George Plimpton writer, publisher, amateur lion tamer died in 2003 after 50 years as the founding editor of The Paris Review. George Plimpton boxed with Archie Moore, played quarterback for the Detroit Lions, and played percussion for the New York Philharmonic. **Thats a common name for such an accent. Oh now, Im joking, Carnac ( see? **Those of us whose families are from Larchmont (that would be me) just call it lockjaw. Firstly, then-managing director of SI, Mark Mulvoy, gave Plimpton the liberty to create a hoax.Secondly, SI photographer Lane Stewart recruited his friend, Joe Berton to play the part of Sidd Finch. I only wish I could not tell him again, just one more time. $ 4.19 - $ 17.92. Dan Rather certainly marks the definitive end of the newsreel style and the ascendance of the folksy vernacular: those rustic analogies! From what other people had told me, I knew a little bit about itthat my father (and mother) had been right by Bobbys side in California when he was shot, that my father had tackled Sirhan Sirhan to the ground, and wrestled the gun from his handbut not a word of it came from my dad himself. He wrote, "I suppose in a mild way there is a lesson to be learned for the young, or the young at heart the gumption to get out and try one's wings". Havent heard that term in years. After his discharge, Plimpton returned to Harvard and finished his undergraduate education. Description above from the Wikipedia article George Plimpton, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of . As such, it was popular in the theatre and other forms of elite culture in that region. He was not himself interested in poetry, but he read all of the poems every quarter, and he would tell me what he thought of them. Talking about sports with Georgeor, even better, reading George about sportswas more fun than sports themselves. ), this isnt some kind of morbid contest to see who can be the first to inform the board of some celebritys death. He liked the fact that I had broken my nose in defeat. Everything he did was like this, just a bit odd. One thinks of the glorious character actress, Kathleen Freeman, as the voice coach Phoebe Dinsmore in Singing in the Rain: Round tones, Miss Lamont. In Woody Allens Radio Days, Mia Farrow has an impossibly thick Brooklyn accent until she takes voice lessons and becomes a successful radio purveyor of celebrity gossip. Heres a sampling for today, with more planned in the days ahead. You're going to play for us-making some sort of big comeback." "That's right," Plimpton replied in his patrician accent. Along with all the other things he does, George is an editor of the Paris Review, a literary quarterly published by the Aga Khan's uncle, Sadrudin, and his apartment is overstuffed with the comforts and legends of its use as a literary salon. Hes just trying it out and will come back and write a book about his experiences. The Curious Case Of Sidd Finch. Angelo Dundee, trainer for Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard:George was such a great guy. And George had written it straight. Speaking of which, didnt the young Jackie Kennedy have something of this, along with a kinda dreamy, airy, Monroe-esque (though many degrees less contrived) essence to it? Oh now, Im joking, Carnac ( see? All rights reserved. [23] He was also notable for his appearance in television commercials during the early 1980s, including a memorable campaign for Mattel's Intellivision. Whom is it spoken bymerely the elite, old-money types? [26] He also appeared in an episode of the NBC sitcom Wings. His father co-founded the law firm Debevoise Plimpton. Its something different, and Ive not encountered that in the mid-Atlantic. As Poling puts it, George was known as an unrivaled raconteur and, in making a film of his life story, it only seemed natural to allow him to tell it.. Those of us whose families are from Larchmont (that would be me) just call it lockjaw. Congratulations Carnac, for posting about George Plimptons death at 3:44 PM. Rose Styron, wife of William Styron and former Paris Review editor:My husband Bill was with George when he started the Paris Review. He loved the ones that made a lot of noise and racket and excitement. Hed done it in Amsterdam, Moscow, and London; hed done it at a PEN benefit; and now he and Norman were going to do it in Cuba. Paul McCartney and his then-girlfriend Heather showed up. Whee!! I hope not. That was how it was in New York in those days, George just dragged it out a bit longer." Dudley Plimpton suspects the excess contributed to Plimpton's death in his sleep in 2003, at the age of 76. Read more in this thread (long). The journal, which had operated out of his home, moved downtown. These events were recalled in his best-known book Paper Lion, which was later adapted into the 1968 feature film starring Alan Alda. [45], Plimpton is the protagonist of the semi-fictional George Plimpton's Video Falconry, a 1983 ColecoVision game postulated by humorist John Hodgman and recreated by video game auteur Tom Fulp.