American actor, film director and activist
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Bookwaves/Artwaves is produced and hosted by Richard Wolinsky. Links to assorted local theater & book venues Susan Hill: Master of Ghost Stories and Noir Susan Hill, author of “The Woman in Black” and other novels, in conversation by phone with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded November 29, 2021. The Woman in Black, a play by Stephen Mallatratt and directed by Robin Herford is playing in Walnut Creek at The Lesher Center under the auspices of CenterREP from November 5th through November 23, 2025. Susan Hill has written over thirty novels, most of them stand-alones in the gothic ghost story genre, and eleven crime novels featuring her detective Simon Serrailer, the most recent being The Benefit of Hindsight, published in 2020, with A Change of Circumstance published in March 2022. She's also written six collections of short stories, an autobiography among nine non-fiction works, five plays, and 13 Children's Books. She became a Dame of the British Empire in 2020. Complete 48-minute interview. Rita Moreno: Broadway and Hollywood Legend Richard Wolinsky and Rita Moreno, Sept. 16, 2011 at KPFA. Rita Moreno, legendary Hollywood star, actress, dancer and singer, in conversation about her career and her one-woman show, “Rita Moreno: Life Without Make-up,” recorded September 16, 2011 in the KPFA studios. Hosted by Richard Wolinsky. The talented winner of the big four awards, Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Tony, Rita Moreno continues to work in film and television. In this interview recorded during previews of her one-woman show at Berkeley Rep ten years ago, she discusses not only her work on the show, but her time in Hollywood, her five year relationship with Marlon Brando, her work on the film The King and I, working with Morgan Freeman on PBS, and other stories. Complete 35-minute interview. Review of “Suffs” at BroadwaySF Orpheum Theatre through November 9, 2025 Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors' positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. Some venues operate Tuesday – Sunday; others for shorter periods each week. All times Pacific Time. Closing dates are sometimes extended. Book Stores Bay Area Book Festival See website for highlights from the 110th Annual Bay Area Book Festival, May 31 – June 1, 2025. Book Passage. Monthly Calendar. Mix of on-line and in-store events. Books Inc. Mix of on-line and in-store events. The Booksmith. Monthly Event Calendar. BookShop West Portal. Monthly Event Calendar. Center for Literary Arts, San Jose. See website for Book Club guests in upcoming months. Green Apple Books. Events calendar. Kepler's Books On-line Refresh the Page program listings. Live Theater Companies Actors Ensemble of Berkeley. See website for readings and events. Actor's Reading Collective (ARC). Mary Jane by Amy Herzog, directed by Amy Kossow, November 6 – 30, Magic Theatre, Fort Mason. African American Art & Culture Complex. See website for calendar. American Conservatory Theatre Stereophonic (in association with BroadwaySF, at the Curran), Oct 28 – Nov 23. Awesome Theatre Company. See website for information. Berkeley Playhouse. Annie. November 7- December 21. Once, February 20 – March 22. Berkeley Rep. The Hills of California .by Jez Butterworth, Oct. 31 – Dec. 7, Roda Theatre. Mother of Exiles by Jessica Huang, World Premiere, Nov. 14 – Dec. 32, Peets Theatre. Berkeley Shakespeare Company The Tempest, Oct. 24 – Nov. 2, Immersive theatre. Point Montara Lighthouse. Brava Theatre Center: See calendar for events listings. BroadwaySF: Stereophonic (in association with ACT), Oct 28 – Nov 23, Curran. See website for complete listings for the Orpheum, Golden Gate and Curran Theaters. Broadway San Jose: Kinky Boots, Nov. 28-30. See website for other events. Center REP: The Woman in Black, U.S. Tour, November 5-23.. Central Stage. See website for upcoming productions, 5221 Central Avenue, Richmond Central Works Dada Teen Musical: The Play by Maury Zeff, Oct. 18 – Nov. 16, Cinnabar Theatre. Young Rep: Disney's The Little Mermaid, November 14-23, Studio Space, Petaluma Outlet Mall. Club Fugazi. Dear San Francisco ongoing. Check website for Music Mondays listings. Contra Costa Civic Theatre Ebenezer Scrooge, an adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” by Joel Roster, December 6 – 21. . See website for other events. Golden Thread Pilgrimage by Humaira Ghilzal and Bridgette Dutta Portman, a co-production with Z Space, October 24 – November 8, Z Space's Steindler Stage. Hillbarn Theatre: Murder for Two, a musical comedy, October 9 – November 2, 2025. Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. See website for upcoming productions. Los Altos Stage Company. Freaky Friday, The Musical. October 24 – November 2. A Christmas Carol, November 28 – December 21.. Lower Bottom Playaz August Wilson's King Hedley II, November 8 -30. BAM House, Oakland. Magic Theatre. Actors Reading Collective: Mary Jane by Amy Herzog, directed by Amy Kossow, November 6 – 30, See website for other events and productions. Marin Shakespeare Company: See website for events and productions. Marin Theatre: Sally and Tom by Suzan-Lori Parks. October 30 – November 23. The Lightning Thief, MSC Teen Company, November 7 -9. Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts Upcoming Events Page. New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC) Spanish Stew by Marga Gomez, October 17 – November 23. New Performance Traditions. See website for upcoming schedule Oakland Theater Project. Cabaret, November 21 – December 14. Odd Salon: Upcoming events in San Francisco & New York, and streaming. Palace of Fine Arts Theater. See website for event listings. Pear Theater. Ada & The Engine by Lauren Gunderson, November 21 – December 7. See website for staged readings and other events. Playful People Productions. Newsies, November 8-16. Presidio Theatre. Peter Pan Panto, Nov. 29 – Dec. 28. See website for complete schedule of events and performances. Ray of Light: The Rocky Horror Show. October 9 – November 1, The Oasis. Ross Valley Players: See website for New Works Sunday night readings and other events. San Francisco Playhouse. Noises Off by Michael Frayn. September 25 – November 8. SFBATCO. See website for upcoming streaming and in- theater shows. San Jose Stage Company: See website for events and upcoming season Shotgun Players. Sunday in the Park with George, November 15 – December 30. South Bay Musical Theatre: Let It Snow: A Broadway Holiday Celebration, December 20-21, Little Women, The Broadway Musical, January 24 – February 14, 2026. SPARC: See website for upcoming events. Stagebridge: See website for events and productions. Storytime every 4th Saturday. The Breath Project. Streaming archive. The Marsh: Calendar listings for Berkeley, San Francisco and Marshstream. Theatre Lunatico Frankenstein, October 11 – November 2. Theatre Rhino The Break-Up written and performed by Tina D'Elia, November 6-23. Streaming: Essential Services Project, conceived and performed by John Fisher, all weekly performances now available on demand. TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. A Driving Beat by Jordan Ramirez Puckett, Oct 29 – Nov. 23, . Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts Second Stage.Georgiana & Kitty, Christmas at Pemberley by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon, Dec. 3 – 28, Lucie Stern Theatre. Word for Word. See website for upcoming productions. Misc. Listings: BAMPFA: On View calendar for Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Berkeley Symphony: See website for listings. Chamber Music San Francisco: Calendar, 2025 Season. Dance Mission Theatre. On stage events calendar. Fort Mason Center. Events calendar. Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Calendar listings and upcoming shows. San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus. See schedule for upcoming SFGMC performances. San Francisco Opera. Calendar listings. San Francisco Symphony. Calendar listings. Filmed Live Musicals: Searchable database of all filmed live musicals, podcast, blog. If you'd like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write Richard@kpfa.org The post October 30, 2025: Susan Hill – Rita Moreno appeared first on KPFA.
Dans l'imaginaire collectif, on pense à des motards en cuir roulant sur leurs Harley-Davidson, libres comme le vent, à des figures de rebelles popularisés par Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper ou bien encore la série Sons of Anarchy. Mais derrière le mythe, il y a une réalité plus sombre : des organisations structurées, hiérarchisées, parfois criminelles, implantées dans le monde entier et présentes aussi en France. Aujourd'hui, nous allons explorer leurs origines, leur organisation, leurs activités, mais aussi la façon dont les autorités tentent de les surveiller et de lutter contre leurs activités criminelles. Pour cela, je reçois Antoine Neufman.
