1960s

Cass Elliot, Carnie Wilson and Fat-Shaming in Rock and Pop (Make Me Over, Episode 6) /  by Karina Longworth

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts. 

Cass Elliot didn’t die eating a ham sandwich. But the lasting power of that urban legend speaks to a far darker story. Elliot possessed one of the most influential voices of the 1960s. However, while her big break with The Mamas and The Papas and meteoric career changed the LA music scene forever, it also entrapped Elliot in a cycle of fat-shaming, sending her spiraling into catastrophic weight-loss regimens. In this episode, we’ll talk about the music industry’s complicated relationship with weight, how crash dieting likely led to the untimely death of this music legend, and the true legacy of Elliot in pop culture.

This episode was written and performed by Lexi Pandell, a writer from Oakland, California. Her work has been published by The Atlantic, The New York Times, WIRED, The New Republic, Condé Nast Traveler, GQ, Playboy, and many others.

Mamas & Papas c. 1967

Mamas & Papas c. 1967

SHOW NOTES: 

Sources specific to this episode:

Dream a Little Dream of Me by Eddie Fiegel

Go Where You Wanna Go: The Oral History of The Mamas and The Papas by Matthew Greenwald

American Legends: Mama Cass by Charles Rivers Editors

Reducing Bodies: Mass Culture and the Female Figure in Postwar America by Elizabeth Matelski

California Dreamin’ by Michelle Phillips

The Mamas & the Papas: Behind the Music from VH1, 1998

E! True Hollywood Story: Mama Cass Elliot, 1996

“Mama Cass: A Myth, Larger Than Life,” July 31, 1992, Entertainment Weekly

“California Dreamgirl,” December 2007, Vanity Fair

“Sink Along with Mama Cass,” June 1, 1969, Esquire

“What a Way to Lose 110 Pounds!” March 1969, The Ladies Home Journal

“The Untold Story: Cass Elliot’s Daughter On the Crushing Fat-Shaming Her Mother Endured,” May 24, 2019, NextTribe

“Cass Elliot, Pop Singer, Dies; Star of the Mamas and Papas,” July 30, 1974, The New York Times

“How Karen Carpenter's Death Changed the Way We Talk About Anorexia,” May 23, 2016, Time

“Wilson Phillips’s California Dream,” May 17, 1990, Rolling Stone

“Carnie Wilson Says She Was Weighed and Fat-Shamed by Howard Stern: 'I Was Devastated',” November 8, 2017, People

Excerpts from the following television shows and films were used throughout the episode:

The Mamas & the Papas: Behind the Music from VH1, 1998

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, 1997

Man of the Year, 2006

The Mike Douglas Show, 1970

E! True Hollywood Story: Mama Cass Elliot, 1996

The Dinah Shore Show, 1972

Different - Cass Elliot featured in Pufnstuf, 1970

The Carol Burnett Show, Season 4, Episode 8, 1970

The Carol Burnett Show, Season 5, Episode 4, 1971

The Red Skelton Show, 1971

The Tonight Show, 1974

The Talk, November 8, 2017

Carnie Wilson: Unstapled, 2010

Cass Elliot, 1967 Photo by Jerry Schatzberg/Getty Images

Cass Elliot, 1967 Photo by Jerry Schatzberg/Getty Images

Music:

The music used in this episode, with the exception of the intro, was sourced from royalty-free music libraries and licensed music collections. The intro includes a clip from the film Casablanca.  

Excerpts from the following songs were used throughout the episode: 

California Dreamin’ - The Mamas and The Papas
Creeque Alley - The Mamas and The Papas
Home Fires - Preservation Hall, Jenson Navarro
Summer Of Love - Christophe Marie Alai Deschamps , Brisa Roché
Picking Daisies - Dominique Gabriel Joseph Depret
Sometime - Rebecca Ruth Hall
Caribbean Fun - Gerhard Narholz
Nice To Meet You - Silvain Vanot
The Face - Julien Guillaume Yves Bonneau, David Alphonse Pierre Krutten, James Sheppard
Water Rising - Gareth David Dickson
One Emotion - Vasco, Jeremy Noel William Abbott
Snowmen - Kai Engel

Cass Elliot.jpg

Credits:

Make Me Over is a special presentation of You Must Remember This. It was created and directed by Karina Longworth, who also edited the scripts.