[46]. I do believe his accent was decidedly Swamp Yankee. In all my years, Ive never heard this accent in person. Interesting that the two competitors for his anchor chair were both fully vernacular speakers from the South and West: Mudd and Rather. Please educate me. Plimpton brought the Left Bank to NYCpeople like Peter Mathiessen, William Styron, Terry Southern. By George Plimpton. There was intellectual heft in the Plimpton genes too: one Ames was a Professor of Botany, another was Governor of Massachusetts, another relation was a publisher, and yet another a writer-philanthropist fascinated with the subject of how the great figures of the past were educated Young Georges educational path was precisely that of a I'm not an expert, but Bill Labov from UPenn is, and he is quoted thusly: According to William Labov, teaching of this pronunciation declined sharply after the end of World War II. What exactly is a Boston Brahmin accent? Congratulations Carnac, for posting about George Plimptons death at 3:44 PM. 08:37 Dinner at Elaine's. by George Plimpton. This speech pattern might be common among US expatriates in the UK, of which Grossman would seem to represent just the most ostentatious example. On Sept. 26, George Plimpton died in his sleep, at the age of 76. (A variation is the Locust Valley Lockjaw.). When I eventually went back to be an editor at Harpers, I arrived at his flat, not having been in New York for eight years. A lordly accent acquired at St. Bernard's and burnished later at Cambridge, in England, enhanced his distinguished aura, as did elevated stature and a silver head of hair which might have encouraged a career in politics but mercifully did not. Nevertheless, its a strange thing that one of the great voices of modern storytelling had limitations, restrictions, words, and phrases it was incapable of uttering, matters it could not express: death, love, tragedy. Off screen, George Plimpton and Gore Vidal come to mind. The conservative thinker may have shared an accent with some other men of the same age and social class, but his mannerisms and gestures made him entirely uniqueand occasionally prone to. He grew up in New York City with bona fide WASP credentials; became the longtime editor of the Paris Review, working with many of the great novelists of the day; contributed to the New Journalism. [41] She is the daughter of James Chittenden Dudley,[42] a managing partner of Manhattan-based investment firm Dudley and Company, and geologist Elisabeth Claypool. In that regard, Plimpton is the perfect candidate, and the proof is in "George, Being George," the compulsively readable oral biography edited by his friend Nelson W. Aldrich Jr. Starring George Plimpton as Himself, "George Plimpton, Urbane and Witty Writer, Dies at 76", "Obituary: Frances T. P. Plimpton, 82, Dies", "Obituary: Pauline A. Plimpton, 93, Author Of Works on Famed Relatives", "Milton at the Midpoint of the Last Century: One Collection of Memories", "How Failing at Exeter made a Success of George Plimpton", "Legendary Humorist, Poonster Dies at 76 | News | The Harvard Crimson", "George Plimpton, Paris Review Founder, Pitches 1980s Video Games for the Mattel Intellivision", "The Simpsons: I'm Spelling As Fast As I Can", "George Plimpton, Author And Editor, Is Dead at 76", "Professor Muhammed Ali Delivers Lecture; Poems and Parables Fill Talk on Friendship | News | The Harvard Crimson", "George Plimpton | Full Film | American Masters | PBS", "George Plimpton, Still Burning His Punk at Both Ends, Finds a Sport in Which He Can Sparkle", "George Plimpton: The Professional Amateur", "Some Really Dangerous Jobs For George Plimpton", "Being, And Appreciating, George Plimpton", "Obituary: Willard Espy, Who Delighted In Wordplay, Is Dead at 88", "George Plimpton, Writer and editor, Is Wed to Sarah W. Dudley, a Writer", "Obituary: James C. Dudley, 77, Investment Adviser", "Naming the Sky: The true story of one man's quest to give George Plimpton a permanent presence in orbit", "DEAD END-DRIVE-IN | Plimpton! (Did Eisenhower speak the newsreel style? Gay Talese, author:As a young man not long out of university, at 26, 27 years of age, George Plimpton went with his friends to Paris to be benighted in the tradition of Paris culture. The name George Plimpton is synonymous with a kind of all-in participatory journalism. