George Ames Plimpton was born March 18, 1927. He was educated first at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and then spent four years at Harvard majoring in English and editing the Harvard Lampoon, followed by two at King's College, Cambridge. Before he left for Cambridge, he served as a tank driver in Italy for the U.S. Army from 1945 through 1948. After graduation, at 26, 27 years of age, Plimpton went with his friends to Paris. There they founded the Paris Review in 1953 and published poetry and short story writers and did interviews. In the '50s, Plimpton and staff came to New York, where they kept the Review going for half a century. The Review has published over 150 issues.… Plimpton also served as a volunteer for Robert Kennedy's 1968 presidential run and was walking in front of him as the candidate was assassinated in the kitchen of a Los Angeles hotel. Plimpton was known as a "participatory journalist". In order to research his books and articles, he quarterbacked in a pre-season NFL game, pitched to several all-stars (retiring Willie Mays & Richie Ashburn) in an exhibition prior to Baseball's 1959 All-Star game, performed as a trapeze artist for the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus, and fought boxers Archie Moore and Sugar Ray Robinson. Plimpton was alson known by the nickname the Prince of Cameos for the amount of work he did in films, playing small parts and screenwriting. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2002. Within a month of the academy induction, the French made him a Chevalier, the Legion of Honor's highest rank. The Guild, an arts organization based on Long Island, gave him a lifetime achievement award. Plimpton was also a member of PEN; the Pyrotechnics Guild International; the National Football League Alumni Association; and the Mayflower Descendants Society. In 2003, Plimpton decided to write his memoirs, signing a $750,000 deal with Little, Brown and Co. Before he could finish, George Plimpton died, on September 26, 2003 of natural causes at the age of 76.
Harold Bloom, July 11, 1930 - Harold Bloom was born on July 11, 1930 in New York City. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Cornell in 1951 and his Doctorate from Yale in 1955. After graduating from Yale, Bloom remained there as a teacher, and was made Sterling Professor of Humanities in 1983. Bloom's theories have changed the way that critics think of literary tradition and has also focused his attentions on history and the Bible. He has written over twenty books and edited countless others. He is one of the most famous critics in the world and considered an expert in many fields.
William Styron, 1925 - William Clark Styron was born June 11, 1925 in Newport News, Virginia to William Clark Styron, a marine engineer, and Pauline Abraham Styron, who died when he was thirteen years old. He was a descendent of the Stioring family that arrived in Virginia in 1650. He attended Duke University and took courses at the New School for Social Research in New York City, which started him on his writing career. Styron was a Marine lieutenant during World War II and while serving during the Korean War, was recalled from active duty because of faulty eyesight. In 1953, he married Rose Burgunder in Rome and they had four children. During high school, Styron wrote short stories for… the school's newspaper. While attending college, he wrote poems for the literary magazine. After leaving the service, he helped start a magazine called the Paris Review in the city of lights and remained as an advisory editor. Styron's first novel was "Lie Down in Darkness" (1951) and was followed by "The Long March" (1955). In 1960, he published "Set This House on Fire," which tells how American expatriates got along in Italy during the 1950's. "The Confessions of Nat Turner" (1967), which won the Pulitzer Prize, tells the story in the narrative voice of the real life black leader during the 1831 slave uprising in Virginia. Perhaps the novel he's best known for is "Sophie's Choice" (1979), which tells the story of Sophie, who, during the Holocaust, had to choose between one of the lives of her two healthy children. The novel was made into a movie in 1982 and won the American Book Award. "A Tidewater Morning" (1993) is a short story that tells of an elderly former slave who travels by foot back to Virginia to be buried where he grew up. The movie Shadrach is based on this story, and Styron wrote the screenplay with his daughter. Styron has also written nonfiction and include the titles "The Quiet Dust and Other Writings" (1982) and "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness" (1990).