Four Must-Hear Episodes
All of You Must Remember This is worth a listen, but here are some standout installments from Karina Longworth’s podcast sure to pull in any new listener
Charles Manson’s Hollywood EPISODE 46: “The Beach Boys, Dennis Wilson, and Manson the Songwriter”
Charles Manson had connections throughout
Hollywood, and in this season — which has
been called the definitive podcast on the subject — Longworth picks through his links to stars (Angela Lansbury’s daughter actually funded the Manson Family for a time) and the music scene, particularly the Beach Boys’ Dennis
Wilson, with whom the Family would live for a
time before the Tate-LaBianca murders.
Fake News: Fact-Checking Hollywood Babylon EPISODE 131: “Clara Bow”
Silent-film star Clara Bow
may have been the movie industry’s first It girl, but thanks to Kenneth Anger’s 1959 book — to which Longworth dedicated the season — the
Hollywood sex symbol was forever remembered
for “tackling” the entire USC football team,
so to speak. This isn’t true, of course, and in this episode (featuring special guest Natasha Lyonne), Longworth details the brash Brooklynite’s real-life exploits during an era of
sexual liberation.
Star Wars EPISODE 39: “Walt Disney”
Longworth has talked about her connection
to Walt Disney and the rereleased movies her
mother took her to as a child (including Song of the South, a racist 1946 film on which Longworth later based an
entire season). In this episode, part of a series on Hollywood during World War II, she looks at the complicated life of the man himself — from the debt he incurred bringing
his vision to life to the conservative politics that would “land him on the wrong side of history,” as she puts it on the show.
Polly Platt, the Invisible Woman EPISODE 161: “Peter Bogdanovich and the Woman Behind the Auteur”
Thanks to an unpublished
memoir given to Longworth by Polly Platt’s
daughters — as well as interviews with them and others close to Platt — this season does what Longworth does best: It shines a light on a brilliant, forgotten woman behind a larger-thanlife man. This episode details the film designer’s
early relationship with Peter Bogdanovich
and how she shaped his vision for Targets and
The Last Picture Show.