George Plimpton

For more than five decades, author and journalist George Plimpton delved deeply into an array of high-profile and often physically grueling experiences, including professional baseball, boxing, competitive fireworks and stand-up comedy, which informed such celebrated non-fiction books as Paper Lion (1966) and Shadow Box (1977). Born George Ames Plimpton in New York City, New York he was the son of lawyer Francis T.P. Plimpton, who served as U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations under President John F. Kennedy, and Pauline Ames; his family tree also publisher George Arthur Plimpton and two governors of Massachusetts. Plimpton was educated at St. Bernard's School and Philips Exeter Academy before enrolling at Harvard College in 1944. His studies were interrupted by service with the U.S. Army as a tank driver during World War II; upon returning to civilian life, he wrote for the Harvard Lampoon and graduated from Harvard in 1950 before pursuing a second degree in English at Cambridge University, from which he graduated in 1952. The following year, Plimpton became the first editor-in-chief of the esteemed literary publication The Paris Review before returning to the United States to teach at Barnard College and contribute to Horizon magazine. In 1958, he began to participate in a series of "participatory" stories in which he drew first-hand experience on an array of singular experiences: pitching against the New York Yankees, sparring for three rounds with champion boxers Archie Moore and Sugar Ray Robinson, training with the Detroit Lions and Boston Bruins, and playing golf on the PGA Tour. These experiences, detailed with dry wit and exceptional attention, became the basis for a string of well-received books, including his baseball memoir Out of My League (1961), Paper Lion (football) and features for Sports Illustrated, among other publications. Many of his exploits were aired as specials on ABC, which helped to endear his clipped delivery and saturnine features to audiences and led to a side career as a pitchman for Oldsmobile and the Intellivision game system, and actor and television host, most notably in "Reds" (1981) and "Good Will Hunting" (1997). Plimpton retained his position as editor of The Paris Review for the next four decades while continuing to contribute features and pen books, including Edie: An American Autobiography (1982), about his friend, the socialite and Andy Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick, and Fireworks (1984), which detailed his obsession with demolition. In 1985, he penned a story for Sports Illustrated about a New York Mets pitcher named Siddhartha Finch who was a practicing Buddhist with a fastball that clocked at over 160 miles per hour. Though a spoof, the story convinced many readers that Finch was an up-and-coming in the major leagues, and inspired a book, The Curious Case of Sidd Finch (1987). His final book, Truman Capote (1998), was an oral history of the acclaimed author; Plimpton worked on a variety of projects, including commentary for the Ken Burns documentary "Baseball" (1994) and "Zelda, Scott and Ernest," a dramatization of correspondence between F. Scott Fitzgerald, his wife Zelda and Ernest Hemingway, in 2002. Plimpton succumbed to a heart attack in his apartment in New York City on September 25, 2003; his passing was honored by numerous peers and admirers, including the oral biography George, Being George (2008) and the feature-length documentary "Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself" (2012).