What does it take to keep your voice—and your purpose—strong through every season of life? In this episode of Unstoppable Mindset, I sit down with my friend Bill Ratner, one of Hollywood's most recognized voice actors, best known as Flint from GI Joe. Bill's voice has carried him through radio, animation, and narration, but what stands out most is how he's used that same voice to serve others through storytelling, teaching, and grief counseling. Together, we explore the heart behind his work—from bringing animated heroes to life to standing on The Moth stage and helping people find healing through poetry. Bill shares lessons from his own journey, including losing both parents early, finding family in unexpected places, and discovering how creative expression can rebuild what life breaks down. We also reflect on 9/11, preparedness, and the quiet confidence that comes from trusting your training—whether you're a first responder, a performer, or just navigating the unknown. This conversation isn't just about performance; it's about presence. It's about using your story, your craft, and your compassion to keep moving forward—unstoppable, one voice at a time. Highlights: 00:31 – Hear the Flint voice and what it takes to bring animated characters to life. 06:57 – Learn why an uneven college path still led to a lifelong acting career. 11:50 – Understand how GI Joe became a team and a toy phenomenon that shaped culture. 15:58 – See how comics and cartoons boosted classroom literacy when used well. 17:06 – Pick up simple ways parents can spark reading through shared stories. 19:29 – Discover how early, honest conversations about death can model resilience. 24:09 – Learn to critique ads and media like a pro to sharpen your own performance. 36:19 – Follow the pivot from radio to voiceover and why specialization pays. 47:48 – Hear practical editing approaches and accessible tools that keep shows tight. 49:38 – Learn how The Moth builds storytelling chops through timed, judged practice. 55:21 – See how poetry—and poetry therapy—support grief work with students. 59:39 – Take notes on memoir writing, emotional management, and one-person shows. About the Guest: Bill Ratner is one of America's best known voice actors and author of poetry collections Lamenting While Doing Laps in the Lake (Slow Lightning Lit 2024,) Fear of Fish (Alien Buddha Press 2021,) To Decorate a Casket (Finishing Line Press 2021,) and the non-fiction book Parenting For The Digital Age: The Truth Behind Media's Effect On Children and What To Do About It (Familius Books 2014.) He is a 9-time winner of the Moth StorySLAM, 2-time winner of Best of The Hollywood Fringe Extension Award for Solo Performance, Best of the Net Poetry Nominee 2023 (Lascaux Review,) and New Millennium "America One Year From Now" Writing Award Finalist. His writing appears in Best Small Fictions 2021 (Sonder Press,) Missouri Review (audio,) Baltimore Review, Chiron Review, Feminine Collective, and other journals. He is the voice of "Flint" in the TV cartoon G.I. Joe, "Donnell Udina" in the computer game Mass Effect, the voice of Air Disasters on Smithsonian Channel, NewsNation, and network TV affiliates across the country. He is a committee chair for his union, SAG-AFTRA, teaches Voiceovers for SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Media Awareness for Los Angeles Unified School District, and is a trained grief counsellor. Member: Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild-AFTRA, National Storytelling Network • https://billratner.com • @billratner Ways to connect with Bill: https://soundcloud.com/bill-ratner https://www.instagram.com/billratner/ https://twitter.com/billratner https://www.threads.net/@billratner https://billratner.tumblr.com https://www.youtube.com/@billratner/videos https://www.facebook.com/billratner.voiceover.author https://bsky.app/profile/bilorat.bsky.social About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well on a gracious hello to you, wherever you may be, I am your host. Mike hingson, and you are listening to unstoppable mindset. Today, we get to have a voice actor, person, Bill Ratner, who you want to know who Bill Radnor is, go back and watch the old GI Joe cartoons and listen to the voice of Flint. Bill Ratner ** 01:42 All right. Lady Jay, you better get your battle gear on, because Cobra is on their way. And I can't bring up the Lacher threat weapon system. We got to get out of here. Yo, Joe, Michael Hingson ** 01:52 there you go. I rest my case Well, Bill, welcome to unstoppable mindset. Bill Ratner ** 02:00 We can't rest now. Michael, we've just begun. No, we've just begun. Michael Hingson ** 02:04 We got to keep going here. Well, I'm really glad that you're here. Bill is another person who we inveigled to get on unstoppable mindset with the help of Walden Hughes. And so that means we can talk about Walden all we want today. Bill just saying, oh goodness. And I got a lot to say. Let me tell you perfect, perfect. Bring it on. So we are really grateful to Walden, although I hope he's not listening. We don't want to give him a big head. But no, seriously, we're really grateful. Ah, good point. Bill Ratner ** 02:38 But his posture, oddly enough, is perfect. Michael Hingson ** 02:40 Well, there you go. What do you do? He practiced. Well, anyway, we're glad you're here. Tell us about the early bill, growing up and all that stuff. It's always fun to start a good beginning. Bill Ratner ** 02:54 Well, I was a very lucky little boy. I was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1947 to two lovely people, professionals, both with master's degree out at University of Chicago. My mother was a social worker. My father had an MBA in business. He was managing editor of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. So I had the joy of living in a better home and living in a garden. Michael Hingson ** 03:21 My mother. How long were you in Des Moines? Bill Ratner ** 03:24 Five and a half years left before my sixth birthday. My dad got a fancy job at an ad agency in Minneapolis, and had a big brother named Pete and big handsome, curly haired boy with green eyes. And moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and was was brought up there. Michael Hingson ** 03:45 Wow. So you went to school there and and chased the girls and all that stuff. Bill Ratner ** 03:54 I went to school there at Blake School for Boys in Hopkins, Minnesota. Couldn't chase the girls day school, but the girls we are allowed to dance with certainly not chase. Michael was at woodhue dancing school, the Northrop girls from Northrop girls school and the Blake boys were put together in eighth grade and taught the Cha Cha Cha, the waltz, the Charleston, and we danced together, and the girls wore white gloves, and we sniffed their perfume, and we all learned how to be lovers when we were 45 Michael Hingson ** 04:37 There you are. Well, as long as you learned at some point, that's a good start. Bill Ratner ** 04:44 It's a weird generation. Michael, Michael Hingson ** 04:46 I've been to Des Moines before. I was born in Chicago, but moved out to California when I was five, but I did some work with the National Federation of the Blind in the mid 19. 1970s 1976 into 1978 so spent time at the Iowa Commission for the Blind in Des Moines, which became a top agency for the Blind in well, the late 50s into the to the 60s and so on. So Bill Ratner ** 05:15 both my parents are from Chicago. My father from the south side of Chicago, 44th and Kenzie, which was a Irish, Polish, Italian, Jewish, Ukrainian neighborhood. And my mother from Glencoe, which was a middle class suburb above Northwestern University in Evanston. Michael Hingson ** 05:34 I Where were you born? 57th and union, north, south side, no, South Bill Ratner ** 05:42 57th union is that? Is that west of Kenzie? Michael Hingson ** 05:46 You know, I don't remember the geography well enough to know, but I know that it was, I think, Mount Sinai Hospital where I was born. But it was, it's, it's, it's a pretty tough neighborhood today. So I understand, Bill Ratner ** 06:00 yeah, yeah, my it was tough, then it's tough now, Michael Hingson ** 06:03 yeah, I think it's tougher, supposedly, than it was. But we lived there for five years, and then we we moved to California, and I remember some things about Chicago. I remember walking down to the local candy store most days, and had no problem doing that. My parents were told they should shut me away at a home somewhere, because no blind child could ever grow up to amount to anything. And my parents said, You guys are you're totally wrong. And they brought me up with that attitude. So, you Bill Ratner ** 06:32 know who said that the school says school so that Michael Hingson ** 06:35 doctors doctors when they discovered I was blind with the Bill Ratner ** 06:38 kid, goodness gracious, horrified. Michael Hingson ** 06:44 Well, my parents said absolutely not, and they brought me up, and they actually worked with other parents of premature kids who became blind, and when kindergarten started in for us in in the age of four, they actually had a special kindergarten class for blind kids at the Perry School, which is where I went. And so I did that for a year, learn braille and some other things. Then we moved to California, but yeah, and I go back to Chicago every so often. And when I do nowadays, they I one of my favorite places to migrate in Chicago is Garrett Popcorn. Bill Ratner ** 07:21 Ah, yes, with caramel corn, regular corn, the Michael Hingson ** 07:25 Chicago blend, which is a mixture, yeah, the Chicago blend is cheese corn, well, as it is with caramel corn, and they put much other mozzarella on it as well. It's really good. Bill Ratner ** 07:39 Yeah, so we're on the air. Michael, what do you call your what do you call your program? Here I am your new friend, and I can't even announce your program because I don't know Michael Hingson ** 07:48 the name, unstoppable mindset. This Bill Ratner ** 07:51 is unstoppable mindset. Michael Hingson ** 07:56 We're back. Well, we're back already. We're fast. So you, you, you moved off elsewhere, out of Des Moines and all that. And where did you go to college? Bill Ratner ** 08:09 Well, this is like, why did you this is, this is a bit like talking about the Vietnam War. Looking back on my college career is like looking back on the Vietnam War series, a series of delusions and defeats. By the time I the time i for college, by the time I was applying for college, I was an orphan, orphan, having been born to fabulous parents who died too young of natural causes. So my grades in high school were my mediocre. I couldn't get into the Ivy Leagues. I got into the big 10 schools. My stepmother said, you're going to Michigan State in East Lansing because your cousin Eddie became a successful realtor. And Michigan State was known as mu u it was the most successful, largest agriculture college and university in the country. Kids from South Asia, China, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, South America all over the world came to Michigan State to study agricultural sciences, children of rich farmers all over the world and middle class farmers all over the world, and a huge police science department. Part of the campus was fenced off, and the young cadets, 1819, 20 years old, would practice on the rest of the student body, uniformed with hats and all right, excuse me, young man, we're just going to get some pizza at eight o'clock on Friday night. Stand against your car. Hands in your car. I said, Are you guys practicing again? Shut up and spread your legs. So that was that was Michigan State, and even though both my parents had master's degrees, I just found all the diversions available in the 1960s to be too interesting, and was not invited. Return after my sophomore year, and in order to flunk out of a big 10 University, and they're fine universities, all of them, you have to be either really determined or not so smart, not really capable of doing that level of study in undergraduate school. And I'd like to think that I was determined. I used to show up for my exams with a little blue book, and the only thing I would write is due to lack of knowledge, I am unable to complete this exam, sign Bill ranter and get up early and hand it in and go off. And so what was, what was left for a young man like that was the theater I'd seen the great Zero Mostel when I was 14 years old and on stage live, he looked just like my father, and he was funny, and if I Were a rich man, and that's the grade zero must tell. Yeah, and it took about five, no, it took about six, seven years to percolate inside my bread and my brain. In high school, I didn't want to do theater. The cheerleaders and guys who I had didn't happen to be friends with or doing theater. I took my girlfriends to see plays, but when I was 21 I started acting, and I've been an actor ever since. I'm a committee chair on the screen actors guild in Hollywood and Screen Actors Guild AFTRA, and work as a voice actor and collect my pensions and God bless the union. Michael Hingson ** 11:44 Well, hey, as long as it works and you're making progress, you know you're still with it, right? Bill Ratner ** 11:53 That's the that's the point. There's no accounting for taste in my business. Michael, you work for a few different broadcast entities at my age. And it's, you know, it's younger people. It's 18 to 3418 years to 34 years old is the ideal demographic for advertisers, Ford, Motor Company, Dove soap, Betty, Crocker, cake mixes and cereals, every conceivable product that sold online or sold on television and radio. This is my this is my meat, and I don't work for religion. However, if a religious organization calls, I call and say, I I'm not, not qualified or not have my divinity degree in order to sell your church to the public? Michael Hingson ** 12:46 Yeah, yeah. Well, I, I can understand that. But you, you obviously do a lot, and as we talked about, you were Flint and GI Joe, which is kind of cool. Bill Ratner ** 13:01 Flynn GI Joe was very cool. Hasbro Corporation, which was based in Providence, Rhode Island, had a huge success with GI Joe, the figure. The figure was about 11 and a half inches tall, like a Barbie, and was at first, was introduced to the public after the Korean War. There is a comic book that was that was also published about GI Joe. He was an individual figure. He was a figure, a sort of mythic cartoon figure during World War Two, GI Joe, generic American soldier, fighting man and but the Vietnam war dragged on for a long time, and the American buying public or buying kids toys got tired of GI Joe, got tired of a military figure in their household and stopped buying. And when Nixon ended the Vietnam War, or allotted to finish in 1974 Hasbro was in the tank. It's got its stock was cheap, and executives are getting nervous. And then came the Great George Lucas in Star Wars, who shrank all these action figures down from 11 and a half inches to three and a half inches, and went to China and had Chinese game and toy makers make Star Wars toys, and began to earn billions and billions dollars. And so Hasbro said, let's turn GI Joe into into a team. And the team began with flint and Lady J and Scarlett and Duke and Destro and cover commander, and grew to 85 different characters, because Hasbro and the toy maker partners could create 85 different sets of toys and action figures. So I was actor in this show and had a good time, and also a purveyor of a billion dollar industry of American toys. And the good news about these toys is I was at a conference where we signed autographs the voice actors, and we have supper with fans and so on. And I was sitting next to a 30 year old kid and his parents. And this kid was so knowledgeable about pop culture and every conceivable children's show and animated show that had ever been on the screen or on television. I turned to his