The Paris Review In 1952, Plimpton was recruited by
Peter Matthiessen to join the literary journal
The Paris Review, founded by Matthiessen,
Thomas H. Guinzburg, and
Harold L. Humes. This periodical has carried great weight in the literary world, but has never been financially strong; for its first half-century, it was allegedly largely financed by its publishers and by Plimpton. Matthiessen took the magazine over from Humes and ousted him as editor, replacing him with Plimpton, using it as his cover for Matthiessen's
CIA activities.
Jean Stein became Plimpton's co-editor. Plimpton was associated with the Paris literary magazine
Merlin, which folded because the State Department withdrew its support. Future
Poet Laureate Donald Hall, who had met Plimpton at Exeter, was Poetry Editor. One of the magazine's most notable discoveries was author and screenwriter
Terry Southern, who was living in Paris at the time and formed a lifelong friendship with Plimpton, along with writer
Alexander Trocchi and future classical and jazz pioneer
David Amram. In 1958, he published an influential article about
Vali Myers. That same year, Plimpton interviewed
Ernest Hemingway for the
Review.
Participatory journalism in 1975 Plimpton was famous for competing in professional sporting events and then recording the experience from the point of view of an amateur. Per
The New York Times, "As a 'participatory journalist,' Mr. Plimpton believed that it was not enough for writers of nonfiction to simply observe; they needed to immerse themselves in whatever they were covering to understand fully what was involved. For example, he believed that football huddles and conversations on the bench constituted a 'secret world, and if you're a voyeur, you want to be down there, getting it firsthand'." this time joining the defending
Super Bowl champion
Baltimore Colts and seeing action in an exhibition game against his previous team, the Lions. These experiences served as the basis of
Mad Ducks and Bears (1973), although much of the book dealt with the off-field escapades and observations of football friends
Alex Karras ("Mad Duck") and
John Gordy ("Bear"). Plimpton's
The Bogey Man (1968) chronicles his attempt to play professional golf on the
PGA Tour during the
Nicklaus and
Palmer era of the 1960s. Among other challenges for
Sports Illustrated, he attempted to play top-level
bridge, and spent some time as a
high-wire circus performer.
Sidd Finch In the April 1, 1985, issue of
Sports Illustrated, Plimpton pulled off a widely reported
April Fools' Day prank. With the help of the
New York Mets organization and several Mets players, Plimpton wrote an account of an unknown pitcher in the Mets spring training camp,
Siddhartha Finch, who threw a baseball over 160 mph, wore a hiking boot on one foot, and was a practicing
Buddhist who had studied
yoga in
Tibet. The article had many clues that the story was a prank, starting with the subheading: "He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yoga—and his future in baseball." This is an
acrostic reading "Happy April Fools' Day—a(h) fib". The article was so convincing that many readers believed it, and the popularity of the prank led to Plimpton expanding on Sidd's story in
The Curious Case of Sidd Finch (1987).
Fireworks Plimpton was a demolitions expert in the post–
World War II Army. After returning to New York from Paris, he routinely launched
fireworks at his evening parties. His fireworks fascination flourished, and in 1975, in
Bellport, Long Island, with
Fireworks by Grucci, he attempted to break the record for the world's largest firework. His firework, a
Roman candle named "Fat Man", an unofficial post he held until his death. Plimpton's passion for pyrotechnics led him to write
Fireworks (1984), and he hosted an
A&E Home Video on the subject, featuring his many fireworks adventures with the Gruccis. He appeared in a featurette about Sedgwick found on the
Ciao! Manhattan DVD. He appeared in the
PBS American Masters documentary on
Andy Warhol and in the closing credits of the 2006 film
Factory Girl. In 1998, Plimpton published an oral biography of
Truman Capote. Between 2000 and 2003, he wrote the
libretto to the opera
Animal Tales, commissioned by
Family Opera Initiative, with music by
Kitty Brazelton and directed by
Grethe Barrett Holby. 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". In 2002, Plimpton collaborated with Terry Quinn on
Zelda, Scott and Ernest, a play based on the correspondence of
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Zelda Fitzgerald and Hemingway. In 1996, he appeared in the documentary
When We Were Kings, about the "
Rumble in the Jungle", the 1974 Ali-Foreman Championship fight. Plimpton credited
Muhammad Ali as a poet who composed the world's shortest poem: "Me? Whee!!"
Acting Plimpton appeared in more than thirty films as an extra or in cameo appearances. Plimpton called himself "the Prince of Cameos." He hosted
Mouseterpiece Theater, a
Masterpiece Theatre spoof featuring Disney cartoon shorts. He had a recurring role as the grandfather of
Dr. Carter on
ER and was a cast member of
Nero Wolfe (2001–02). In
The Simpsons episode "
I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can", he hosts the "Spellympics" and attempts to bribe
Lisa to lose with the offer of a scholarship at a
Seven Sisters College and a hot plate: "it's perfect for soup!"
Parodies of Plimpton's career A November 6, 1971, cartoon in
The New Yorker by
Whitney Darrow Jr. shows a cleaning lady on her hands and knees scrubbing an office floor while saying to another one: "I'd like to see George Plimpton do
this sometime." 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! How do I know you're not George Plimpton?" A feature in
Mad titled "Some Really Dangerous Jobs for George Plimpton" spotlighted him trying to swim across
Lake Erie, strolling through New York's
Times Square in the middle of the night, and spending a week with
Jerry Lewis.{{cite journal ==Personal life==