calm
Coolidge was known as "Silent Cal" because he was allegedly a man of few words. The Vice-Presidency did not carry many official duties, but Coolidge became the first vice-president who was invited to attend cabinet meetings. Coolidge and his outgoing and vivacious wife Grace were invited to quite a few parties, where the legend of "Silent Cal" was born. The most famous story giving rise to this legend has it that Dorothy Parker was seated next to him at a dinner and said to him, "Mr. Coolidge, I've made a bet against a fellow who said it was impossible to get more than two words out of you." His famous reply: "You lose." It was also Dorothy Parker who, upon learning that Coolidge had died, reportedly remarked, "How can they tell?" Alice Roosevelt Longworth supposedly once commented about Coolidge that "he looks as if he'd been weaned on a pickle." Coolidge often seemed uncomfortable among fashionable Washington society. He was once asked why he continued to attend so many of their dinner parties if he didn't like them. He replied, "Got to eat somewhere."
As President, Coolidge's reputation as man of few words continued. "The words of a President have an enormous weight," he would later write, "and ought not to be used indiscriminately." Coolidge was aware of his reputation for frugality with words. Some suggest that he cultivated it. "I think the American people want a solemn ass as a President," he once told Ethel Barrymore, "and I think I will go along with them."
Despite this rep however, Coolidge held a then-record number of presidential press conferences (520) during his presidency. After finishing Harding's term, Coolidge was reelected in 1924, but chose not to seek re-election in 1928. He told reporters "I do not choose to run for President in 1928. If I take another term, I will be in the White House till 1933 … Ten years in Washington is longer than any other man has had it—too long!"
Coolidge died on January 5, 1933 from a heart attack at the age of 61. He is buried beneath a simple headstone in Notch Cemetery, Plymouth Notch, Vermont