mother and sort of being a wise acre, said, So ma'am, how do you feel about your 30 year old still playing with GI Joe action figures? And she said, Well, he and I both teach English in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania school system, and last year, the literacy level of my ninth graders was 50% 50% of those kids could not read in ninth grade. So I asked the principal if I could borrow my son's GI Joe, action figures, comic books and VHS tapes, recordings of the shows from TV. And he said, Sure, whatever you want to try. And so she did, and she played the video tapes, and these kids were thrilled. They'd never seen a GI Joe cartoon in class before. Passed out the comic books, let him read comics. And then she said, Okay, you guys. And passed out notebooks and pens and pencils, and said, I want you guys to make up some some shows, some GI Joe shows. And so they said, Yeah, we're ready. All right, Cobra, you better get into the barber shop, because the barber bill is no longer there and the fire engines are in the way. And wait a minute, there's a dog in the street. And so they're making this up, using their imagination, doing their schoolwork, by coming up with scenarios, imaginary fam fan fiction for GI Joe and she raised the literacy level in her classroom by 50% that year, by the end of that year, so, so that was the only story that I've ever heard about the sort of the efficacy of GI Joe, other than, you know, kids play with them. Do they? Are they shooting each other all the time? I certainly hope not. I hope not. Are they using the action figures? Do they strip their guns off and put them in a little, you know, stub over by the side and and have them do physical battle with each other, or have them hump the woods, or have them climb the stairs, or have them search the trees. Who knows what kids do? Same with same with girls and and Barbies. Barbie has been a source of fun and creativity for lots of girls, and the source of of worry and bother to a lot of parents as Michael Hingson ** 17:54 well. Well, at the same time, though, when kids start to react and relate to some of these things. It's, it's pretty cool. I mean, look what's happened with the whole Harry Potter movement and craze. Harry Potter has probably done more in the last 20 or 25 years to promote reading for kids than most anything else, and Bill Ratner ** 18:17 that's because it's such a good series of books. I read them to my daughters, yeah. And the quality of writing. She was a brilliant writer, not only just the stories and the storytelling, which is fun to watch in the movies, and you know, it's great for a parent to read. If there are any parents listening, I don't care how old your kids are. I don't care if they're 15. Offer to read to them. The 15 year old might, of course, say mom, but anybody younger than that might say either, all right, fine, which is, which means you better do it or read, read a book. To me, sure, it's fun for the parent, fun for the kid, and it makes the child a completely different kind of thinker and worker and earner. Michael Hingson ** 19:05 Well, also the people who they got to read the books for the recordings Stephen Fry and in the US here, Jim Dale did such an incredible job as well. I've, I've read the whole Harry Potter series more than once, because I just enjoy them, and I enjoy listening to the the voices. They do such a good job. Yeah. And of course, for me, one of the interesting stories that I know about Jim Dale reading Harry Potter was since it was published by Scholastic he was actually scheduled to do a reading from one of the Harry from the new Harry Potter book that was coming out in 2001 on September 11, he was going to be at Scholastic reading. And of course, that didn't happen because of of everything that did occur. So I don't know whether I'm. I'm assuming at some point a little bit later, he did, but still he was scheduled to be there and read. But it they are there. They've done so much to help promote reading, and a lot of those kinds of cartoons and so on. Have done some of that, which is, which is pretty good. So it's good to, you know, to see that continue to happen. Well, so you've written several books on poetry and so on, and I know that you you've mentioned more than once grief and loss. How come those words keep coming up? Bill Ratner ** 20:40 Well, I had an unusual childhood. Again. I mentioned earlier how, what a lucky kid I was. My parents were happy, educated, good people, not abusers. You know, I don't have a I don't have horror stories to tell about my mother or my father, until my mother grew sick with breast cancer and and it took about a year and a half or two years to die when I was seven years old. The good news is, because she was a sensitive, educated social worker, as she was actually dying, she arranged a death counseling session with me and my older brother and the Unitarian minister who was also a death counselor, and whom she was seeing to talk about, you know, what it was like to be dying of breast cancer with two young kids. And at this session, which was sort of surprised me, I was second grade, came home from school. In the living room was my mother and my brother looking a little nervous, and Dr Carl storm from the Unitarian Church, and she said, you know, Dr storm from church, but he's also my therapist. And we talk about my illness and how I feel, and we talk about how much I love you boys, and talk about how I worry about Daddy. And this is what one does when one is in crisis. That was a moment that was not traumatic for me. It's a moment I recalled hundreds of times, and one that has been a guiding light through my life. My mother's death was very difficult for my older brother, who was 13 who grew up in World War Two without without my father, it was just him and my mother when he was off in the Pacific fighting in World War Two. And then I was born after the war. And the loss of a mother in a family is like the bottom dropping out of a family. But luckily, my dad met a woman he worked with a highly placed advertising executive, which was unusual for a female in the 1950s and she became our stepmother a year later, and we had some very lovely, warm family years with her extended family and our extended family and all of us together until my brother got sick, came down with kidney disease a couple of years before kidney dialysis was invented, and a couple of years before kidney transplants were done, died at 19. Had been the captain of the swimming team at our high school, but did a year in college out in California and died on Halloween of 1960 my father was 51 years old. His eldest son had died. He had lost his wife six years earlier. He was working too hard in the advertising industry, successful man and dropped out of a heart attack 14th birthday. Gosh, I found him unconscious on the floor of our master bathroom in our house. So my life changed. I My life has taught me many, many things. It's taught me how the defense system works in trauma. It's taught me the resilience of a child. It's taught me the kindness of strangers. It's taught me the sadness of loss. Michael Hingson ** 24:09 Well, you, you seem to come through all of it pretty well. Well, thank you. A question behind that, just an observation, but, but you do seem to, you know, obviously, cope with all of it and do pretty well. So you, you've always liked to be involved in acting and so on. How did you actually end up deciding to be a voice actor? Bill Ratner ** 24:39 Well, my dad, after he was managing editor of Better Homes and Gardens magazine in Des Moines for Meredith publishing, got offered a fancy job as executive vice president of the flower and mix division for Campbell within advertising and later at General Mills Corporation. From Betty Crocker brand, and would bring me to work all the time, and would sit with me, and we'd watch the wonderful old westerns that were on prime time television, rawhide and Gunsmoke and the Virginian and sure Michael Hingson ** 25:15 and all those. Yeah, during Bill Ratner ** 25:17 the commercials, my father would make fun of the commercials. Oh, look at that guy. And number one, son, that's lousy acting. Number two, listen to that copy. It's the dumbest ad copy I've ever seen. The jingles and and then he would say, No, that's a good commercial, right there. And he wasn't always negative. He would he was just a good critic of advertising. So at a very young age, starting, you know, when we watch television, I think the first television ever, he bought us when I was five years old, I was around one of the most educated, active, funny, animated television critics I could hope to have in my life as a 56789, 1011, 12 year old. And so when I was 12, I became one of the founding members of the Brotherhood of radio stations with my friends John Waterhouse and John Barstow and Steve gray and Bill Connors in South Minneapolis. I named my five watt night kit am transmitter after my sixth grade teacher, Bob close this is wclo stereo radio. And when I was in sixth grade, I built myself a switch box, and I had a turntable and I had an intercom, and I wired my house for sound, as did all the other boys in the in the B, O, R, S, and that's brotherhood of radio stations. And we were guests on each other's shows, and we were obsessed, and we would go to the shopping malls whenever a local DJ was making an appearance and torture him and ask him dumb questions and listen obsessively to American am radio. And at the time for am radio, not FM like today, or internet on your little radio tuner, all the big old grandma and grandpa radios, the wooden ones, were AM, for amplitude modulated. You could get stations at night, once the sun went down and the later it got, the ionosphere would lift and the am radio signals would bounce higher and farther. And in Minneapolis, at age six and seven, I was able to to listen to stations out of Mexico and Texas and Chicago, and was absolutely fascinated with with what was being put out. And I would, I would switch my brother when I was about eight years old, gave me a transistor radio, which I hid under my bed covers. And at night, would turn on and listen for, who knows, hours at a time, and just tuning the dial and tuning the dial from country to rock and roll to hit parade to news to commercials to to agric agriculture reports to cow crossings in Kansas and grain harvesting and cheese making in Wisconsin, and on and on and on that made up the great medium of radio that was handing its power and its business over to television, just as I was growing As a child. Fast, fascinating transition Michael Hingson ** 28:18 and well, but as it was transitioning, how did that affect you? Bill Ratner ** 28:26 It made television the romantic, exciting, dynamic medium. It made radio seem a little limited and antiquated, and although I listened for environment and wasn't able to drag a television set under my covers. Yeah, and television became memorable with with everything from actual world war two battle footage being shown because there wasn't enough programming to 1930s Warner Brothers gangster movies with James Cagney, Edward G Michael Hingson ** 29:01 Robinson and yeah Bill Ratner ** 29:02 to all the sitcoms, Leave It to Beaver and television cartoons and on and on and on. And the most memorable elements to me were the personalities, and some of whom were invisible. Five years old, I was watching a Kids program after school, after kindergarten. We'll be back with more funny puppets, marionettes after this message and the first words that came on from an invisible voice of this D baritone voice, this commercial message will be 60 seconds long, Chrysler Dodge for 1954 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I watched hypnotized, hypnotized as a 1953 dodge drove across the screen with a happy family of four waving out the window. And at the end of the commercial, I ran into the kitchen said, Mom, mom, I know what a minute. Is, and it was said, it had suddenly come into my brain in one of those very rare and memorable moments in a person's life where your brain actually speaks to you in its own private language and says, Here is something very new and very true, that 60 seconds is in fact a minute. When someone says, See you in five minutes, they mean five times that, five times as long as that. Chrysler commercial, five times 60. That's 300 seconds. And she said, Did you learn it that that on T in kindergarten? And I said, No, I learned it from kangaroo Bob on TV, his announcer, oh, kangaroo Bob, no, but this guy was invisible. And so at five years of age, I was aware of the existence of the practice of the sound, of the magic of the seemingly unlimited access to facts, figures, products, brand names that these voices had and would say on the air in This sort of majestic, patriarchal way, Michael Hingson ** 31:21 and just think 20 years later, then you had James Earl Jones, Bill Ratner ** 31:26 the great dame. James Earl Jones, father was a star on stage at that time the 1950s James Earl Jones came of age in the 60s and became Broadway and off Broadway star. Michael Hingson ** 31:38 I got to see him in Othello. He was playing Othello. What a powerful performance. It was Bill Ratner ** 31:43 wonderful performer. Yeah, yeah. I got to see him as Big Daddy in Canada, Hot Tin Roof, ah, live and in person, he got front row seats for me and my family. Michael Hingson ** 31:53 Yeah, we weren't in the front row, but we saw it. We saw it on on Broadway, Bill Ratner ** 31:58 the closest I ever got to James Earl Jones. He and I had the same voice over agent, woman named Rita vinari of southern Barth and benare company. And I came into the agency to audition for Doritos, and I hear this magnificent voice coming from behind a closed voiceover booth, saying, with a with a Spanish accent, Doritos. I thought that's James Earl Jones. Why is he saying burritos? And he came out, and he bowed to me, nodded and smiled, and I said, hello and and the agent probably in the booth and shut the door. And she said, I said, that was James Earl Jones. What a voice. What she said, Oh, he's such a nice man. And she said, but I couldn't. I was too embarrassed. I was too afraid to stop him from saying, Doritos. And it turns out he didn't get the gig. So it is some other voice actor got it because he didn't say, had he said Doritos with the agent froze it froze up. That was as close as I ever got to did you get the gig? Oh goodness no, Michael Hingson ** 33:01 no, you didn't, huh? Oh, well, well, yeah. I mean, it was a very, it was, it was wonderful. It was James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer played Iago. Oh, goodness, oh, I know. What a what a combination. Well, so you, you did a lot of voiceover stuff. What did you do regarding radio moving forward? Or did you just go completely out of that and you were in TV? Or did you have any opportunity Bill Ratner ** 33:33 for me to go back at age 15, my brother and father, who were big supporters of my radio. My dad would read my W, C, l, o, newsletter and need an initial, an excellent journalism son and my brother would bring his teenage friends up. He'd play the elderly brothers, man, you got an Elvis record, and I did. And you know, they were, they were big supporters for me as a 13 year old, but when I turned 14, and had lost my brother and my father, I lost my enthusiasm and put all of my radio equipment in a box intended to play with it later. Never, ever, ever did again. And when I was about 30 years old and I'd done years of acting in the theater, having a great time doing fun plays and small theaters in Minneapolis and South Dakota and and Oakland, California and San Francisco. I needed money, so I looked in the want ads and saw a job for telephone sales, and I thought, Well, I used to love the telephone. I used to make phony phone calls to people all the time. Used to