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PODCAST

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies

14th Street Studios | Michael Osborne

We explore the lives of notable people and asks what their stories can teach us about ourselves. It’s part obituary podcast, part biography, and part existential detective work.Think you know everything about some of modern history’s most recognizable figures? We’re Amit and Michael, two pop culture enthusiasts who upend your assumptions about the iconic and the famous. Because that’s where you find the “gravy” – the rich, flavorful sauce that brings out the best parts of the dish that is

history

All Episodes

61:59

Sentient Princess (Carrie Fisher)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2024/01/10

She was just 19 years old when she first played her most iconic role. She offered wry commentary in her books on the paradoxes and absurdities of the entertainment industry. Her first book was made into a movie, directed by Mike Nichols. She had a recurring role on the British comedy “Catastrophe”. She dated Dan Aykroyd and was married to Paul Simon. Her mother was the actress Debbie Reynolds. She played Princess Leia in Star Wars. Today’s dead celebrity is Carrie Fisher.Famous & Gravy is created

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81:40

Golden Rose (Betty White)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/12/27

During World War II she drove a truck delivering soap, toothpaste and candy to soldiers. She began her career in radio by saying one word - “Parkay” - on a popular comedy show. In the early 1960s she was best known as a busy freelance guest with game shows as her specialty. She had a longstanding interest in animal welfare. Her television career spanned seven decades and she holds the “Guinness World Record” as the longest ever for a female entertainer. One of her best known roles was as Rose on the

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54:13

Let's Get Metaphysical (Olivia Newton-John)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/12/13

She amassed No. 1 hits, chart-topping albums and four records that sold more than two million copies each. Her consistently benign music and initial squeaky-clean image caused many to compare her to Doris Day. More than anything else, she was likable, even beloved. For years she was a prominent advocate for cancer research, starting a foundation in her name. She played Sandy in the musical “Grease” alongside John Travolta and had a massive hit in the 1980s with the song “Let’s Get Physical.” Today’s

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64:15

Father of the Bride (William Goldman)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/11/29

He wrote his most famous screenplay while teaching creative writing at Princeton University. Eight of his films each grossed more than $100 million domestically. He was an outspoken critic of the movie industry, and made headlines when he declared, “Nobody knows anything.” He was called the world’s greatest and most famous living screenwriter. He wrote ‘The Princess Bride’ and ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Today’s dead celebrity is William Goldman. Famous & Gravy is created and co-hosted by

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70:04

Higher Power (Bill Russell)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/11/15

He was once described by his coach as “the single most devastating force in the history of the game.” He took part in the 1963 March on Washington and was seated in the front row for Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech. In 2011, President Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was remembered for his ability to enhance the talents of his Boston Celtics teammates even as he dominated the action, and to do it without bravado. The trophy for the most valuable player of the

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70:20

America's Mustache (Burt Reynolds)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/11/01

His early passion was for football, and he played halfback at Florida State University. He was part Cherokee. He had an often turbulent career that spanned some 100 films and countless television appearances. He had a volatile temperament, but he himself projected an air of nonchalance and professed not to take his career too seriously. He was a self-mocking charmer with laugh-crinkled dark eyes, a distinctive mustache and a hairy chest. He did not always win the respect of critics, though had

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65:27

Lord of Horror (Christopher Lee)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/10/25

He was a physically towering British movie actor with distinguished good looks, a Shakespearean voice, and aristocratic presence. His breakthrough film was the horror movie “The Curse of Frankenstein.” Though closely associated with horror, he maintained that of his roughly 250 movie and television roles, only 15 or so had been in horror films. Even into his 70s and 80s, he could strike fear in the hearts of moviegoers. He played the treacherous light-saber-wielding villain Count Dooku in the “Star

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64:37

Dame Detective (Angela Lansbury)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/10/18

She once said “I wasn’t very good at being a starlet. I didn’t want to pose for cheesecake photos and that kind of thing.” She received two Oscar nominations before the age of 25. In the mid 1950s she found herself cast as either of two types: as she put it, “bitches on wheels and people’s mothers.” She was nominated for a Tony award at age 83, a testament to her extraordinary stamina and range. She captured the biggest audience of her career in the 1980s and 90s, when she played the role of mystery

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67:18

Geto Man (Bushwick Bill)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/10/04

He was born in Kingston, Jamaica but spent much of his childhood in Brooklyn. In the late 1980s, the influential music producer Rick Rubin signed his group. In 1991, he had an early brush with death when he was shot in the right eye. He was born with dwarfism and stood approximately 3 feet 8 inches tall. He was a member of the Houston-based rap group the Geto Boys, who’s biggest singles were ”Mind Playing Tricks on Me“ and “Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta”. Today’s dead celebrity is Bushwick

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61:13

Two Ticket Holder (Eddie Money)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/09/20

He was the son of a police officer, and he was headed for that career himself when he dropped out of the New York Police Academy to move to San Francisco in pursuit of rock stardom – which he found in 1978. He struggled with drugs in the early 1980s, but he staged several comebacks, and found hits later that decade. He and his family had been the focus of a reality television show on AXS TV. His birth name was Edward Mahoney. His hits include “Baby Hold On” and “Two Tickets to Paradise.” Today’s

