'Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself' - Movie Review

George Plimpton was an American journalist, writer and editor best known for his book Paper Lion. But calling him "a journalist" doesn't quite explain what he did with his life. Paper Lion was about him on assignment for Sports Illustrated, working for a few weeks as a quarterback for the Detroit Lions football team. Of course he was terrible - an amateur playing football on a professional team - but that wasn't the point: the point was to see what it was like to be a part of a professional football team. And this is what he did with a lot of his life: he was the world's most successful advocate of "participatory journalism." He also played on a hockey team, went to Africa as a wildlife photographer, played basketball, and performed in a circus. And when he wasn't doing that, he was hanging out with the Kennedys, or throwing all-night cocktail parties with the best up-and-coming authors of the twentieth century a couple nights a week. And he spent forty years as the editor of "The Paris Review," a well regarded literary journal.

By the time the movie was done I'd concluded that he must have had a better time living his life than just about anyone has ever had - at the cost of being a crap father and husband. But they glossed over that aspect of his personality. Still - definitely an interesting guy.