call funeral homes. Hi Carson, funeral I help you. Yes, I'm calling to tell you that you have a you have a dark green slate tile. Roof, isn't that correct? Yes. Well, there's, there's a corpse on your roof. Lady for goodness sake, bring it down and we laugh and we record it and and so I thought, Well, gee, I used to have a lot of fun with the phone. And so I called the number of telephone sales and got hired to sell magazine subscriptions and dinner tickets to Union dinners and all kinds of things. And then I saw a new job at a radio station, suburban radio station out in Walnut Creek, California, a lovely Metro BART train ride. And so I got on the BART train, rode out there and walked in for the interview, and was told I was going to be selling small advertising packages on radio for the station on the phone. And so I called barber shops and beauty shops and gas stations in the area, and one guy picked up the phone and said, Wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Are you on the radio right now? And I said, No, I'm just I'm in the sales room. Well, maybe you should be. And he slams the phone on me. He didn't want to talk to me anymore. It wasn't interested in buying advertising. I thought, gee. And I told somebody at the station, and they said, Well, you want to be in the radio? And he went, Yeah, I was on the radio when I was 13. And it just so happened that an older fellow was retiring from the 10am to 2pm slot. K I S King, kiss 99 and KD FM, Pittsburgh, California. And it was a beautiful music station. It was a music station. Remember, old enough will remember music that used to play in elevators that was like violin music, the Percy faith orchestra playing a Rolling Stone song here in the elevator. Yes, well, that's exactly what we played. And it would have been harder to get a job at the local rock stations because, you know, they were popular places. And so I applied for the job, and Michael Hingson ** 37:06 could have lost your voice a lot sooner, and it would have been a lot harder if you had had to do Wolfman Jack. But that's another story. Bill Ratner ** 37:13 Yeah, I used to listen to Wolf Man Jack. I worked in a studio in Hollywood. He became a studio. Yeah, big time. Michael Hingson ** 37:22 Anyway, so you you got to work at the muzack station, got Bill Ratner ** 37:27 to work at the muzack station, and I was moving to Los Angeles to go to a bigger market, to attempt to penetrate a bigger broadcast market. And one of the sales guys, a very nice guy named Ralph pizzella said, Well, when you get to La you should study with a friend of mine down to pie Troy, he teaches voiceovers. I said, What are voice overs? He said, You know that CVS Pharmacy commercial just carted up and did 75 tags, available in San Fernando, available in San Clemente, available in Los Angeles, available in Pasadena. And I said, Yeah. He said, Well, you didn't get paid any extra. You got paid your $165 a week. The guy who did that commercial for the ad agency got paid probably 300 bucks, plus extra for the tags, that's voiceovers. And I thought, why? There's an idea, what a concept. So he gave me the name and number of old friend acquaintance of his who he'd known in radio, named Don DiPietro, alias Johnny rabbit, who worked for the Dick Clark organization, had a big rock and roll station there. He'd come to LA was doing voiceovers and teaching voiceover classes in a little second story storefront out of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. So I signed up for his class, and he was an experienced guy, and he liked me, and we all had fun, and I realized I was beginning to study like an actor at 1818, who goes to New York or goes to Los Angeles or Chicago or Atlanta or St Louis to act in the big theaters, and starts acting classes and realizes, oh my goodness, these people are truly professionals. I don't know how to do what they do. And so for six years, I took voice over classes, probably 4050, nights a year, and from disc jockeys, from ex show hosts, from actors, from animated cartoon voices, and put enough time in to get a degree in neurology in medical school. And worked my way up in radio in Los Angeles and had a morning show, a lovely show with a wonderful news man named Phil Reed, and we talked about things and reviewed movies and and played a lot of music. And then I realized, wait a minute, I'm earning three times the money in voiceovers as I am on the radio, and I have to get up at 430 in the morning to be on the radio. Uh, and a wonderful guy who was Johnny Carson's staff announcer named Jack angel said, You're not still on radio, are you? And I said, Well, yeah, I'm working in the morning. And Ka big, get out of there. Man, quit. Quit. And I thought, well, how can I quit? I've always wanted to be a radio announcer. And then there was another wonderful guy on the old am station, kmpc, sweet Dick Whittington. Whittington, right? And he said at a seminar that I went to at a union voice over training class, when you wake up at four in the morning and you swing your legs over the bed and your shoes hit the floor, and you put your head in your hands, and you say to yourself, I don't want to do this anymore. That's when you quit radio. Well, that hadn't happened to me. I was just getting up early to write some comedy segments and on and on and on, and then I was driving around town all day doing auditions and rented an ex girlfriend's second bedroom so that I could nap by myself during the day, when I had an hour in and I would as I would fall asleep, I'd picture myself every single day I'm in a dark voiceover studio, a microphone Is before me, a music stand is before the microphone, and on it is a piece of paper with advertising copy on it. On the other side of the large piece of glass of the recording booth are three individuals, my employers, I begin to read, and somehow the text leaps off the page, streams into my eyes, letter for letter, word for word, into a part of my back brain that I don't understand and can't describe. It is processed in my semi conscious mind with the help of voice over training and hope and faith, and comes out my mouth, goes into the microphone, is recorded in the digital recorder, and those three men, like little monkeys, lean forward and say, Wow, how do you do that? That was my daily creative visualization. Michael, that was my daily fantasy. And I had learned that from from Dale Carnegie, and I had learned that from Olympic athletes on NBC TV in the 60s and 70s, when the announcer would say, this young man you're seeing practicing his high jump is actually standing there. He's standing stationary, and the bouncing of the head is he's actually rehearsing in his mind running and running and leaping over the seven feet two inch bar and falling into the sawdust. And now he's doing it again, and you could just barely see the man nodding his head on camera at the exact rhythm that he would be running the 25 yards toward the high bar and leaping, and he raised his head up during the imaginary lead that he was visualizing, and then he actually jumped the seven foot two inches. That's how I learned about creative visualization from NBC sports on TV. Michael Hingson ** 43:23 Channel Four in Los Angeles. There you go. Well, so you you broke into voice over, and that's what you did. Bill Ratner ** 43:38 That's what I did, darn it, I ain't stopping now, there's a wonderful old actor named Bill Irwin. There two Bill Irwin's one is a younger actor in his 50s or 60s, a brilliant actor from Broadway to film and TV. There's an older William Irwin. They also named Bill Irwin, who's probably in his 90s now. And I went to a premiere of a film, and he was always showing up in these films as The senile stock broker who answers the phone upside down, or the senile board member who always asks inappropriate questions. And I went up to him and I said, you know, I see you in everything, man. I'm 85 years old. Some friends and associates of mine tell me I should slow down. I only got cast in movies and TV when I was 65 I ain't slowing down. If I tried to slow down at 85 I'd have to stop That's my philosophy. My hero is the great Don Pardo, the late great Michael Hingson ** 44:42 for Saturday Night Live and Jeopardy Bill Ratner ** 44:45 lives starring Bill Murray, Gilder Radner, and Michael Hingson ** 44:49 he died for Jeopardy before that, Bill Ratner ** 44:52 yeah, died at 92 with I picture him, whether it probably not, with a microphone and. His hand in his in his soundproof booth, in his in his garage, and I believe he lived in Arizona, although the show was aired and taped in New York, New York, right where he worked for for decades as a successful announcer. So that's the story. Michael Hingson ** 45:16 Michael. Well, you know, I miss, very frankly, some of the the the days of radio back in the 60s and 70s and so on. We had, in LA what you mentioned, Dick Whittington, Dick whittinghill on kmpc, Gary Owens, you know, so many people who were such wonderful announcers and doing some wonderful things, and radio just isn't the same anymore. It's gone. It's Bill Ratner ** 45:47 gone to Tiktok and YouTube. And the truth is, I'm not gonna whine about Tiktok or YouTube, because some of the most creative moments on camera are being done on Tiktok and YouTube by young quote influencers who hire themselves out to advertisers, everything from lipstick. You know, Speaker 1 ** 46:09 when I went to a party last night was just wild and but this makeup look, watch me apply this lip remover and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, no, I have no lip. Bill Ratner ** 46:20 You know, these are the people with the voices. These are the new voices. And then, of course, the faces. And so I would really advise before, before people who, in fact, use the internet. If you use the internet, you can't complain if you use the internet, if you go to Facebook or Instagram, or you get collect your email or Google, this or that, which most of us do, it's handy. You can't complain about tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. You can't complain about tick tock or YouTube, because it's what the younger generation is using, and it's what the younger generation advertisers and advertising executives and creators and musicians and actors are using to parade before us, as Gary Owens did, as Marlon Brando did, as Sarah Bernhardt did in the 19 so as all as you do, Michael, you're a parader. You're the head of the parade. You've been in on your own float for years. I read your your bio. I don't even know why you want to waste a minute talking to me for goodness sakes. Michael Hingson ** 47:26 You know, the one thing about podcasts that I like over radio, and I did radio at kuci for seven years when I was in school, what I really like about podcasts is they're not and this is also would be true for Tiktok and YouTube. Primarily Tiktok, I would would say it isn't as structured. So if we don't finish in 60 minutes, and we finish in 61 minutes, no one's gonna shoot us. Bill Ratner ** 47:53 Well, I beg to differ with you. Now. I'm gonna start a fight with you. Michael, yeah, we need conflict in this script. Is that it The Tick Tock is very structured. Six. No, Michael Hingson ** 48:03 no, I understand that. I'm talking about podcasts, Bill Ratner ** 48:07 though, but there's a problem. We gotta Tone It Up. We gotta pick it up. We gotta there's a lot of and I listen to what are otherwise really bright, wonderful personalities on screen, celebrities who have podcasts and the car sucks, and then I had meatballs for dinner, haha. And you know what my wife said? Why? You know? And there's just too much of that. And, Michael Hingson ** 48:32 oh, I understand, yeah. I mean, it's like, like anything, but I'm just saying that's one of the reasons I love podcasting. So it's my way of continuing what I used to do in radio and having a lot of fun doing it Bill Ratner ** 48:43 all right, let me ask you. Let me ask you a technical and editorial question. Let me ask you an artistic question. An artist, can you edit this podcast? Yeah. Are you? Do you plan to Nope. Michael Hingson ** 48:56 I think conversations are conversations, but there is a but, I mean, Bill Ratner ** 49:01 there have been starts and stops and I answer a question, and there's a long pause, and then, yeah, we can do you edit that stuff Michael Hingson ** 49:08 out. We do, we do, edit some of that out. And I have somebody that that that does a lot of it, because I'm doing more podcasts, and also I travel and speak, but I can edit. There's a program called Reaper, which is really a very sophisticated Bill Ratner ** 49:26 close up spaces. You Michael Hingson ** 49:28 can close up spaces with it, yes, but the neat thing about Reaper is that somebody has written scripts to make it incredibly accessible for blind people using screen readers. Bill Ratner ** 49:40 What does it do? What does it do? Give me the elevator pitch. Michael Hingson ** 49:46 You've seen some of the the programs that people use, like computer vision and other things to do editing of videos and so on. Yeah. Bill Ratner ** 49:55 Yeah. Even Apple. Apple edit. What is it called? Apple? Garage Band. No, that's audio. What's that Michael Hingson ** 50:03 audio? Oh, Bill Ratner ** 50:06 quick time is quick Michael Hingson ** 50:07 time. But whether it's video or audio, the point is that Reaper allows me to do all of that. I can edit audio. I can insert, I can remove pauses. I can do anything with Reaper that anyone else can do editing audio, because it's been made completely accessible. Bill Ratner ** 50:27 That's great. That's good. That's nice. Oh, it is. It's cool. Michael Hingson ** 50:31 So so if I want, I can edit this and just have my questions and then silence when you're talking. Bill Ratner ** 50:38 That might be best. Ladies and gentlemen, here's Bill Ratner, Michael Hingson ** 50:46 yep, exactly, exactly. Now you have won the moth stories. Slam, what? Tell me about my story. Slam, you've won it nine times. Bill Ratner ** 51:00 The Moth was started by a writer, a novelist who had lived in the South and moved to New York City, successful novelist named George Dawes green. And the inception of the moth, which many people listening are familiar with from the Moth Radio Hour. It was, I believe, either late 90s or early 2000s when he'd been in New York for a while and was was publishing as a fiction writer, and threw a party, and decided, instead of going to one of these dumb, boring parties or the same drinks being served and same cigarettes being smoked out in the veranda and the same orders. I'm going to ask people to bring a five minute story, a personal story, nature, a true story. You don't have to have one to get into the party, but I encourage you to. And so you know, the 3040, 50 people showed up, many of whom had stories, and they had a few drinks, and they had hors d'oeuvres. And then he said, Okay, ladies and gentlemen, take your seats. It's time for and then I picked names out of a hat, and person after person after person stood up in a very unusual setting, which was almost never done at parties. You How often do you see that happen? Suddenly, the room falls silent, and someone with permission being having been asked by the host to tell a personal story, some funny, some tragic, some complex, some embarrassing, some racy, some wild, some action filled. And afterward, the feedback he got from his friends was, this is the most amazing experience I've ever had in my life. And someone said, you need to do this. And he said, Well, you people left a lot of cigarette butts and beer cans around my apartment. And they said, well, let's do it at a coffee shop. Let's do it at a church basement. So slowly but surely, the moth storytelling, story slams, which were designed after the old poetry slams in the 50s and 60s, where they were judged contests like, like a dance contest. Everybody's