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. A graduate of Harvard University and King's College, Cambridge, Plimpton was recruited to Paris by Peter Matthiessen in 1952 and signed on to the project shortly thereafter. Plimpton and Dudley were the parents of twin daughters Laura Dudley Plimpton and Olivia Hartley Plimpton. Plimpton was .the public face of the New York intellectual: tweedy, eclectic and with a plummy accent he himself described as "Eastern seaboard cosmopolitan." . Norman Mailer said that George Plimpton was the best-loved man in New York. So we got together and, after some preliminaries, he popped the question that he was really there to ask. Of course, I think he enjoyed the odd persona his voice and mannerisms conferred on him. No one realized till the next day that this was the weather that created the extreme blue skies of Sept. 11a condition I since learned that pilots call severe clear. The next day, friends called and said, That was the last party. Aldas version was always angry or consternated, like a character in a Woody Allen film, while my dad, though he certainly faced hurdles as an amateur in the world of the professional, bore his humiliations with a comic lightness and charmmuch of which emanated from that befuddled, self-deprecating professors voice. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. Thats where there was that cross-section you once found in Parisof literary people, of people who were illiterate, of people down on their luck, and people of status. Jonathan Ames, author:Back in the fall of 1999, in preparation for my one and only boxing match, I read George Plimptons great book, Shadow Box, where he recounted his foray into the world of boxing and his famous encounter with Archie Moore. Even in the UK we sometimes subtitle various Scots dialects on the news and TV and whatnot, so it makes sense that he wouldn't go full Dundee for the show. Starring George Plimpton as Himself, which documents his life, adventures, and work as participatory journalist and editor of the Paris Review, my dad will be playing himself one more time. And the role of Katharine Hepburn, whose Locust Valley Lockjaw accent was a cousin of announcer-speak: I was just discussing this not a week ago with a friend who has done voice work in film and television, and can adopt this accent in an instant to evoke that period, much to my amusement. Several weeks later at a book party, he spotted two writers who had played in that game. Jean Stein became his co-editor. He was 76. I received many notes like this one: The variety of English you are referring to has a name in linguistics: "Mid-Atlantic English". Back to Plimpton I dont remember the LL affect at all. Even if it had nothing else going for itsomething very far from the truth Shadow Box by George Plimpton will forever remain a bastion of boxing literature because of the image it contains of the "Near Room," a place of dreadful foreboding which Muhammad Ali once described to the famed . [3], He was the son of Francis T. P. Plimpton[4] and the grandson of Frances Taylor Pearsons and George Arthur Plimpton. No matter where he was, or who he wasquarterback, trapeze artist, Philharmonic triangle-playerhis voice never changed, proving that you can be whomever you want to be without ever abandoning yourself. A little before my time, but Kennedy certainly didnt, even if his vernacular was more formal than Brandos. [5][6][7][8][9][10] His father was a successful corporate lawyer and partner of the law firm Debevoise and Plimpton; he was appointed by President John F. Kennedy as U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations, serving from 1961 to 1965. If you were making a speech in a large hall, or speaking on the radio, you needed to enunciate very clearly and use a lot of emphases to be sure your audience could understand what you were saying. Vault. George Plimpton, Out of My League: The Classic Account of an Amateur's Ordeal in Professional Baseball, 2016, Little expelled from the very expensive, very WASP-y Philips Would you admit to there being symbolism in your novels? And being good at losing was one of Georges many gifts. So, pairing the Cagney hint with the Kennedy Inaugural, could we date the changeover to 1961? George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. George Plimpton. He majored in English. Plimpton revisited pro football in 1971,[18] this time joining the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Colts and seeing action in an exhibition game against his previous team, the Lions. Jean Harlow, one of my favorites, is all over the map with this, sometimes sounding like a tough streetwalker, other times like a society matron, and, oddly, slipping in and out of both dialects in the same role, or even in one sentence. Plimpton was a writer-raconteur and dilettante in the best sense of the word: He co-founded an important literary magazine, the Paris Review, and tried his hand at everything from quarterbacking