This episode was written and performed by Lexi Pandell.

Research and production assistant: Lindsey D. Schoenholtz.

Social media assistant: Brendan Whalen.

Producer: Tomeka Weatherspoon. 

Editor: Jared O'Connell.

Audio engineers: Jared O'Connell, Andrea Kristins and Brendan Burns. 

Supervising Producer: Josephine Martorana. 

Executive Producer: Chris Bannon. 

Logo design: Teddy Blanks and Aaron Nestor.

Wilson Phillips, 1991

Wilson Phillips, 1991

Gina Lollobrigida (The Seduced, Episode 6) /  by Karina Longworth

Gina Lollobrigida in the 1960s.jpg

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts.

This Italian pin-up, along with Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot, was emblematic of a brand of post-war European sexuality that America happily imported. But the Hollywood career of  “La Lollo” was delayed, thanks to Howard Hughes, whose obsession with Lollobrigida led him to keep her virtually imprisoned in a Los Angeles hotel, and sign her to a contract that made it essentially impossible for her to work for any other US producer.

Gina Lollobrigida in Bread, Love and Dreams, 1953

Gina Lollobrigida in Bread, Love and Dreams, 1953

Music:

The music used in this episode, with the exception of the intro and outro, was sourced from royalty-free music libraries and licensed music collections. The intro includes a clip from the film Casablanca. The outro song this week is “For Tomorrow” by Blur.

Excerpts from the following songs were used throughout the episode:

Reflectif - Artist Unknown 

Rendezvous 3 - Martin Landh 

Mysterious Grand Piano - Jonas Elander

Cluedo - Hakan Erikson

Sophisticated Gentleman 3 - Magnus Kingbloom

My Simple Thing 2 - Peter Sandberg

Yellow Leaves 5 - Peter Sandberg

After the Freakshow - Jenny Roos

Jazz and Blue Piano 1-Jonatan Jarpehag

Campers Day-Magnus Ringblom

Tomorrow I’ll Be Gone - Franz Gordon

Speakeasy 2 - Gunnar Johnsen

Credits:

This episode was written, narrated and produced by Karina Longworth.

Editor: Olivia Natt.

Research and production assistant: Lindsey D. Schoenholtz.

Social media assistant: Brendan Whalen.

Logo design: Teddy Blanks.

Gina Lollobrigida, 2014 | Photograph by Jonathan Becker for Vanity Fair

Gina Lollobrigida, 2014 | Photograph by Jonathan Becker for Vanity Fair

Charles Manson's Hollywood, Part 2: Charlie Manson Finds His Family /  by Karina Longworth

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Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts.

Today we're tracing Charles Manson's life from his birth to a teenage con artist, through multiple stints in reform schools and prisons, and finally to San Francisco circa 1967, where Manson began to try out his guru act on the local hippie kids, and started to form the "family" that he'd eventually migrate with to Los Angeles. We'll explain how Manson cobbled together a dogma and worldview from a number of disparate sources -- including pimps he met in prison, the devout Christians in his family, San Francisco activists The Diggers, Dale Carnegie and Scientology -- and describe how and why he was an appealing figure to young women floating around the Bay Area in the late 1960s.  

"Manson girls" Pat Krenwinkle, Susan Stkins and Leslie Van Houten.

Show notes:

This week, we welcome a very special guest: Nate DiMeo, the creator of the wonderful history podcast, The Memory Palace. Nate will be playing Charles Manson throughout this season. Check out Nate's podcast on iTunes or at the above link, and follow him on Twitter @thememorypalace.

The main sources for this episode are the same as those noted last week, plus Can't Find My Way Home: America in the Great Stoned Age, 1945-2000, By Martin Torgoff

 Discography:

Album Tag Song by Dennis Wilson

Slim Fitting by Glass Boy

OLPC by Marco Raaphorst

Scubba Adventure by Apache Tomcat

The Last Ones by Jahzzar

La Hacienda by Apache Tomcat

She's Leaving Home by The Beatles

Make a Wish (For Christmas) by Lee Rosevere

Don't Be Square (Be There) by Adam and the Ants

Charles Manson’s Hollywood, Part 1: What We Talk About When We Talk About The Manson Murders /  by Karina Longworth

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Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts.