familiar with dance contests? Well, there were, then came poetry contests with people singing and, you know, and singing and really energetically, really reading. There then came storytelling contests with people standing on a stage before a silent audience, telling a hopefully interesting, riveting story, beginning middle, end in five minutes. And so a coffee house was found. A monthly calendar was set up. Then came the internet. Then it was so popular standing room only that they had to open yet another and another, and today, some 20 years later, 20 some years later, from Austin, Texas to San Francisco, California to Minneapolis, Minnesota to New York City to Los Angeles. There are moth story slams available on online for you to schedule yourself to go live and in person at the moth.org as in the moth with wings. Friend of mine, I was in New York. He said, You can't believe it. This writer guy, a writer friend of mine who I had read, kind of an avant garde, strange, funny writer was was hosting something called the moth in New York, and we were texting each other. He said, Well, I want to go. The theme was show business. I was going to talk to my Uncle Bobby, who was the bell boy. And I Love Lucy. I'll tell a story. And I texted him that day. He said, Oh man, I'm so sorry. I had the day wrong. It's next week. Next week, I'm going to be back home. And so he said, Well, I think there's a moth in Los Angeles. So about 15 years ago, I searched it down and what? Went to a small Korean barbecue that had a tiny little stage that originally was for Korean musicians, and it was now being used for everything from stand up comedy to evenings of rock and roll to now moth storytelling once a month. And I think the theme was first time. And so I got up and told a silly story and didn't win first prize. They have judges that volunteer judges a table of three judges scoring, you like, at a swim meet or a track beat or, you know, and our gymnastics meet. So this is all sort of familiar territory for everybody, except it's storytelling and not high jumping or pull ups. And I kept going back. I was addicted to it. I would write a story and I'd memorize it, and I'd show up and try to make it four minutes and 50 seconds and try to make it sound like I was really telling a story and not reading from a script. And wish I wasn't, because I would throw the script away, and I knew the stories well enough. And then they created a radio show. And then I began to win slams and compete in the grand slams. And then I started submitting these 750 word, you know, two and a half page stories. Literary magazines got a few published and found a whole new way to spend my time and not make much Michael Hingson ** 56:25 money. Then you went into poetry. Bill Ratner ** 56:29 Then I got so bored with my prose writing that I took a poetry course from a wonderful guy in LA called Jack grapes, who had been an actor and a football player and come to Hollywood and did some TV, episodics and and some some episodic TV, and taught poetry. It was a poet in the schools, and I took his class of adults and got a poem published. And thought, wait a minute, these aren't even 750 words. They're like 75 words. I mean, you could write a 10,000 word poem if you want, but some people have, yeah, and it was complex, and there was so much to read and so much to learn and so much that was interesting and odd. And a daughter of a friend of mine is a poet, said, Mommy, are you going to read me one of those little word movies before I go to sleep? Michael Hingson ** 57:23 A little word movie, word movie out of the Bill Ratner ** 57:27 mouths of babes. Yeah, and so, so and I perform. You know, last night, I was in Orange County at a organization called ugly mug Cafe, and a bunch of us poets read from an anthology that was published, and we sold our books, and heard other young poets who were absolutely marvelous and and it's, you know, it's not for everybody, but it's one of the things I do. Michael Hingson ** 57:54 Well, you sent me pictures of book covers, so they're going to be in the show notes. And I hope people will will go out and get them Bill Ratner ** 58:01 cool. One of the one of the things that I did with poetry, in addition to wanting to get published and wanting to read before people, is wanting to see if there is a way. Because poetry was, was very satisfying, emotionally to me, intellectually very challenging and satisfying at times. And emotionally challenging and very satisfying at times, writing about things personal, writing about nature, writing about friends, writing about stories that I received some training from the National Association for poetry therapy. Poetry therapy is being used like art therapy, right? And have conducted some sessions and and participated in many and ended up working with eighth graders of kids who had lost someone to death in the past year of their lives. This is before covid in the public schools in Los Angeles. And so there's a lot of that kind of work that is being done by constable people, by writers, by poets, by playwrights, Michael Hingson ** 59:09 and you became a grief counselor, Bill Ratner ** 59:13 yes, and don't do that full time, because I do voiceovers full time, right? Write poetry and a grand. Am an active grandparent, but I do the occasional poetry session around around grief poetry. Michael Hingson ** 59:31 So you're a grandparent, so you've had kids and all that. Yes, sir, well, that's is your wife still with us? Yes? Bill Ratner ** 59:40 Oh, great, yeah, she's an artist and an art educator. Well, that Michael Hingson ** 59:46 so the two of you can criticize each other's works, then, just Bill Ratner ** 59:52 saying, we're actually pretty kind to each other. I Yeah, we have a lot of we have a lot of outside criticism. Them. So, yeah, you don't need to do it internally. We don't rely on it. What do you think of this although, although, more than occasionally, each of us will say, What do you think of this poem, honey? Or what do you think of this painting, honey? And my the favorite, favorite thing that my wife says that always thrills me and makes me very happy to be with her is, I'll come down and she's beginning a new work of a new piece of art for an exhibition somewhere. I'll say, what? Tell me about what's, what's going on with that, and she'll go, you know, I have no idea, but it'll tell me what to do. Michael Hingson ** 1:00:33 Yeah, it's, it's like a lot of authors talk about the fact that their characters write the stories right, which, which makes a lot of sense. So with all that you've done, are you writing a memoir? By any chance, I Bill Ratner ** 1:00:46 am writing a memoir, and writing has been interesting. I've been doing it for many years. I got it was my graduate thesis from University of California Riverside Palm Desert. Michael Hingson ** 1:00:57 My wife was a UC Riverside graduate. Oh, hi. Well, they Bill Ratner ** 1:01:01 have a low residency program where you go for 10 days in January, 10 days in June. The rest of it's online, which a lot of universities are doing, low residency programs for people who work and I got an MFA in creative writing nonfiction, had a book called parenting for the digital age, the truth about media's effect on children. And was halfway through it, the publisher liked it, but they said you got to double the length. So I went back to school to try to figure out how to double the length. And was was able to do it, and decided to move on to personal memoir and personal storytelling, such as goes on at the moth but a little more personal than that. Some of the material that I was reading in the memoir section of a bookstore was very, very personal and was very helpful to read about people who've gone through particular issues in their childhood. Mine not being physical abuse or sexual abuse, mine being death and loss, which is different. And so that became a focus of my graduate thesis, and many people were urging me to write a memoir. Someone said, you need to do a one man show. So I entered the Hollywood fringe and did a one man show and got good reviews and had a good time and did another one man show the next year and and so on. So But writing memoir as anybody knows, and they're probably listeners who are either taking memoir courses online or who may be actively writing memoirs or short memoir pieces, as everybody knows it, can put you through moods from absolutely ecstatic, oh my gosh, I got this done. I got this story told, and someone liked it, to oh my gosh, I'm so depressed I don't understand why. Oh, wait a minute, I was writing about such and such today. Yeah. So that's the challenge for the memoir is for the personal storyteller, it's also, you know, and it's more of a challenge than it is for the reader, unless it's bad writing and the reader can't stand that. For me as a reader, I'm fascinated by people's difficult stories, if they're well Michael Hingson ** 1:03:24 told well, I know that when in 2002 I was advised to write a book about the World Trade Center experiences and all, and it took eight years to kind of pull it all together. And then I met a woman who actually I collaborated with, Susie Florey, and we wrote thunder dog. And her agent became my agent, who loved the proposal that we sent and actually got a contract within a week. So thunder dog came out in 2011 was a New York Times bestseller, and very blessed by that, and we're working toward the day that it will become a movie still, but it'll happen. And then I wrote a children's version of it, well, not a children's version of the book, but a children's book about me growing up in Roselle, growing up the guide dog who was with me in the World Trade Center, and that's been on Amazon. We self published it. Then last year, we published a new book called Live like a guide dog, which is all about controlling fear and teaching people lessons that I learned prior to September 11. That helped me focus and remain calm. Bill Ratner ** 1:04:23 What happened to you on September 11, Michael Hingson ** 1:04:27 I was in the World Trade Center. I worked on the 78th floor of Tower One. Bill Ratner ** 1:04:32 And what happened? I mean, what happened to you? Michael Hingson ** 1:04:36 Um, nothing that day. I mean, well, I got out. How did you get out? Down the stairs? That was the only way to go. So, so the real story is not doing it, but why it worked. And the real issue is that I spent a lot of time when I first went into the World Trade Center, learning all I could about what to do in an emergency, talking to police, port authorities. Security people, emergency preparedness people, and also just walking around the world trade center and learning the whole place, because I ran an office for a company, and I wasn't going to rely on someone else to, like, lead me around if we're going to go to lunch somewhere and take people out before we negotiated contracts. So I needed to know all of that, and I learned all I could, also realizing that if there ever was an emergency, I might be the only one in the office, or we might be in an area where people couldn't read the signs to know what to do anyway. And so I had to take the responsibility of learning all that, which I did. And then when the planes hit 18 floors above us on the other side of the building, we get we had some guests in the office. Got them out, and then another colleague, who was in from our corporate office, and I and my guide dog, Roselle, went to the stairs, and we started down. And Bill Ratner ** 1:05:54 so, so what floor did the plane strike? Michael Hingson ** 1:05:58 It struck and the NOR and the North Tower, between floors 93 and 99 so I just say 96 okay, and you were 20 floors down, 78 floors 78 so we were 18 floors below, and Bill Ratner ** 1:06:09 at the moment of impact, what did you think? Michael Hingson ** 1:06:13 Had no idea we heard a muffled kind of explosion, because the plane hit on the other side of the building, 18 floors above us. There was no way to know what was going on. Did you feel? Did you feel? Oh, the building literally tipped, probably about 20 feet. It kept tipping. And then we actually said goodbye to each other, and then the building came back upright. And then we went, Bill Ratner ** 1:06:34 really you so you thought you were going to die? Michael Hingson ** 1:06:38 David, my colleague who was with me, as I said, he was from our California office, and he was there to help with some seminars we were going to be doing. We actually were saying goodbye to each other because we thought we were about to take a 78 floor plunge to the street, when the building stopped tipping and it came back. Designed to do that by the architect. It was designed to do that, which is the point, the point. Bill Ratner ** 1:07:02 Goodness, gracious. And then did you know how to get to the stairway? Michael Hingson ** 1:07:04 Oh, absolutely. And did you do it with your friend? Yeah, the first thing we did, the first thing we did is I got him to get we had some guests, and I said, get him to the stairs. Don't let him take the elevators, because I knew he had seen fire above us, but that's all we knew. And but I said, don't take the elevators. Don't let them take elevators. Get them to the stairs and then come back and we'll leave. So he did all that, and then he came back, and we went to the stairs and started down. Bill Ratner ** 1:07:33 Wow. Could you smell anything? Michael Hingson ** 1:07:36 We smelled burning jet fuel fumes on the way down. And that's how we figured out an airplane must have hit the building, but we had no idea what happened. We didn't know what happened until the until both towers had collapsed, and I actually talked to my wife, and she's the one who told us how to aircraft have been crashed into the towers, one into the Pentagon, and a fourth, at that time, was still missing over Pennsylvania. Wow. So you'll have to go pick up a copy of thunder dog. Goodness. Good. Thunder dog. The name of the book is Thunder dog, and the book I wrote last year is called Live like a guide dog. It's le
DEFENDANT: Pazuzu EVIDENCE: Manos Special Edition "The Exorcist" Cabernet Sauvignon SCENE OF THE CRIME: Hell, or a staircase near you... -- Hey friend — welcome to our spooky season send-off. We cracked a bottle of Manos Cabernet, sunk into the couch, and dove headfirst into The Exorcist: the movie, the poster, the Pazuzu lore and all the deliciously grim behind-the-scenes gossip. Expect laughter, wine-fueled tangents, and the kind of true-crime sidetracks that only two slightly lubricated hosts can provide. We unpack why that iconic image of Father Merrin under the lamplight still freaks us out (Magritte vibes included), how the film shaped the possession subgenre, and why Linda Blair and Ellen Burstyn left their mark on horror history. We talk casting choices that almost were (Marlon Brando, Audrey Hepburn?), the haunting performance choices, and how Pazuzu went from ancient Mesopotamia to Hollywood's demon of choice. Of course we get into the messy, human side: on-set injuries, practical effects (the real vomit/peanut-soup moment), Mercedes McCambridge's voicework, and William Friedkin's famously brutal directing methods. Plus the awkward modern problems — streaming paywalls, holiday theater lines, and whether you should ever feed Necco wafers to road-trip company. Sprinkled between film history are the personal stories: first-time screenings, dating decisions made at horror films, and the ridiculous pop-culture riffs that happen when you mix wine with movie analysis. If you love spooky, culty cinema, or just want a cozy chat about why The Exorcist still matters (and why Pazuzu might actually be misunderstood), this episode is for you. Give it a listen, tell us your favorite spooky bottle art, and rank our mini-series with us — we want to know which movie haunted you the most. Cheers (and maybe don't say Pazuzu in a mirror)!
