Departures of note

George Plimpton, the founding editor of The Paris Review, built a literary career on a singular journalistic gambit: he did not just observe professional sports and entertainment; he attempted them. In 1958, he pitched against National League all-stars at Yankee Stadium, an ordeal he recounted in Out of My League (1961). He later attended preseason training with the Detroit Lions as a backup quarterback, running a few plays in an intrasquad scrimmage, an experience that became his best-known book, Paper Lion (1966). He sparred with boxing greats Archie Moore and Sugar Ray Robinson, tried his hand as a percussionist with the New York Philharmonic, and even performed a comedy act at Caesars Palace. Hemingway praised his baseball book as 'beautifully observed and incredibly conceived.'

Born in New York City in 1927 to a prominent family, Plimpton attended Harvard, where he wrote for the Harvard Lampoon and was a member of the Porcellian Club, and later King's College, Cambridge. In 1952, he was recruited by Peter Matthiessen to join the literary journal The Paris Review, becoming its first and only editor. Under his stewardship, the magazine published serious contemporary fiction and conducted influential interviews, including his own 1958 conversation with Ernest Hemingway. Plimpton's patrician accent and boundless energy made him a ubiquitous figure at literary and social events, while his participatory journalism, influenced by Paul Gallico, sought to climb 'down out of the press box' and experience the 'secret world' of the huddle and the bench firsthand.

Beyond sports, Plimpton's adventures included a celebrated April Fools' Day prank for Sports Illustrated in 1985, in which he invented a Mets pitcher named Siddhartha Finch who could throw over 160 mph, a story so convincing many readers believed it. He was also a passionate pyrotechnics enthusiast, serving as an unofficial Fireworks Commissioner of New York and, with the Grucci family, winning the 1979 International Fireworks Festival in Monte Carlo. He appeared in more than thirty films in cameo roles, calling himself 'the Prince of Cameos,' and hosted television specials and commercials. He was married twice and had four children.

Plimpton died in 2003 in his New York City apartment from a heart attack. His legacy includes not only his books but also his role as a chronicler of American culture, from an oral biography of Edie Sedgwick to a documentary on the Ali-Foreman fight. He was made an officier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and a chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His life and career were the subject of the American Masters documentary Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself, which used archival audio and video to create a posthumous narration.