This season, You Must Remember This will explore the murders committed in the summer of 1969 by followers of Charles Manson, and the Hollywood music and movie scene surrounding the killings. Throughout the series, we’ll learn how a single sociopath’s thwarted dreams of fame and fortune led to the gruesome events which became the symbolic “end of the sixties.” Future episodes will explore the various celebrities, musicians, movie stars and filmmakers (including Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate, The Beach Boys, Dennis Hopper, Doris Day and more) whose paths crossed with Manson’s in meaningful ways, both leading up to the murders and in their aftermath. Today, we’ll talk about what was going on in the show business capital that made Manson seem like a relatively normal guy. Then we'll lay out the basic facts of who was killed, and how, in order to begin to explain how these unthinkable crimes fit in to the tapestry of one of the most tumultuous times in Hollywood history. 

Show Notes:

Welcome to our new season! This series will run a total of 11 weeks (I think; I’m still researching and writing) and will touch on topics as disparate as Doris Day and Michaelangelo Antonioni, Pet Sounds and Pink Flamingos. I became interested in these stories about a year ago, when I somehow found myself reading the obituary of Terry Melcher. Melcher had a really full Hollywood life, which we’ll talk about in one of these episodes, but the headline is that he was born to a teenage Doris Day, and 27 years later he became convinced he was the person the Manson family were really looking for the night they massacred everyone at Sharon Tate’s house. I knew Day and Melcher’s stories were enough to fill at least one episode; as I began researching Melcher’s connection to Manson, many, many other Hollywood stories began to emerge. I realized the story of Charles Manson and the murders he is responsible is really (or, also) the story of Hollywood and its mythology draining of hope, and I wanted to tell that story.

This should probably be obvious given the subject matter, but every single episode of this season is going to contain content and language that will probably be offensive to someone. Apologies in advance.

Bibliography:

The foundational text of this series is Jeff Guinn’s recent biography Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson, which I read in long stretches late at night when I was supposed to be on vacation. I couldn't put it down to go to sleep, partially because I would have nightmares every time I tried. 

Here are some other books that I read or re-read to prepare myself generally for this season. I’ll make note of additional/specific sources as we go along:

Manson: The Unholy Trail of Charlie and the Family by John Gilmore (This book was previously published as The Garbage People, a much better title, I think) 

Waiting For the Sun: A Rock n’ Roll History of Los Angeles by Barney Hoskyns

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind

Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris

Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & The Dark Heart Of The Hippie Dream by Dave McGowan

Shadows and Light: Journeys with Outlaws in Revolutionary Hollywood by Gary Kent

Discography:

The Last Ones by Jahzzar

Stormy Moods Orchestra by Apache Tomcat

Scubba Adventure by Apache Tomcat

Alabama Song by The Doors

Alabama Song by Bertolt Brecht

Beware of the Fall by Apache Tomkat

Au coin de la rue by Marco Raaphorst

Private Hurricane (Instrumental) by Josh Woodward

Divider by Chris Zabriskie

Devastation and Revenge by Kevin MacLeod

Helter Skelter by The Beatles

YMRT #25: The Short Lives of Bruce and Brandon Lee /  by Karina Longworth

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Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts.

A martial arts master on the verge of major movie stardom, Bruce Lee died suddenly in 1973, at the age of 33; the official cause was “death by misadventure.” Twenty years later, Bruce Lee's son, BrandonLee, died suddenly in an accidental shooting on the set of The Crow — the movie which was poised to turn Brandon into a major star. These parallel tragedies have led some to suggest that the Lee family have been the victims of a curse, or a conspiracy. In this episode, we’ll explore what really happened to Bruce and BrandonLee, and discuss what happened over several decades, so that an extraordinary talented artist who was essentially run out of town thanks to Hollywood’s racism came to be one of the industry’s biggest moneymakers long after his death. 

Show notes!

