Sammy and Dino Episode 4: Mr. Wonderful
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.Sammy tests the power of his new celebrity, on Broadway and in Hollywood, where he stars in the most controversial movie musical with an all-Black...
View ArticleSammy and Dino Episode 5: A Serious Man
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.After the breakup of Martin and Lewis, Dino has to figure out how to stand on his own as a solo act. He ends up developing an on-stage persona as a...
View ArticleSammy and Dino Episode 6: The Rat Pack
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.In the early 40s, both Dean and Sammy idolized Frank Sinatra. 20 years later, they became Sinatra’s cohorts in the Rat Pack, and, through Vegas gigs...
View ArticleSammy and Dino Episode 7: Yes I Can
Sammy Davis Jr. by Phillipe Halsman Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.Released in 1965, Sammy Davis Jr.'s autobiography became an instant classic, one of the most dynamic celebrity...
View ArticleSammy and Dino Episode 8: Generation Gap
Sammy Davis Jr. by Phillipe Halsman Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.In the mid-1960s, 47 year-old Dean Martin proves he's still got it by knocking the Beatles off the top of the...
View ArticleSammy and Dino Episode 9: Is That All There Is?
Frank Dean Sammy Together Again Together Again National Concert Tour, 1988 Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.Desperate to be seen as cool and not a relic of an earlier age in 70s...
View ArticleGOSSIP GIRLS ARCHIVE
From the anonymous tips posted on Deux Moi to the streams of annotated paparazzi shots that fill the Daily Mail, today’s celebrity gossip -- democratized, based on technological surveillance -- looks...
View ArticlePorno Chic and The Brief Heyday of X Ratings (Erotic 80s Part 1)
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.Here in 2022, there is more public conversation about the nuances of human sexuality–and sexual abuse and harassment–than at any time in modern...
View Article1979: Bo Derek and 10 (Erotic 80s Part 2)
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.The sleeper hit of late 1979 was Blake Edwards’s sex farce 10, a comedic vivisection of a male midlife crisis, which turned 23-year-old California...
View Article1980: Richard Gere and American Gigolo (Erotic 80s Part 3)
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.One of the most aesthetically influential movies of the ‘80s, Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo sets a template for much of what we’re going to...
View Article1981: Neonoir, Body Heat and Postman Always Rings Twice (Erotic 80s Part 4)
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.The New Hollywood directors of the late 1960s and 70s were the first generation of Hollywood filmmakers to grow up studying Hollywood movies as art....
View Article1982: Teen Sexploitation, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Porky's and The Blue...
Phoebe Cates and Jennifer Jason Leigh in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, 1982 Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.1982 saw the release of three hit high school-set comedies about sex:...
View Article1983: MTV Aesthetics, Flashdance and Risky Business (Erotic 80s Part 6)
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.While the music video was still in its infancy as a cultural phenomenon, two films were released that were accused of aping the “MTV aesthetic”:...
View Article"Vioporn," Body Double and Crimes of Passion (Erotic 80s Part 7)
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.In a time of bombastic blockbusters (and Reagan’s re-election), two auteurs defy the norms by releases violent films about sexual obsession,...
View Article1985: Fear Sex. Jagged Edge & AIDS (Erotic 80s Part 8)
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.Just as the AIDS-related death of Rock Hudson was finally forcing straight people – and Hollywood – to acknowledge that epidemic, a film was...
View Article1986: 9 ½ Weeks, Mickey Rourke & Zalman King (Erotic 80s Part 9)
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.Billed as the hottest Hollywood film since Last Tango, 9 ½ Weeks was considered to have missed the mark by everyone who made it – including director...
View Article1987: Fatal Attraction and Dirty Dancing (Erotic 80s Part 10)
Glenn Close and Michael Douglas, Fatal Attraction, 1987 Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.The erotic thriller goes commercially mainstream with Fatal Attraction, a film which starts...
View Article1988: Kevin Costner, Sean Young, No Way Out & Bull Durham (Erotic 80s Part 11)
No Way Out , 1987 Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.The 1988 baseball blockbuster Bull Durham confirms Kevin Costner as the ultimate squeaky-clean, all-American hearthrob, building...
View ArticleSammy and Dino Episode 1: The Hustle
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.This season, we look at the movies, music and lives of Sammy Davis Jr and Dean Martin. Singers, actors, TV stars and nightclub performers, Davis and...
View Article1988: Kevin Costner, Sean Young, No Way Out & Bull Durham (Erotic 80s Part 11)
No Way Out , 1987 Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.The 1988 baseball blockbuster Bull Durham confirms Kevin Costner as the ultimate squeaky-clean, all-American hearthrob, building...
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