Fame Itself: Recent Episodes
Fame Itself
Fame Itself is a podcast that examines the ephemeral nature of stardom through the stories of those eclipsed by obscurity, scandal, demise, and the age-old enemy of time. Listen and discover the meteoric rise, sensational fall, and lost legacies of former entertainment luminaries.
This is not a love story.
By comparing the larger-than-life romance of Superman & Lois with the infamously toxic spectacle of Sid & Nancy, we reveal how love (when filtered through media and myth) becomes a performance. And in an image-obsessed culture, what happens to intimacy when it’s produced rather than lived?
Jurassic Park and Jurassic World are prophesies about modern technological hubris. From the endless continuation of the franchise to thrill-seeking expeditions, the line between wonder and ruin is a fine one.
When Taylor Holmes performed Rudyard Kipling's “Boots," cinema as we know it didn’t even exist. Yet over a century later, that same voice acts as the emotional engine for 28 Years Later. With every hiss and crack, the performance becomes prophecy, turning distant memory into living dread.
The movie industry doesn't just tell stories. It consumes them. And nowhere is that clearer than in a black comedy noir and a satirical comedy TV series released thirty years apart.
The Studio and The Player strip away the glitz and glam to reveal a cycle of belief, betrayal, and self-mythology. Celluloid itself is both the art and the ammunition. The industry…a passion and a poison. Side by side, the two projects reveal a system where the script (or, in this case, the posters) changes, but the machine itself doesn't.
For nearly a decade, Monroe let Eve Arnold in. Not because she had to, but because she trusted her to look without wanting to possess her. More than a hallmark of on-set photography, it was a final collaboration between two women who refused to be only seen as two-dimensional.
By the production of The Misfits, Monroe became the embodiment of the outsider. While the men around her throughout her career (from directors Olivier and Huston to her husband Arthur Miller, and later photographer Bert Stern) projected their fears and desires onto her, Arnold's photographs from theset are grounded in something Monroe rarely received: consent.
Sir Laurence Olivier directed her. Eve Arnold observed her.
Where The Prince and the Showgirl delivered 117 minutes of Technicolor fantasy, Eve Arnold's black-and-white photograph of Marilyn Monroe amid a crowd of reporters reveals the scrutiny beneath the stardom. In a moment orchestrated for headlines, Arnold captured something rarely afforded to the mid-century icon: stillness, subtlety, and the assertion of agency.
The Oscar wasn’t just panned, it was nearly purged.
The Oscar is a film so overproduced, overacted, and overdesigned that it circles the block back to relevance. For all its missteps and miscastings, it exposes the machinery of Hollywood mythmaking better than a dozen prestige pictures. More importantly, its resurrection on Blu-ray reveals why boutique labels matter.
Physical media, in this case, captures The Oscar for what it is: a flawed, fascinating artifact of an industry in Golden Age denial.
You probably didn’t expect the definitive history of Hollywood’s most prestigious night to be launched on a daytime talk show.
More than a record of categories, dates, and names, Robert Osbourne's Academy Awards Ilustrated is a tribute to the permanence of print in a culture obsessed with ephemeral media. It laid the foundation for Oscar commentary and scholarship in the decades that followed. It also highlights the disconnect between cultural memory and archival truth.
Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story (2024) explores what it means to be born into a very bright spotlight, and what it takes to live up to it.
The 2025 DVD release from Kino Lorber offers audiences a chance to discover (or rediscover) a living legend while helping preserve her legacy through the power of physical media and independent film.
Please note: this episode contains spoilers.
Dorothy Gale could click her heels and get back to her farm in Kansas. But for one of MGM's brightest stars, where exactly was she supposed to go?
Rupert Goold's Judy captures the iconic performer in the late 1960s. Defrauded, displaced, and out of options, she accepts a five-week engagement at London's Talk of the Town.Judy is a story about cost; the incalculable price paid not just for fame, but for performance itself. With the 2019 Blu-ray in hand, let's unpack the MGM myth, reveal the person behind the persona, and affirm the sacred contract between artist and audience.