This episode marks a couple of different landmarks for You Must Remember This. It’s our 25th episode. It’s the last episode of our second season, which has been devoted to stories loosely or not-so loosely related to my book, Hollywood Frame by Frame — making this also the last time I’ll mention the book in or around the podcast (there are pictures from the set of The Crow in it and you can buy it here. </plug>.) And, it’s our final all-new episode of 2014. We will have a special not-all-new episode next week, then we’ll take a week off and be back with the first episode of a new season on January 6. 

Bibliography:

There are a lot of books about Bruce Lee, and, honestly, I had trouble wading through them to figure out which were the most substantive/reliable. As I mention in the episode, the the demand for information about Lee after his death created a financial incentive to publish which didn’t necessarily support fact checking. I ended up putting more stock in newspaper/magazine articles written from the perspective of the future. Matthew Polly’s Playboy feature Chasing the Dragon was an important source for this episode, as were the LA Times and Entertainment Weekly’s extensive coverage of Brandon Lee’s death on the set of The Crow, particularly this story by Mark Harris. Also, I watched the documentary I Am Bruce Lee, as well as, um, this Unsolved Mysteries episode about the Lee deaths. 

Discography:

Atmosphere by Joy Division

Intelligent Galaxy The Insider

Strict Machine by Goldfrapp

Cyllider One by Chris Zabriskie

Money by Jahzzar

The Insider Theme by The insider

5:00 AM by Peter Rudenko

Laserdisc by Chris Zabriskie

These Days by Joy Division

Auto-Suggestion by Joy Division

Private Hurricane (Instrumental Version) by Josh Woodward

Undercover Vampire Policeman by Chris Zabriskie

For the Damaged (coda) by Blonde Redhead

Wonder Cycle by Chris Zabriskie

Dead Souls by Joy Division

YMRT #22: Audrey Hepburn: Sex, Style and Sabrina /  by Karina Longworth

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts.

Like Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, it sometimes seems as though Audrey Hepburn’s actual movies have been swallowed up by a superficial image of her as a star. When you think of her, you probably think of her in a black cocktail dress, swinging a cigarette holder — an image from the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s, a film about a golddigging party girl which somehow convinces the viewer that it’s about a girl-next-door princess. This ability to mix sex and class and innocence was Hepburn’s real trademark, and along with her ballerina/waif body type - the total opposite of the bombshell look that was in vogue at the time — it made Hepburn not just a great star, but a groundbreaking one: she was the first glamorous actress whose style seemed to be to dress for herself, and not to appeal to men. 

Breakfast at Tiffany’s came along fairly far along in Hepburn’s evolution as a star. Today we’re going to talk about a film which sparked that evolution, Sabrina — Hepburn’s second Hollywood film, on which she was romanced by William Holden, resented by Humphrey Bogart, and first dressed by Givenchy. It was also the first film on which her complicated star persona as a “new woman,” who used fashion to both broadcast her individuality and negotiate around the censors, started to come together.

Show Notes!

My book Hollywood Frame by Frame contains several pages of images taken on the New York set of Sabrina. There’s one page that shows Hepburn, Holden, director Billy Wilder, and screenwriter Ernest Lehman, sitting around a table together — without Bogart. When I started researching that photo, I learned that Bogart had been an antagonist on that set, in part because he seemed to feel threatened by the up-and-coming Hepburn, who he thought was getting special treatment, and who would thus upstage him. That reminded me of the portion of Sam Wasson’s book Fifth Avenue 5 A.M., in which he details the special treatment that Hepburn did get, in that she was sent to Paris to pick out items for her character’s (and her own) wardrobe at the atelier of Hubert de Givenchy, the designer with whom Hepburn would work for the rest of her career. I thought it would be interesting to explore ways in which Sabrina, made when Hepburn was still a total newcomer, put in motion various aspects of her now-indelible star persona. 

This episode features more film criticism/analysis than usual, and because I had researched these films and Hepburn’s life before, I didn’t need to do the usual exhaustive research. But most of the quotes and information about Hepburn’s early and personal lives came from Barry Paris’ biography Audrey Hepburn.