for the Detroit Lions (which he wrote about in Paper Lion), boxing with light-heavyweight champ Archie Moore (which became Shadow Box), and becoming New Yorks unofficial official fireworks commissioner. His exploits were such that at one point, The New Yorker ran a cartoon in which a patient eyed a surgeon with misgiving and said, But how do I know youre not George Plimpton?, But perhaps foremost among his accomplishments was his elevation of the interview to a literary form, both in the Paris Review and in his two superb works of oral history, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career, and Edie, a biography of Edie Sedgwick, which he and Jean Stein compiled. Buckley clearly flaunts it, probably to set himself apart from the hoi polloi of his contemporaries. And he told everyone that night, and for many years after, that hed diverted me from a career of filling prescriptions. In another cartoon in The New Yorker, a patient looks up at the masked surgeon about to operate on him and asks, "Wait a minute! YESTERDAY IS NOT FAR AWAY. Plimpton also appeared in a number of feature films as an extra and in cameo appearances. The enormously popular speech styles of Brando and Dean (and I could add Elvis Presley) clearly pushed vernacular style into a kind of mainstream acceptability, then desirability. . At one point, there was a tremendous Wagnerian thunder and lighting storm. Between 1945 and 1948, Plimpton was a soldier in the United States Army. Well have a lot more to say about Buckley and Vidal for now the leaders in the race for Last American to Talk This Way (with George Plimpton in third)in the next installment. George Plimpton Wiki: Salary, Married, Wedding, Spouse, Family . The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. I can understand your frustration, but celebrities die every day. George Plimpton was born on March 18, 1927 in New York City, New York, USA. #1 was Who Was the Last American to Speak This Way, #3 is Class-War Edition, and #4 is The Origin Story., Who Was the Last American to Speak This Way. News children today have no concept of the Mid-Atlantic accent. With the help of the New York Mets organization and several Mets players, Plimpton wrote a convincing account of a new unknown pitcher in the Mets spring training camp named Siddhartha Finch, who threw a baseball over 160mph, wore a heavy boot on one foot, and was a practicing Buddhist with a largely unknown background. Mia had the perfect model! Sometimes, we used to have quarrels, because he thought I took too many poems: Are you turning this magazine into a poetry magazine? he would say. But he would do this in the most charming and agreeable way. **. We were going to go looking for strange birds. But dying in sleep: It was as if he was doing what he did when he tried out for all those other things as an amateurballooning, acting, boxing, performing at amateur night. In 1992, Plimpton married Sarah Whitehead Dudley, a graduate of Columbia University and a freelance writer. Researcher and writer Samuel Arbesman filed with NASA to name an asteroid after Plimpton; NASA issued the certificate 7932 Plimpton in 2009. 26 Feb 2023 12:18:23 Indeed, the police deposition the filmmakers managed to uncover may be the only time my dad ever spoke about the tragedy, publicly or privately. The film used archival audio and video of Plimpton lecturing and reading to create a posthumous narration. **. [citation needed], 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. NYC speech in the sixties, in some ways, flipped prestige markers. I had George tell him the story of Sidd Finch. He came from a family where such endearments were not expressed, and phone conversations were curt. I have decided, he said, that I have got to jump from a plane. [40] They had two children: Medora Ames Plimpton and Taylor Ames Plimpton, who has published a memoir entitled Notes from the Night: A Life After Dark. Now you know! She is the product of a line of the original Dutch settlers of New York and grew up in Tuxedo Park and the Gramercy Park area of Manhattan, very exclusive. George was the one who read my name out to the commissioner. A similar phenomenon can be noted in the use, well into the 1980s, of the recorded sound of teletype machines in the background of newscasts, a sound still faintly evoked by the bip-bip-bip patterns of music that often introduces news broadcasts, even though teletype machines are long gone The subconscious association of this pattern of sound with news is fading fast with the passing of the years and will undoubtedly disappear entirely in the coming decade as surely as the over-enunciated style of radio speech of the 30s disappeared within a generation of its no longer being needed. When Plimpton, the co-founder of The Paris Review, died