- published: 15 Feb 2008
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George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 – September 25, 2003) was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review. He was also famous for "participatory journalism" which included competing in professional sporting events, acting in a Western, performing a comedy act at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and playing with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and then recording the experience from the point of view of an amateur.
Plimpton was born in New York City on March 18, 1927, and spent his childhood there, attending St. Bernard's School and growing up in an apartment duplex on Manhattan's Upper East Side located at 1165 Fifth Avenue. During the summers, he lived in the hamlet of West Hills, Huntington, Suffolk County on Long Island.
He was the son of Francis T.P. Plimpton, and the grandson of Frances Taylor Pearsons and George Arthur Plimpton. His grandfather was the founder of the Ginn publishing company and a philanthropist. 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 1961-65.
Marion Mitchell Morrison (born Marion Robert Morrison; May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known by his stage name John Wayne and by his nickname "Duke", was an American film actor, director, and producer. An Academy Award-winner for True Grit (1969), Wayne was among the top box office draws for three decades. An enduring American icon, for several generations of Americans he epitomized rugged masculinity and is famous for his demeanor, including his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height.
Born in Iowa, Wayne grew up in Southern California. He found work at local film studios when he lost his football scholarship to USC as a result of a bodysurfing accident. Initially working for the Fox Film Corporation, he mostly appeared in small bit parts. His first leading role came in Raoul Walsh's lavish widescreen epic The Big Trail (1930), which led to leading roles in numerous B movies throughout the 1930s, many of them in the Western genre.
Wayne's career took off in 1939, with John Ford's Stagecoach making him an instant mainstream star. Wayne went on to star in 142 pictures. Biographer Ronald Davis says: "John Wayne personified for millions the nation's frontier heritage. Eighty-three of his movies were Westerns, and in them he played cowboys, cavalrymen, and unconquerable loners extracted from the Republic's central creation myth."
This article is about the author, Donald Barthelme Jr. For his father, the architect, see Donald Barthelme (architect).
Donald Barthelme (April 7, 1931 – July 23, 1989) was an American author known for his playful, postmodernist style of short fiction. Barthelme also worked as a newspaper reporter for the Houston Post, was managing editor of Location magazine, director of the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston (1961–1962), co-founder of Fiction (with Mark Mirsky and the assistance of Max and Marianne Frisch), and a professor at various universities. He also was one of the original founders of the University of Houston Creative Writing Program.
Donald Barthelme was born in Philadelphia in 1931. His father and mother were fellow students at the University of Pennsylvania. The family moved to Texas two years later and Barthelme's father became a professor of architecture at the University of Houston, where Barthelme would later study journalism. Barthelme won a Scholastic Writing Award in Short Story in 1949, while a student at Lamar High School in Houston.
Actors: David Doyle (actor), Alan Alda (actor), Roy Scheider (actor), Lauren Hutton (actress), Frank Gifford (actor), George Plimpton (writer), Alex Karras (actor), Sugar Ray Robinson (actor), Stuart Millar (producer), Lawrence Roman (writer), Ann Turkel (actress), Roger Kellaway (composer), Vincent Lombardi (actor), Ernie Harwell (actor), Alex March (director),
Plot: George Plimpton wants to write a story for Sports Illustrated on what it is like to be a quarterback for an NFL team. No one is willing to allow a klutzy amateur to go on the field for fear he'll kill himself. After several teams turn him down, Plimpton got the Detroit Lions to let him go to training camp. He tries to keep his true identity a secret from the real players. This is based on a true incident and many of the players play themselves in the movie.
Keywords: american-football, based-on-autobiography, based-on-novel, detroit-lions, sports-team, writer