8. Later Films and the Importance of Sid Scott Eyman Charlie Chaplin versus America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided Chaplin's first European film, A King in New York (1957), suffered as he struggled with English union rules, highlighting his dependence on absolute creative autonomy. His final film, A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), was hampered by the casting of Marlon Brando, insisted upon by Universal. Brando proved mechanical and unsuited for the film's romantic rescue plot. Ultimately, Chaplin's half-brother, Sid, remained the indispensable cornerstone of his life, always ready to help or rescue him. 1936
The author, journalist, and filmmaker has written several books on well-known or lesser-known Hollywood figures, including books on Marlon Brando, tough-guy actor Lawrence Tierney, and the Three Stooges' Shemp Howard.
Let's take a closer look at the work of Erica Villanueva in this little gem WALTZING WITH BRANDO. The film may have snuck past you, but the Hair and Makeup work is extraordinary. Erica was the head of the hair department for the enchanting film. Join us as Erica shares her incredible journey of transforming Billy Zane into the iconic Marlon Brando with her team, capturing the essence of the late 60s with stunning period looks. From the landscapes of Tahiti to the intricate details of replicating Brando's legendary hairstyles, Erica reveals the challenges and joys experienced on set. Erica also discusses the unique experiences of filming in paradise, the creative process behind the work, and the importance of communication in the intimate world of hair and makeup. With stories of teamwork, and the thrill of being shortlisted for an Oscar, Erica and I had a great time talking about this film. 00:00 Hello! 03:18 Filming in Tahiti 04:08 Billy Zane's hair and navigating the wig 06:07 Working with Cici Anderson of the makeup department 07:58 The challenges of the elements 10:22 Let's talk about replicating The Godfather 12:36 The impact that Brando has had on the island. 14:03 Workng with the local crew But wait! There's more... https://linktr.ee/lookbehindthelook Get full access to Look Behind The Look at lookbehindthelook.substack.com/subscribe
Join Alex and guest host Dr. Jon Mandracchia as they become members of the Corleone family discussing Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972). This first part stars Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone, a mafia Don whose life is based on tradition. Also starring Al Pacino as Michael, Vito's son, who unexpectedly, but with his full throat, becomes the new Don. Robert Duvall, James Caan, Diane Keaton, and many others bring an amazing cast of characters to life. The conversation centers around criminogenic thinking, the cognitive processes that lead to criminal behavior, and inputs into that thinking, like the Dark Triad personality traits. Further, an there is an exploration of the mafia as an extension of Italian American immigrant culture and how this film portrays the softer side of power politics and dynamics. Listening to this episode is an offer you can't refuse! Learn more about Avila University's Master's in Counseling program, email Jon to ask questions, or head to his Research Gate profile to read his work! If you like this content, you might like my new Audible audiobook/course, A Psychologist Goes to the Movies, available now! It features six films that have been on this show, condensed into 25-30 min essays, researched and analyzed. Please leave your feedback on this post, the main site (cinemapsychpod.swanpsych.com), on Facebook (@CinPsyPod), or Threads/Instagram (@cinemapsych_podcast). We'd love to hear from you! Don't forget to check out our Paypal link to contribute to this podcast and keep the lights on! Don't forget to check out our MERCH STORE for some great merch with our logo and other designs! Legal stuff: 1. All film clips are used under Section 107 of Title 17 U.S.C. (fair use; no copyright infringement is intended). 2. Intro and outro music by half.cool ("Gemini"). Used under license. 3. Film reel sound effect by bone666138. Used under license CC-BY 3.0. Episode Transcription Go to this link to read a transcript generated by Whisper AI Large V3 Model. Disclaimer: It is not edited and may contain errors!
Le dimanche, c'est l'occasion de (re)découvrir les autres formats de Bababam. Aujourd'hui c'est le tour d'À la folie, pas du tout, le podcast pour découvrir des histoires d'amour qui ont fait rêver des générations, mais aussi l'envers du décor. Première diffusion : avril 2024. Cette semaine, (re)découvrez l'une des rumeurs les plus controversées d'Hollywood : dans l'Amérique des fifties, les acteurs James Dean et Marlon Brando auraient entretenu une passion torride. Alors que les intéressés ont toujours nié, certains témoins rapportent une relation faite de rivalité et d'autodestruction… Crédits Un podcast Bababam Originals Ecriture : Lucie Kervern Voix : François Marion, Lucrèce Sassella Réalisation : Matthew Roques Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We review The Fugitive Kind (1960) on movie podcast The Collector's Cut. The Fugitive Kind is directed Sidney Lumet and stars Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Joanne Woodward patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mildfuzztv twitter: https://twitter.com/ScreamsMidnight all links: https://linktr.ee/mildfuzz Audio version: https://the-collectors-cut.pinecast.co/
Nick reunites with film critics Erik Childress and Steve Prokopy to catch up on Steve's trip to Fantastic Fest, talk box office trends, and review new releases including Tron: Ares, The Kiss of the Spider Woman starring Jennifer Lopez, Roofman with Channing Tatum, and a heartfelt new documentary about John Candy. Later, Esmeralda Leon joins Nick to dive into the bizarre world of Billy Corgan's $20 Goth Smoothie, the nostalgia of those old “Scary Sounds” Halloween CDs, and memories of Erehwon mountain stores at the mall. They also swap stories about some of Hollywood's most misguided side projects—from James Caan's Sicilian Vampire to Marlon Brando in drag and Christopher Walken partying with The Country Bears Jamboree. [Ep 393]
Burn!, Gillo Pontecorvo, Pontecorvo's background/politics, Spanish Civil War, Marlon Brando, Pontecorvo's use of amateur actors, Pontecorvo's earlier films, Battle of Algiers, Burn! as a response to The Battle of Algiers, cell structure, terrorism, the mixed legacy of The Battle of Algiers and its romanticism of militant activism, Haiti, Burn! as a reflection on colonial experiences in Haiti, William Cathcart, Edward Lansdale, Lansdale as a model for the William Walker character, private military companies, the deep privateMusic by: Keith Allen Dennishttps://keithallendennis.bandcamp.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Welcome to Movie Monday. This month we watched Richard Donner's Superman from 1978, starring Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman, and Marlon Brando, with an unforgettable score by John Williams. I also watched the sequel Superman 2 from 1980 directed by Richard Lester. This episode features contributions from: (in order of appearance) Joe Richter of Hindsighless (podcast) Goblin's Henchman (podcast & blog) & the Umber Bulk BJ Boyd of The Arcane Alienist (podcast) MW Lewis of The Worlds of MW Lewis (podcast) Jason Connerley of Nerd's RPG Variety Cast (podcast, blog) Find the Movie Monday Letterboxd list here https://letterboxd.com/the39thman/list/movie-monday-1/ The movie for October will be 1987's Monster Squad directed by Fred Dekker. The episode will air on 27th, so please send your submissions by the 25th if you'd like to be included in the show. “Warning” by Lieren of Updates From the Middle of Nowhere Leave me an audio message via https://www.speakpipe.com/KeepOffTheBorderlands You can email me at spencer.freethrall@gmail.com You can find me in a bunch of other places here https://freethrall.carrd.co This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit freethrall.substack.com
In this episode, Stuart and Jacob set sail on a tumultuous journey through cinematic history as they compare the classic Oscar-winning 1935 film "Mutiny on the Bounty" with its 1962 remake. They explore the brutal world of Captain William Bly and the rebellious Fletcher Christian fighting for his cause. What makes the 1935 version resonate more with its audience? How does Trevor Howard's performance stack up against Charles Laughton's turn as Bligh? And does Stuart think they should've watched the Mel Gibson version instead? Tune in to find out!Also featured in this episode is a match-up between the new "War of the Worlds" and "Silksong", Marlon Brando versus the treacherous Captain Hook, historical inaccuracy discussions, and a war over a bucket. All this and more on They Remade It!Plot Synopsis Timestamps: 13:37 - 19:08----------Socials----------@theyremadeit.bsky.social on Blueskytheyremadeit@gmail.com
Monster memoir correspondent and Fixing Famous People host Chris DeRosa sits in for Chelsea and, along with comedian and writer Jo Feldman, dives into Charlie Sheen's memoir “The Book of Sheen” to decide if it's “winning” or a monster memoir. From Sheen's early life traveling for his father Martin Sheen's career, to his first big break in a B-movie with Laura Dern and George Clooney, they trace every peak and valley of his career through “Two and a Half Men” and his journey with sobriety. Plus: a clown car of celebrity cameos, including Marlon Brando, O.J. Simpson, Rob Lowe, Sean Penn, Jennifer Grey, Denise Richards, Mira Sorvino, Slash, and more. A content warning: This episode contains discussions of sensitive topics, including substance use, sexual violence, and domestic violence. Take care while listening and find helpful resources here. Join the cookie community: Become a member of the Patreon Follow Chris DeRosa: Instagram Fixing Famous People Podcast Show Notes: Kris Jenner Memoir Episode (with Chris DeRosa) Kathy Lee Gifford Memoir Episode (with Chris DeRosa) Lynn Spears Memoir Episode (with Chris DeRosa) Dru Hammer Memoir Episode (with Chris DeRosa) Hilaria Baldwin Memoir Episode (with Chris DeRosa) Lauren Sanchez Monster Memoir (Video) Documentary Book Club: Martha on Netflix (with Jo Feldman) Kelly Bishop's Memoir The Third Gilmore Girl (with Jo Feldman) Carnie Wilson's memoir Gut Feelings (with Jo Feldman) 30 for 30 series on Bikram Yoga founder and controversies *** Glamorous Trash is all about going high and low at the same time— Glam and Trash. We recap and book club celebrity memoirs, deconstruct pop culture, and sometimes, we cry! If you've ever referenced Mariah Carey in therapy... then this is the podcast for you. Thank you to our sponsors: Quince - Go to quince.com/glamorous for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Libro.fm - Click here to get 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 with your first month of membership using code TRASH. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Hi Everyone, hope you're having a wonderful Tuesday! This week's guest is my Pacific Northwest buddy and star of Napoleon Dynamite, Jon Heder! If you haven't seen Napoleon Dynamite (I don't know how that's possible), please go out and watch it RIGHT NOW and then come back for this interview. It was so much fun to chat with Jon and hear the story behind how he created such an iconic character. We talk about where he learned to dance, how he and the director transformed the story from a student film into a massive hit and what it was like managing such an insane level of overnight fame. It's been quite awhile since that movie came out and the truth is, Jon is so much more than that character. He is a dad, he's a big outdoors guy and he's still a phenomenal actor! He is starring in the new film Waltzing With Brando, alongside Billy Zane, and we talk about his experience learning more about Marlon Brando, shooting in Tahiti and his personal policy on nudity on camera. This is exactly the conversation you'd expect from a guy like Jon— it's absurd, goofy and earnest all at the same time. Be sure to stick around for the Hindsight, where my producer Jeph and I talk about the interview over a bowl of tots! Just kidding, I wish… Send me an email thesackhoffshow@gmail.com Produced by Rabbit Grin Productions Mail Sack Song by Nicolas @producer_sniffles Join us on Patreon! http://patreon.com/thesackhoffshow ----------------------------------------------------- Support our Sponsors: New EveryPlate customers can enjoy a special offer of only $1.99 a meal. Go to everyplate.com/podcast and use code katee199 to get started. Applied as discount on first box, limited time only. Right now, listeners of The Sackhoff Show get an additional 15% off any annual membership at MasterClass.com/Katee.
