By the mid-1930s, Joan Crawford was very, very famous, and negotiating both an affair with Clark Gable (her most frequent co-star and the only male star of her stature), and a new marriage to Franchot Tone, who, like Joan’s first husband, was an actor who was not quite on her level of stardom. Crawford’s marriage to Tone would span the back half of the decad ... Show More
Aug 2016
90: Six Degrees of Joan Crawford: The Middle Years (Mildred Pierce to Johnny Guitar)
Joan Crawford struggled through what she called her “middle years,” the period during her 40s before she remade herself from aging, slumping MGM deadweight into a fleet, journeywoman powerhouse who starred in some of the most interesting films about adult womanhood of the 1940s a ... Show More
47m 49s
Sep 2016
91: Six Degrees of Joan Crawford: Bette Davis, "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?," and Crawford’s last years
Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? has done more to define later generation’s ideas about who Crawford was than perhaps any other movie that she was actually in. Unfortunately, most of those ideas center around Crawford’s supposed feud with co-star Bette Davis, whi ... Show More
42m 20s
Sep 2016
92: Six Degrees of Joan Crawford: Mommie Dearest
The year after Joan Crawford died, her estranged, adopted daughter Christina published a tell-all, accusing her late mother of having been an abusive monster when the cameras weren’t around. Three years later, Mommie Dearest became a movie, starring the only actress of the “new H ... Show More
58m 50s
Aug 2018
Episode 167: Riverdon't
In this episode Ru and Michelle discuss losing friends on the journey, riding the train, lessons from motown stars, the pressures facing children of famous folk, Whitney Houston, and Walton Goggins.This episode is sponsored by Squarespace, Greats, and Warby Parker.
1h 10m
Jul 2019
Summer of ‘69: Judy Garland, Death of a Starlet
This episode is brought to you by The Dark Side Of, a Parcast Original. For more episodes like this one, subscribe to The Dark Side Of on Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
In 1939, 16-year-old Judy Garland began filming the Wizard of Oz. While the film would become a b ... Show More
47m 30s
Sep 2022
Barbie Block and Sally Stiner Meet World
<p>Barbie Block and Sally Stiner were the storied casting directors for Boy Meets World and now they’re revealing how the Matthews family, and so many more of their classic TV shows, came together! </p> <p>They’ll talk auditions, missed opportunities and even their side of the in ... Show More
1h 10m
Dec 2023
The Story of Elvis Presley's Christmas Recordings By a Man Who Was There
On this episode of Our American Stories, Greg McDonald got his start in show business as a teenager after meeting Elvis Presley and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, shortly after Parker began managing Elvis in the ‘50s. Here’s Greg with a Colonel and Elvis Christmas story. Suppor ... Show More
7m 59s