Discography:

"Moon River" by Henry Mancini, performed by Morrissey

“Benbient” by Canton

“Free and Easy” by Brian Jonestown Massacre

“Oceanic Dawn” by DJ Masque

“Just in Time” performed by Blossom Dearie

“Big Deal” by Everything But the Girl

“6,49” by Black Ant

“Wonder Cylce” by Chris Zabriskie

“Sous le soleil exacttement (orchestre)” by Serge Gainsbourg

“Transparent” by Peter Rudenko

“Divider” by Chris Zabriskie

“Gunshy” by Liz Phair

“Inside You” by Eddie Henderson

“The Slide Song” by Spiritualized

“The Girls Want to Be With The Girls” by The Talking Heads

YMRT #19: Raquel Welch, From Pin-up to Pariah /  by Karina Longworth

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts.

The poster for RaquelWelch's second film,One Million Years B.C., became the top pin-up of the late 1960s, and Welch — a divorced mom of two who had been a cocktail waitress just a few months earlier — found herself in the odd position of being an old-fashioned sex goddess in the age of flower children and feminism. With her unprecedentedly athletic curves, Welch was willing to exploit her natural gifts to some extent, but was adamant about not doing full nudity. Her stubbornness about maintaining control over the representation of her body made her unpopular in an industry which wasn’t interested in anything about her but her body; at the same time, Welch was disdained by contemporary feminists for her sexualized image, even though in several of her films, Welch set the prototype for the modern day action heroine. Fed up at age 40, Welch sued a major Hollywood studio for conspiracy to defame her and end her career.

Show Notes!

When I first recorded this episode, for some reason I kept referring to One Million Years B.C. as One Billion Years B.C. I have no idea why — I wrote it correctly in my script for the show, but somehow was unable to either read it correctly, or notice that I was reading it incorrectly until I started editing the episode. I went back and rerecorded a few lines; if I missed any of the old “Billions,” I apologize. 

This was a deep research week. In addition to Welch’s own, somewhat disappointing book, Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage, I consulted many, many magazine and newspaper articles, some of which I found only on microfiche, which is not always well labelled. These were the key sources, linked where possible:

“Playboy Interview: RaquelWelch” by Richard Warren Lewis, Playboy, August 1970

“Raquel Redux” by Stephen Rebello. Movieline, August 2001

“Raquel’s Story like Fairy Tale” by Abe Greenwald. Syndicated column. May 7, 1965

“RaquelWelch Won’t Deny She’s Married” by Sheilah Graham, Hollywood Citizen-News (also syndicated elsewhere), August 5, 1966

“OK, OK, But Can She Act?” by Robert Neville. New York Times, September 11, 1966

“Pinup’s Progress,” by Martha Sherrill, Allure, May 1993

“RaquelWelch Interview,” by Maury Levy, Playboy Fashion, Fall/Winter 1982 

“Sex Goddess is Human, After All,” by Joyce Haber. Los Angeles, June 9. 1968

“What’s Troubling RaquelWelch?” by Marilyn Beck. Syndicated (retrieved from the Palm Beach Post, November 16, 1972) 

Also, this is the legal summary of the Cannery Row case which I reference in the episode. 

Mediography:

Excerpt from this excerpt from Myra Breckinridge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFgHFcxH6Mg

Discography:

“Night City” by Dirty Beaches

“Strange” by Patsy Cline

“You Go To My Head (Instrumental)” performed by Chet Baker

“Sincerely” by The Moonglows

“I Only Have Eyes For You.” performed by The Flamingos

“Joe” by Scott Walker

“Money” by Jahzzar

“Bring Down the Birds” by Herbie Hancock

“Out of the Skies, Under the Earth” by Chris Zabriskie

“The Wrong Way” by Jahzzar

“Poursuite” from the score to the movie Breathless, by Martial Solal

“Capri” from the score to the movie Contempt, by Georges Delarue

“Mrs. Robinson” by Simon and Garfunkel

“Gagool” by Kevin MacLeod

“Future Starts Slow” by The Kills

“Fiery Yellow” by Stereolab

“What True Self, Feels Bogus, Let’s Watch Jason X” by Chris Zabriskie

“Divider” by Chris Zabriskie

“Monte” by comounjardin

“Swimsuit Issue” by Sonic Youth