One party Plimpton would’ve loved

George Plimpton may be gone, but his spirit is alive and kicking.

The literary quarterly that he edited and loved, the Paris Review, celebrated its 50th anniversary Tuesday night with cancan dancing and indoor fireworks. About 800 people packed Cipriani’s restaurant in Midtown Manhattan for a dinner benefiting the magazine, which has a tiny subscription base but a strong influence in the literary world.

They also came to honor Plimpton, who edited the quarterly in offices just downstairs from his Upper East Side apartment. He died in his sleep Sept. 25, after closing the magazine’s anniversary issue. He was 76.

“George would be laughing so hard,” said the Review board’s chairman, Tom Guinzburg, “that he has to die to make us so much money.”

The 50th anniversary bash was Plimpton’s brainchild and had been intended for about 200 people. But after his death, Guinzburg said, “the phones began ringing off the hook.”

From Associated Press