Marilyn Monroe, Brad Pitt, Pamela Anderson, Marlon Brando... the list of heart-throbs goes on and on, but we at HMG have only ever had eyes for one bird. In this very special episode we head down to Hampshire, to the Hawk Conservancy Trust, to come face to face with the object of our affections. Tom Morath is our wingman for this very special date as he brings us face to face with the sexiest animal on planet Earth. We're also introduced to other brilliant birds at the Hawk Conservancy Trust, and learn about the amazing work they do to protect some of the world's most critically endangered birds - as well as encouraging, inspiring & educating the public as to why we should all care about them too. For more on the Hawk Conservancy Trust, check out: www.hawk-conservancy.org To join the Goose afterparty, hop on over and join our Patreon club for exclusive episodes of the show: www.patreon.com/howmanygeese
For episode 64 of Staffcast Tom and Richard are joined by Christopher Crawford to talk about DENNIS, Buck Showalter's Idi Amin reference, obscure movies on Wikipedia, baseball nicknames, being sustained by the Mariners, announcers talking about gigantic asses, striking out Cal Raleigh, the beauty of college baseball, St. John's best players, Marlon Brando sneaking Whoppers, ruining card markets, and more!Follow your incredibly cool hosts and guest:Christopher CrawfordSean DoolittleTrevor HildenbergerRichard StaffTom HackimerEpisode art by Abigail Noy (sympatheticinker.com)Edited by Italian Dave (twitter.com/theitaliandave)Intro: The Horrific Sounds That Bounce Around My Head Because The Record Labels Threatened To Kill Me
n this episode of the Movies In Focus podcast, writer-director Bill Fishman talks about his sun-soaked comedy Waltzing With Brando - the true story of Marlon Brando's quest to build an eco-paradise in Tahiti, brilliantly brought to life by Billy Zane's note-perfect and layered performance. Fishman, known for celebrating quirky real-life tales, discusses how Waltzing With Brando sidesteps weighty drama in favour of breezy high jinks and zesty energy, with Jon Heder playing the straight man as Bernard Judge, Brando's bewildered architect. Together, they recreate iconic Brando moments in a relaxed, 'holiday of a film' that feels as playful and unpredictable as its subject. Fishman also reminisces about working with Monkee, Michael Nesmith on the '80s cult classic Tapeheads and how working with 'The Nez' shaped his approach to storytelling. This conversation is a must for anyone fascinated by Brando, behind-the-scenes tales, and the pure enjoyment of an unhurried cinematic romp. Read the Movies In Focus review of Waltzing With Brando
NBC News medical reporter Dr. Akshay Syal breaks down what inflammation is, how to manage it, and how to keep it away. Also, Al gets an inside look at the Feast of San Gennaro, a Little Italy festival celebrating faith, food, and Italian American culture. Plus, Billy Zane joins to share how he approached playing acting legend Marlon Brando in the new film ‘Waltzing with Brando.' And, style expert Liv Perez highlights the latest fashion trends for fall. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Director Bill Fishman joins Staci Wilson on "Rock & Roll Nightmares" to discuss his legendary career behind the camera for some of rock's biggest names. From directing music videos for The Ramones, Georgia Satellites, and Good Charlotte to helming the cult films "Tapeheads" and "My Dinner with Jimi Hendrix," Fishman has captured decades of rock and roll history. Fishman shares behind-the-scenes stories from video sets, discusses the challenge of directing rock legends, and reveals details about his latest project, the Marlon Brando biopic "Waltzing with Brando" starring Billy Zane. The episode wraps with Fishman's own personal rock and roll nightmare - a hilarious tale from his years in the music industry trenches (spoiler alert: it involves The Grateful Dead... and this is not the first time that band has shown up in guests' nightmares!).
Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. Based on Mario Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel, The Godfather depicts the rise and legacy of the Corleone family, a fictional Italian-American organized crime family led by Vito Corleone and the transformation of his son Michael from a reluctant outsider to a ruthless mafia boss. The film, which features an ensemble cast of American film icons, including Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duval, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, and John Cazale, explores themes of family, power, and the American Dream. It also provides a window into the relationship between law and culture while offering complex perspectives on the meaning of justice. Timestamps: 0:00 Introduction 3:08 “I believe in America” 12:27 Business and the personal 14:07 Competing views of law and justice in America 16:57 The legitimate and illegitimate, the sacred and the profane20:52 Narratives about the mafia 26:59 The consigliere 33:59 Tensions between tradition and modernity 39:37 Ritual44:41 Performance and power 49:11 Retribution 55:18 The mafia and The Godfather 56:48 Codes of loyalty 102:39 The immigrant experience Further reading: Barber, Nicholas, “The Godfather: Have we misunderstood America's greatest film?”, BBC (Mar. 13, 2022) Coppola, Francis Ford, The Godfather Notebook (2016) Denvir, John, “The Slotting Function: How Movies Influence Political Decision,” 28 Vermont L. Rev. 799 (2003-04) Gambrell, Brian C., “Leave the Representation, Take the Cannoli: The Crime Fraud Exception to the Attorney-Client Privilege and ‘The Godfather,'” 23 South Carolina Lawyer (2011-12) Papke, David, “Myth and Meaning: Francis Ford Coppola and Popular Response to The Godfather Trilogy,” in Legal Reelism: Movies as Legal Text (John Denvir ed., 1996) Puzo, Mario, The Godfather (1969) Seal, Mark, Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli: The Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather (2021) Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember. For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.htmlYou can contact him at jonathanhafetz@gmail.comYou can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilmYou can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast
We're gonna give you an offer you can't refuse - two millennial white guys watching The Godfather for the first time in 2025 and then attempting to give a fresh take on one of the most talked about films ever made...I mean, how can you resist?We also talk about the Criterion sale, social-media, Youtube advertisements, Austin's sobriety, and The Godfather sequels.Directed by Francis Ford CoppolaStarring - Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Sterling Hayden, and John Cazale
Actor, Billy Zane joins Conway to discuss his new film, Waltzing with Brandon
Final Hour Fun Fact. Quick Hits. Actor Billy Zane on his new movie about Marlon Brando. Dead and Alive Guy Birthday of the Day.
One of the best sequels of all-time as Superman (Christopher Reeve) must fight off three super-villains from Krypton to save the world. We cover both versions of the film directed by Richard Lester and Richard Donner. Co-starring Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, Terence Stamp, Sarah Douglas, Jack O'Halloran, Ned Beatty, Jackie Cooper, and Marlon Brando (in Donner's version).