in 2003 at age 76, The New York Times . People two or three deep stood looking out at the East River. "[27], Plimpton was a member of the cast of the A&E TV series A Nero Wolfe Mystery (200102). (What else happened that year??? The limited frequency response of the recording technology of the late 19th and early 20th centuries has left us with only a pale, and sometimes caricatural image of the original sound. :rolleyes: Ive got news for you, buddy, youre not even second in line! The Scout Is a Lonely Hunter. When he was on the scene, everything was a big happeningan event. Several readers wrote in with specimens of Americans who had gone to England and ended up speaking in this mid-Atlantic way. The fake English announcer voice lingered on sporadically until the end of the Johnson administration in newsreels, which themselves ceased production around the same time, but Rod Serlings decision sounded the death knell for that accent. (Why do I even bother?) Im having a harder time coming up with clear examples from the other side of the Atlantic, but Ive heard Alfred Molina (Londoner), and Catherine Zeta-Jones (Welsh) put on a Mid-Atlantic accent from time to time.. Thanks for the scores of replies that have arrived in the past day, in response to my post asking why the stentorian, phony-British Announcer Voice that dominated newsreel narration, stage and movie acting, and public discourse in the United States during the first half of the 20th century had completely disappeared. December 17, 2022 Rafael Garca. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review. If you are in the big league, God help us all. And so fuck was definitely out of the question, but what about I love you? And here for the full interview). Between 2000 and 2003, 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. These are some of the things my father could not say: Shit. Fuck. I love you. His curses were never actually curse-words, though it was perhaps because of this that they held such weight. [29], His enthusiasm for fireworks grew, and he was appointed Fireworks Commissioner of New York by Mayor John Lindsay,[29][30] an unofficial post he held until his death. That was the last party for a while., I just got back from a road trip from Michigan. Plimpton's most memorable writings involved him inserting himself into a daunting situation about which he knew . So it was that my father played himself not just in movies and on TV, but in life, too. To me, Mid-Atlantic English is the nom juste for a related but distinct phenomenon (which is also mentioned in Wikipedia). He would have a beer with you. George Plimpton, journalist extraordinaire, trains with and then performs as Quarterback for the Baltimore Colts. George Plimpton was a literary man about town who did it all, from co-founding The Paris . The funny thing about Harris was that he did not start out with that accent - as I suspect George Gershwin did not. George Plimpton was an upper-class guy with a patrician accent who partied his way through life . [2][43], An oral biography titled George, Being George was edited by Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., and released on October 21, 2008. Brown & Co. Re-issued George Plimpton Sports Books, 2016. The Wikipedia entry is indeed delightful. It's a Scottish accent that's been modified somewhat for a mainstream audience that tends to associate them with Groundskeeper Willie. I never thought that George slept. Macklem . I knew that between the time Id asked Plimpton to do the auction and the night itself, he had probably received five invitations for a better evening, but he would never have reneged. "[44], In 2006, the musician Jonathan Coulton wrote the song entitled "A Talk with George", a part of his 'Thing a Week' series, in tribute to Plimpton's many adventures and approach to life. Shed wandered out to the balcony of a lonely Manhattan cocktail party, and was standing out there, smoking a cigarette and looking down mournfully at the street far below, when from behind her she heard a voice: I know a better way down.. Thats a common name for such an accent. She was also the great-granddaughter on her father's side of Oakes Ames (18041873), an industrialist and congressman who was implicated in the Crdit 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. George had three siblings: Francis Taylor Pearsons Plimpton Jr., Oakes Ames Plimpton,[15] and Sarah Gay Plimpton. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. This was his habit. In the early 60s, when I was working at the firework plant with my dad [Felix Grucci], George would pull up in shiny red sports car on his way to the Hamptons. Middle class? Others outside the entertainment industry known for speaking Mid-Atlantic English include William F. Buckley, Jr., Gore Vidal, George Plimpton, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Norman Mailer, Diana Vreeland, Maria Callas, Cornelius Vanderbilt IV. Youd be on the phone with him and get to the end of the conversation, and youd say I love you, Dad, and at most, hed reply, without subject or object, Love, like he was signing a letter. [citation needed]. Youll get another shot at the big time, trust me. With such a useful explanation, why do I gripe about the name? That is the tendency of Americans trying to sound more British, or Brits trying to sound more Yank, to split the difference and speak in an accent whose home ground is no real country but somewhere in the middle of the sea. He was immensely generous in every waygenerous about sharing the work and about giving one a chance to edit things. Plimpton's remarkable life is showcased in a documentary that is. At Harvard, Plimpton was a classmate and close personal friend of Robert F. Kennedy. He thought Castro might come. His high Boston accent might have been heard as an influential transitional hybrid, and its interesting how prominent parodies of the speech of Brando, Dean, and Kennedy were at the time: seems a sign that we were noticing a marked change. The s. [13], Plimpton's son described him as a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant and wrote that both of Plimpton's parents were descended from Mayflower passengers.[14]. Plimpton's The Bogey Man chronicles his attempt to play professional golf on the PGA Tour during the Nicklaus and Palmer era of the 1960s. Would you like Mike to run for you, George? the coach asked. Actors Nathan Lane (from Jersey City, NJ) and Robin Williams (grew up in SF Bay area) often adopt this accent. Vault. Powered by Discourse, best viewed with JavaScript enabled. It was always a surprise. By strange coincidence, I actually became quite good friends with his (ex-)in-laws here in Manhattan. The Writers won the game with a home run in extra innings, but the highlight was Plimptons hit. **Your transparent jealousy is very unbecoming, Carnac. Plimpton himself described it as a "New England cosmopolitan accent"[36] or "Eastern seaboard cosmopolitan" accent. In that vein, here is an oral biography of George Plimpton. rejoiced in the name of Euphemia van Renssalaer Wyatt. It came from a different era, shouldnt have still existed, but nevertheless, there it wasold New England, old New York, tinged with a hint of Kings College Kings English. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. Ive rarely heard this accent in real life but its often used by actors doing a stereotype character based on other actors impersonations! Hear Stories By George Plimpton. He also served as editor of the Harvard Lampoon. Share; Copied! He once said that, in writing Paper Lion, he wanted to reveal the "humor and grace" of football. Plimpton appeared in the 1989 documentary The Tightrope Dancer which featured the life and the work of the artist Vali Myers. (My dads been dead nearly ten years: not that he held many in his life, but what grudges could he possibly be holding on to now? Best-selling author George Plimpton shares his experience as a "Storyteller For Life" with Dean Nelson of Point Loma Nazarene University as part of PLNU's 5th Annual Writer's Symposium By The. Charles McGrath, editor of the New York Times Book Review:I dont think George had played golf in years, but he used to save up oddball tips for me and others. Where are you?, Im at dinner with my wife, I said. Billy Collins, poet:Im one of these people who went from crashing Georges parties in the 70s to being invited in the 80s. Shadow Box. [29], With Felix Grucci, Plimpton competed in the 16th International Fireworks Festival in 1979 in Monte Carlo. Vault. Update: This post is #2 in the announcer-speak series. Call me back.. How do I know you're not George Plimpton? Typical of George to laugh about something others saw as a defining traithe never took himself all that seriously. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yogaand his future in baseball. The Cuban revolutionaries, led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, had just marched on Havana and ousted the US-supported dictator Fulgencio Batista. [3] During the summers, he lived in the hamlet of West Hills, Huntington, Suffolk County on Long Island. The book offers memories of Plimpton from among other writers, such as Norman Mailer, William Styron, Gay Talese and Gore Vidal, and was written with the cooperation of both his ex-wife and his widow. He is connected by blood to Benjamin "Beast" Butler, a rakish pol who told Abraham Lincoln he would be his running mate "only if you die within three. But he could easily have said, Alice, I have enough trouble raising money for my magazine..