Please note: this episode contains spoilers for the 2019 film, Judy.
Liza Minnelli didn’t intend on sharing the London stage with her mother. But, Judy Garland had other plans.
This episode explores how their mother-daughter duo at the London Palladium marked the beginning of a captivating and enduring shared legacy.
The reissue of Judy and Liza: Together is a marvelous example of “mother knows best” in action. And sixty years on, it’s clear that Judy’s ambush worked better than anyone could have imagined.
Season One: Situations Wanted, Women highlights books about women in film that are also written by women. Our second episode discusses the 2018 book, My Cousin Maria Schneider: A Memoir by Vanessa Schneider. Here, we take a look at how Maria spoke up for women during her career, and the women who speak up for Maria now.
Season One: Situations Wanted, Women highlights books about women in film that are also written by women. Our first episode discusses Geena Davis' 2022 memoir, Dying of Politeness. Here, we take a look at Davis' mantlepiece - and her three Oscars that provide not only a timeline of her career; they also reveal a spectrum of womanhood through Davis’ experience in Hollywood and her relationship with the moving image.
Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon" lays bare our shared consciousness - and the role of mass media within it. The three-hour adaptation of David Grann’s journalistic odyssey into the Reign of Terror demonstrates how the biopic and historical genres can heal old wounds while opening new ones.
However, it’s the epilogue, transporting us from 1920s Oklahoma to a live radio performance in the 1930s, that elevates the film from true crime reenactment to cultural reckoning. A line of just seven words underscores the profound and potent combination of memory and media. It’s also a call to action for integrity and literacy in a media-driven age.
Amidst the riveting and high-stakes world of professional wrestling, The Iron Claw (2023) captures the unmatched resilience and haunting legacy of the Von Erich brothers. Told through the lens of the eldest and last surviving brother, Kevin, the quest for title glory driven by their domineering father is met with personal turmoil and a series of devastating losses.
Before Wakanda Forever entered the mainstream to represent longevity, respect, and identity - especially for those across the African diaspora - there was "To Be Young, Gifted, and Black."
Playwright and activist Lorraine Hansberry, author of the landmark play A Raisin in the Sun, first coined the phrase fifty-eight years ago. Even though their lives never intersected, the legacies left behind by Hansberry and Boseman are both emblematic of a cultural turning point that has served as catalysts for social change and creative inspiration.
In this episode, we will highlight the real-life events behind Hansberry's seminal work, delve into Boseman's deliberate journey to Wakanda, and discuss how their shared legacies make powerful pleas for broader media representation.
Before Rouben Mamoulian's 1931 talkie, nine silent U.S. productions attempted to bring Stevenson's commentary on the duality of human nature to the big screen. Often cited today as the most overlooked film genre during award season - especially on Hollywood's biggest night, horror broke through at the Oscars with March’s dual role as Doctor Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde.
In this episode, we will highlight career-defining adaptations of the gothic novella, take a closer look at the first horror film to win a top acting prize, and discuss how the current golden age of horror elevates the genre from industry outsider to award-season contender.
For decades, Spanish Drácula (1931), the dual-language production of Universal's Dracula (1931) directed by Tod Browning, was considered a lost film. It would be Lupita Tovar, George Melford's leading lady, who would help carry the legacy of this once-forgotten production into the 21st century. In this episode, we will trace Tovar's career from talent-search find to Hollywood matriarch, examine an industry aiming to use the new invention of sound to capture audiences abroad, and explain why Spanish Drácula is essential viewing.
Industry darling to faded star; dazzling affluence to crushing destitution; lucky breaks to tragic misfortune. Join us as we examine the ephemeral nature of stardom through the stories of those eclipsed by scandal, demise, and the age-old enemy of time. Fame Itself officially debuts on October 12, 2022.
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Music: Calm Before The Storm | EvgenyBardyuzha