Bound

Nov. 20, 2008

A Gentleman Among Men

George Plimpton Was All That and Then Some

By John Hood 

George Plimpton and I first met at his Manhattan home back in ’90 or ’91 when he hosted a wedding reception for then Paris Review Senior Editor Fayette Hickox. I was just coming into my ego then and still a bit reticent around celebrity, but Plimpton made me feel immediately welcome into his world. That his world consisted of every 20th century writer of any merit, not to mention more bold-faced names than any three compendia on fame, only made his welcome all the warmer — and all the more cool.

The next day Plimpton had me up to his place again, this time so I could interview him for Paper Magazine, and again he insisted that I call him “George.” It wasn’t an easy move for me to make — his stature suggested a definite “Mr. Plimpton” — but he was adamant. Besides, George was simply too damn agreeable to argue with. We collided a couple more times over the years, most notably when Brian Antoni threw a Black & White Ball to celebrate the release of Truman Capote, and on each and every occasion George remained the consummate gentleman — impeccably mannered, effortlessly elegant and genuinely kind.

Of course I’m just one of the thousands upon thousands who encountered George throughout his long and robust life, and hardly one of his intimates. Had we been closer I’m sure I’d be among the many remembrances in the remarkable George, Being George (Random House, $30), an oral history that includes looks back from the likes of Gay Talese, Gore Vidal, William Styron and Peter Matthiessen.

Subtitled George Plimpton’s Life as Told, Admired, Deplored, and Envied by 200 Friends, Relatives, Lovers, Acquaintances, Rivals — and a Few Unappreciative Observers, and expertly edited by his pal Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., George is not just the sort of oral history very few people deserve, it’s the sort George himself would’ve definitely approved of. Why? Because it was a form he perfected with the books Edie and Truman Capote.

Yet neither Warhol’s tragic superstar nor the noted “non-fiction novelist” even came close to covering as much ground as George Plimpton, who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, died the talk of the town, and in between lived enough lives to account for any 50 people, provided those 50 never stopped fully living throughout their entire lives.

I’m talking a man of action as well as letters, and quite often both at the same time. As a participatory journalist for Sports Illustrated, George went three rounds with then light heavyweight champ Archie Moore, quarterbacked the Detroit Lions, goaled for the Boston Bruins, hit the PGA Tour alongside Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, and flew through the air with the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus. Each of those feats and more are talked about in George, some with envy, some with pride and all with utter awe.

But beyond the books and the exploits, George will perhaps be remembered for The Paris Review, which he helmed for the last 50-plus years of his life.

Founded in ’53 by Peter Matthiessen and Harold “Doc” Humes and basically given to George shortly thereafter, The Paris Review remains perhaps the most influential literary journal in history, mostly on account of its interviews, which began with E.M. Forster and number virtually every writer to have picked up a pen since.

Hemingway, Ellison, Faulkner, Greene, Burroughs, Miller, Bellow … name a 20th century heavyweight and The Paris Review chatted ‘em up. Some of those immortal interviews can now be found archived online, but to read them as they really were meant to be read, I wholeheartedly recommend you pick up Pantheon’s The Paris Review Interviews (Picador, $16).

Of the three volumes currently available, it’s impossible for me to pick a favorite, so I’ll just mention personal highlights from each.

In Volume I I’m most partial to James M. Cain, Richard Price and Dorothy Parker. Not because I don’t dig Borges and Bellow and Hemingway and Vonnegut (all of whom are also included), but because I double-dig crime and wisecracks, and if Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice and Price’s Clockers don’t epitomize crime writing and Parker wasn’t the embodiment of a wisecrack, then I’ll eat my hat.

For Volume II I’ll stick with Graham Greene and William Faulkner, first because of The Comedians and Our Man in Havana, and second because of As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury, all of which I discovered back when I was broke and a book was all the sustenance I needed to get through a New York night.

In III I’ll take Raymond Carver, Norman Mailer and Martin Amis. Carver’s ultimately inimitable short stories still floor me, and on a couple occasions I got to meet Mailer, so his entry gets extra credit. Amis, I’m proud to say, I too had the privilege of interviewing.

And that kinda brings me full circle. Like George I believe in both word and action, and by George I’m inspired to fully use both. And while I might not do so with such grace and good manners, I’ve at least been given a blueprint. And so now have you.

Comments? E-mail letters@miamisunpost.com.