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62:03

Best in Show (Fred Willard)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/09/06

Over the years he was a favorite among real-life talk-show hosts, making at least 50 guest appearances on “The Tonight Show.” He made an art of playing characters who are “gloriously out of their depth.” He appeared in more than 700 films and television movies and episodes over a half-century. He was nominated for Emmys for his roles on “Modern Family” and “Everybody Loves Raymond.” He was a frequent collaborator with the director Christopher Guest with iconic performances in ‘Waiting for Guffman,’

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69:44

Cool Hand Dylan (Luke Perry)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/08/23

Before his breakout, his main credits had been a handful of soap operas. His mega-stardom was unexpected. He starred opposite Alyson Hannigan in a 2004 stage version of “When Harry Met Sally”. In recent years, he made dozens of television appearances, including regular roles on the HBO prison drama “Oz” and the crime drama “Riverdale.” His looks were often compared to James Dean. He played Dylan McKay, a bad-boy teenager who struggled with alcoholism on the hit TV show Beverly Hills 90201. Today’s

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67:22

Sleepless Sally (Nora Ephron)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/08/09

In the summer of 1961 she was a summer intern in the Kennedy White House; she once said she was probably the only intern that President Kennedy had never hit on. Her second husband was the Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein. She was a journalist, a blogger, an essayist, a novelist, a playwright, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and a movie director — a rarity in a film industry whose directorial ranks were and continue to be dominated by men. Her box-office successes included “You’ve Got Mail” ,

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68:50

Pure Imagination (Gene Wilder)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/07/26

He was an accomplished stage actor as well as a screenwriter, a novelist and the director of four movies in which he starred. He made his movie debut in 1967 in the celebrated crime drama, “Bonnie and Clyde.” He had haunted blue eyes and an empathy born of his own history of psychic distress. His rule for comedy was simple: Don’t try to make it funny; try to make it real. “I’m an actor, not a clown,” he said more than once. In 1971, he was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance as the

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74:05

Secret Chord (Leonard Cohen)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/07/12

He was an unlikely and reluctant pop star, if in fact he ever was one. In the 1960s, he lived in a house on the Greek island of Hydra, where he wrote a pair of novels. He was 33 when his first record was released in 1967. In the early 1970s, his record company concocted an advertising campaign where they called him “the master of erotic despair.” Around 1994, he abandoned his music career and moved to Mt. Baldy monastery, where he was ordained a Buddhist monk. His best-known song, a majestic and

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71:04

Heartwarming Humor (Louie Anderson)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/06/28

This person died in 2022 at age 68. His act fit comfortably into the category of “family entertainment.” He had a self-deprecating style that won him legions of fans, among them Johnny Carson, whose early support catapulted him to stardom. He had roles in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “Coming to America”. He hosted “Family Feud” for three seasons. He was nominated 3 times for a supporting actor Emmy, which he won in 2016. His comedy routine often centered around jokes about his own weight, which

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94:13

Electric Vanities (Tom Wolfe)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/06/14

This person died in 2018 at age 88. When he graduated college in 1951 he had enough skill as a baseball player to earn a tryout with the New York Giants. He earned his PhD in American Studies from Yale in 1957. Beginning in the 1960s he helped create the enormously influential hybrid of fiction techniques into non-fiction known as the New Journalism. He was instantly recognizable as he strolled down Madison Avenue — a tall, slender, blue-eyed, boyish-looking man in his spotless three-piece white

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70:44

Goofball Stud (Bill Paxton)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/05/31

This person died 2017, age 61. He was described as good-natured in assessing his status in Hollywood. In a 1998 interview he said, “I haven’t had a role that’s propelled me into major stardom. I’ve had roles that put me on the playing field.” From 2006 to 2011, he played the lead role of Bill Henrickson on the HBO show Big Love. Early in his career, he had small parts in “The Terminator” and “Aliens”, both directed by James Cameron. He played a car salesman who cheated Jamie Lee Curtis’s character

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80:08

Golden Rose (Betty White)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/05/17

This person died in 2021, age 99. During World War II she drove a truck delivering soap, toothpaste and candy to soldiers. She began her career in radio by saying one word - “Parkay” - on a popular comedy show. In the early 1960s she was best known as a busy freelance guest with game shows as her specialty. She had a longstanding interest in animal welfare. Her television career spanned seven decades and she holds the “Guinness World Record” as the longest ever for a female entertainer. One of her

en

75:43

Hammer Time (Hank Aaron)

Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies ·

2023/05/03

This person died 2021 age 86. He was routinely brilliant, performing with seemingly effortless grace. He did not enjoy the idolatry accorded to his contemporaries. He grew up in Alabama amid rigid segregation, and he faced abuse from the stands while playing in the South as a minor leaguer. He was voted an All-Star in all but his first and last seasons, and he won three Gold Glove awards. The San Francisco Giants’ Barry Bonds surpassed his home run record in August 2007. In the 1974 season, he

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