George Plimpton As Himself

[ed. I've been a fan of George Plimpton ever since reading Paper Lion as a football-playing teenager. What a keen intellect, matched with a generous dose of humility and boundless curiosity. See also: this loving tribute by his son Taylor -- My Father's Voice.] 

Although no one currently on staff at The Paris Review ever worked directly with George Plimpton, the legacy of the editor of 50 years obviously looms large over the publication. Coincident with the 60th anniversary of the magazine is the release of the documentary Plimpton!: Starring George Plimpton As Himself. The cover of the Spring 2013 issue of The Paris Review was a photograph of a poster made by the French artist JR—Unframed: George Plimpton, 1967, from a photograph by Henry Grossman—designed to look like a cover (the Spring 2013 cover, in fact) of The Paris Review pasted on a wall in Paris.

There are as many layers in Plimpton! worth rolling one’s eyes at: George’s pedigree; his legacy; the mythology surrounding him to which a documentary would seemingly only contribute. Such eye-rolling would not be entirely misplaced: an unattributed newspaper headline displayed in the documentary reads, "Being Born To Lose Has Made George Plimpton A Winner," although someone who can trace his ancestry back to the Mayflower, who can get kicked out of Exeter in his senior year and still end up at Harvard, who goes sailing with the Kennedy’s (and maybe dated Jacqueline Onassis?) hardly seems appropriately described as "born to lose."

But looking past the man as brand, it becomes apparent that Plimpton retained through it all a sense of joy and wonder—mouth agape, Plimpton watches as Ali trounces Foreman—that deflates cynicism. Anyway it's hard to think ill of a man who watched as Robert F. Kennedy, one of his best friends, was shot and killed by Sirhan Sirhan right in front of him. (Plimpton would help tackle Sirhan and disarm him. He never spoke of the incident publicly.) Later, during a period of economic turmoil, Plimpton appeared on a number of infomercials to help keep the magazine alive. If his writer friends looked down upon his practice of participatory journalism, one can only imagine the disdain they must have felt at such debasement.

by Brendan O'Connor, The Awl |  Read more:

Image: Larry Fink