer era of the 60s. 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 another attempt at professional football, 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." 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 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 Theatre (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.

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

Books (selected)

• 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
• 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 fool piece about a fictitious baseball pitcher who could throw over 160 mph (250 km/h)
• Truman Capote

Film appearances (selected)

• The Detective (1968)
• Rio Lobo (1970)
• Reds (1981)
• Volunteers (1985)
• "Boner Academy" (1987)
• The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)
• Little Man Tate (1991)
• L.A. Story (1991)
• Ken Burns' Baseball (1994)
• Just Cause (1995)
• Nixon (1995)
• Good Will Hunting (1997) as Dr. Henry Lipkin, Psychologist
• When We Were Kings (1997) as himself, Reporter
• The Last Days of Disco (1998)
• Edtv (1999)

Television guest appearances (selected)

• The Simpsons, playing himself in the episode "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can," originally aired February 16, 2003.
• ER, playing "John Truman Carter, Sr.," 1998 and 2001
• Saturday Night Live, as himself, uncredited, 1999 and 2002
• A Nero Wolfe Mystery, playing various roles in 10 episodes, 2001-2002

External links and printed references

• 1986 audio interview of George Plimpton by Don Swaim
• The Plimpton Project
• The author describes his years of working with Plimpton in Paris.

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