Box Office Pulp | Film Analysis, Movie Retrospectives, Commentary Tracks, Comedy, and More
In this very special episode of BOP, the crew welcomes one of their biggest guests ever: renowned cinematographer/writer/director/podcaster/beanie historian, Steven Bernstein! Before he realized what podcast he was on and called his agent, we had a lovely chat about his astounding career in show business, what it was like shooting such beloved 90's comedies as The Waterboy and Half-Baked, filming Monster with Patty Jenkins, how he wound up the favorite DP of the Wayans Bros, his philosophy of embracing the chaos in art and life, and the surreal events that led him to hanging out with Marlon Brando on the set of Scary Movie 2.Pick up your copy of Steven's novel, GRQ here:https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/grq-steven-bernstein/1147259290https://www.amazon.com/Grq-Steven-Bernstein/dp/191578946XFollow Steven Bernstein:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevenbernsteindirectorwriterFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/StevenBernsteinOfficial/Keep your eyes peeled for the worldwide release of the GRQ film adaptation, starring Mena Suvari, Denzel Whitaker, and Greg Germann!https://www.boxofficepulp.com/Listen on Apple: https://www.boxofficepulp.com/appleListen on Spotify: https://www.boxofficepulp.com/spotifyListen on Amazon: https://www.boxofficepulp.com/amazonAll The OTHER Ways to Listen: https://www.boxofficepulp.com/listenFollow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BoxOfficePulpPodcast/Follow on Twiter/X: https://x.com/BoxOfficePulp
Den 19-årige franske skuespillerinde Maria Schneider fik i 1972 sit gennembrud i Bernardo Bertolucci-filmen Sidste Tango i Paris sammen med megastjernen Marlon Brando. Men udover nyvunden stjernestatus fik den unge skuespillerinde også ar på sjælen, da den famøse voldtægts-scene skulle optages. En ny film fortæller historien om Maria Schneider - vi dykker ned i kvinden, scenen og filmens eftermæle. Medvirkende: Lars-Martin Sørensen, filmhistoriker og forskningsleder ved Det Danske Filminstitut; Stephanie Surrugue, international korrespondent i DR samt vært på podcasten "Stjerner og striber"; og Susanne Elmark, operasangerinde. Vært: Morten Runge Producer: Anna Correll Redaktør: Lasse Lauridsen
Imagine moving to LA and just nine months later, finding yourself auditioning for, and landing, a role in the biggest movie ever, Top Gun! Chicago native, Jack Schumacher, will take us through his "ignorant bliss" audition process for Top Gun and the surreal moment he learned Tom Cruise was watching his audition tape. He also shares the excruciating, six-month audition saga to win the role of "Yancy Gray" in the new hit Netflix series, Ransom Canyon. Hear about the invaluable advice he received from Jon Hamm on the Top Gun set about listening and authenticity, his struggles with imposter syndrome, and why he believes falling on your face in acting class is crucial. Plus, he'll reveal his game-changing audition tips, including why he's not afraid to cut out his lines, inspired by Marlon Brando. These are the unforgettable stories that landed Jack Schumacher right here. Credits: Top Gun: Maverick Ransom Canyon 40 Dates and 40 Nights Welcome to Chippendales The Irrational Chicago P.D. S.W.A.T. Empire Guest Links: IMDB: Jack Schumacher, Actor THAT ONE AUDITION'S LINKS: SLAYTEMBER: Starting September 18th THE BRIDGE FOR ACTORS: Become a WORKING ACTOR THE PRACTICE TRACK: Membership to Practice Weekly CONSULTING: Get 1-on-1 advice for your acting career from Alyshia Ochse COACHING: Get personalized coaching from Alyshia on your next audition or role INSTAGRAM: @alyshiaochse INSTAGRAM: @thatoneaudition WEBSITE: AlyshiaOchse.com APPLE PODCASTS: Subscribe to That One Audition on Apple Podcasts SPOTIFY: Subscribe to That One Audition on Spotify STITCHER: Subscribe to That One Audition on Stitcher CREDITS: Host/Producer: Alyshia Ochse Writer: Maddie McCormick WEBSITE & GRAPHICS: Chase Jennings SOCIAL: Alara Cerikcioglu
In this Reel Insights episode, Sean Tajipour, the Mayor of Nerdtropolis, chats with Owen Teague about his role as Brad in Griffin in Summer, the heartfelt coming-of-age comedy from writer/director Nicholas Colia.Owen opens up about why the film feels so different from anything he's done before, calling it “one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time” while still carrying a “sweet soul” at its core. He shares how his character Brad — a misguided mentor figure — challenged him in new ways, and why he was grateful to Colia for giving him the chance to step outside his usual roles.The conversation explores Owen's acting inspirations, from Andy Serkis' groundbreaking King Kong performance to lessons he picked up from Matthew McConaughey and Marlon Brando while shaping Brad's presence. He also reflects on his double life as a teen actor, the influence of his Bloodline castmates, and what he carried forward from his physical performance as Cornelius in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.With behind-the-scenes stories, hilarious set memories, and candid insights into his acting journey, this interview is a must-watch for fans of Owen Teague, Griffin in Summer, and Planet of the Apes.Griffin in Summer is now playing in theaters.Visit Nerdtropolis.comFacebook.com/nerdtropolisInstagram.com/nerdtropolisTwitter.com/nerdtropolis
The '90s are calling like a dial-up modem. Summer 1995 had greats hits holding up 30 years later! While I reflect personal changes I experienced back then, I talk up these classic songs' pivotal messages and artists. Summer 1995 Playlist:“Hold My Hand” - Hootie & The Blowfish (1994-1995); Live- "Bottle Rockets" - Scott McCreery (2025)“I'll Be There For You” - The Rembrandts (1994-1995)FRIENDS; 10 Seasons Intros; 2021 ReunionPlaylist“This Is How We Do It” - Montell JordanThe Masked Singer (2023); Uber One“Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?” - Bryan AdamsDon Juan Demarco“I Could Fall In Love” - SelenaSelena in Don Juan Demarco1997 biopic; Netflix mini-series (2021)Jennifer Lopez's live cover (2001)Selena & Yolanda: The Secrets Between Them (2024)“Colors of the Wind” - Judy Kuhn / Vanessa WilliamsPocahontas; Journey to a New World“Scream” - Michael Jackson & Janet JacksonJanet Jackson doc clip / Jimmy Jam Lewis (2021)"If" (1993)“Waterfalls” - TLC"No Scrubs" (1999)CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story (2013); TLC Forever (2023)“Any Man of Mine” - Shania Twain (1994-1995)“Kiss from a Rose” - Seal (1994-1995); Batman Forever“You Oughta Know” - Alanis Morrisette“Gangsta's Paradise” - Coolio; AMAs"Pastime Paradise" - Stevie Wonder (1976)Related Episodes: Ep. 24: 10 Springtime Themed SongsEp. 47 - Labor Day CountdownEp. 86 - FRIENDS Theme Song: "I'll Be There For You"Ep. 121 - Janet Jackson DocumentaryEp. 161 - Weird Al Top 10 ParodiesEp. 210 - Darius Rucker Top 10Ep. 287 - Record Store Day PlaylistFollow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Spotify playlists.
A movie star has "it". You can't learn it. You can't fake it. The camera loves you. The audience wants you. Great actors may never be movie stars but they often have long, rewarding careers filled with powerful work even if they never get that huge paycheck. What's interesting though is how often big stars are determined to be recognized as great actors or vice versa. And it's that grain of sand that often makes a dynamic career. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill looks at movie stars, great actors, and everything in between like Louise Brooks, Marlon Brando, Steve McQueen, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Paul Newman among others and tries to figure out. . .what exactly makes a movie star.
Stephen took over his own podcast yet again last summer with an exclusive introduction to a beloved Colbert Classic, his conversation with television legend and friend of the show, Dick Cavett. In this interview from January 2020, Stephen and Dick toasted his first visit to the Late Show with an orange juice and Campari cocktail, a drink introduced to him by none other than Marlon Brando. The Late Show Pod Show will be looking back at some of our favorite Colbert Introductions from this past season before Stephen returns with all new episodes September 2nd. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Send us a textWe've been putting this off for years! But now that Superman (2025) is both in theaters and available on digital, no time better than about a month ago! On Keep or Cancel , we're talking about the talented and problematic Marlon Brando. Superman (1978) is available HBO Max.Time Stamps:7:28 - Background25:37 - Plot1:34:18 - Analysis1:48:14 - Keep or Cancel1:59:56 - Into the Phantom Zone?Mentioned Links:Special thanks to That Piano Dude for our intro theme! Social Links:Support the show on Patreon/Exclusive bonus podcast "Where's Mephisto?": FilmsfromPZDiscord: Join our public Discord!Instagram: @Films_From_The_Phantom_ZoneTwitter: @FilmsfromPZYouTube: Films from the Phantom ZoneTwitch: Twitch.tv/FilmsfromPZRoyalty Free Music from BensoundSupport the show
[Rerun] Dr. Kirk Honda and Carey Burbank talk about the psychology of Marlon Brando This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/KIRK to get 10% off your first month.Become a member: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOUZWV1DRtHtpP2H48S7iiw/joinBecome a patron: https://www.patreon.com/PsychologyInSeattleEmail: https://www.psychologyinseattle.com/contactWebsite: https://www.psychologyinseattle.comMerch: https://psychologyinseattle-shop.fourthwall.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/psychologyinseattle/Facebook Official Page: https://www.facebook.com/PsychologyInSeattle/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kirk.hondaMarch 2, 2017The Psychology In Seattle Podcast ®Trigger Warning: This episode may include topics such as assault, trauma, and discrimination. If necessary, listeners are encouraged to refrain from listening and care for their safety and well-being.Disclaimer: The content provided is for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only. Nothing here constitutes personal or professional consultation, therapy, diagnosis, or creates a counselor-client relationship. Topics discussed may generate differing points of view. If you participate (by being a guest, submitting a question, or commenting) you must do so with the knowledge that we cannot control reactions or responses from others, which may not agree with you or feel unfair. Your participation on this site is at your own risk, accepting full responsibility for any liability or harm that may result. Anything you write here may be used for discussion or endorsement of the podcast. Opinions and views expressed by the host and guest hosts are personal views. Although, we take precautions and fact check, they should not be considered facts and the opinions may change. Opinions posted by participants (such as comments) are not those of the hosts. Readers should not rely on any information found here and should perform due diligence before taking any action. For a more extensive description of factors for you to consider, please see www.psychologyinseattle.com
We've always said to understand the economy, you have to understand human nature, and nothing reveals that better than watching the biggest players do a Godfather-style U-turn for easy money. In this episode, we connect the dots between Marlon Brando's Don Corleone and Jamie Dimon's pivot from calling crypto “a fraud” to using it as loan collateral, all while the President of the United States holds stakes in coins of his own. We unpack how the $2 trillion crypto market has morphed from anti-Wall Street rebellion to one of the most powerful lobby groups in America, funnelling cash to Congress to rewrite the rules. Along the way, we lift the lid on stablecoins, explain why money is a public good (not a private printing press for the TikTok age), and ask what happens if the dollar's last line of defence, the Fed, gets taken out. Life imitating art imitating life… and the ending might not be pretty. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
EPISODE 100 - “LIGHTS! CAMERA! KARGER! TCM's DAVE KARGER HELPS US CELEBRATE 100 EPISODES” - 8/11/25 We're thrilled to celebrate the 100th episode of FROM BENEATH THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN with a very special guest: DAVE KARGER, beloved host of Turner Classic Movies and one of the most respected voices in entertainment journalism. In this milestone episode, Dave joins us to discuss his fascinating new book, 50 Oscar Nights: Iconic Stars & Filmmakers On Their Career-Defining Wins, a dazzling journey through Academy Awards history told through unforgettable moments, behind-the-scenes stories, and personal reflections. Whether you're a film buff, an Oscars obsessive, or just love a great Hollywood tale, this conversation is the perfect way to help us celebrate our 100th episode. SHOW NOTES: Sources: 50 Oscar Nights: Iconic Stars & Filmmakers On Their Career-Defining Wins (2024), by Dave Karger; Wikipedia.com; TCM.com; IBDB.com; IMDBPro.com; Movies Mentioned: The Breakfast Club (1985), starring Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheed, and Anthony Micheal Hall; Sixteen Candles (1984); starring Molly Ringwald & Anthony Michael Hall; Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), starring Matthew Broderick & Alan Ruck; Children of a Lesser God (1986), starring William Hurt & Marlee Matlin; Breathless (1983), starring Richard Gere & Valerie Kaprisky; Tootsie (1982), starring Dustin Hoffman & Jessica Lange; Laura (1944), starring Dana Andrews & Gene Tierney; Seven Chances (1925) starring Buster Keaton; Citizen Kane (1941), starring Orson Welles & Joseph Cotton; On The Waterfront (1954), starring Marlon Brando,Eva Marie Saint, & Karl Malden; Rainman (1988), starring Dustin Hoffman & Tom Cruise; Stella Dallas (1937), starring Barbara Stanwyck & Anne Shirley; Reveille with Beverly (1943), starring Ann Miller; Penny Serenade (1941), starring Cary grant & Irene Dunne; Boys Don't Cry (1999), starring Hilary Swank & Chloë Sivegny; Norma Rae (1979), starring Sally Field & Beau Bridges; Sophie's Choice (1982), starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, & Peter MacNicol; Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Penelope Ann Miller on Working with the Godfathers of Hollywood – De Niro, Pacino, Brando – and Her Iconic Roles of the '80s and '90s In this star-powered episode of Still Here Hollywood, Steve Kmetko sits down with acclaimed actress Penelope Ann Miller, who opens up about her incredible career starring alongside cinematic legends Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, and Robert De Niro—all three Godfather icons. From powerful performances in Carlito's Way and The Artist to comedic classics like Kindergarten Cop with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Big Top Pee-wee with Paul Reubens, Penelope shares behind-the-scenes stories, lessons learned from working with Hollywood royalty, and how she navigated fame through the golden era of '80s and '90s filmmaking. A must-watch for fans of crime dramas, cult comedies, and unforgettable film history. Show Credits Host/Producer: Steve Kmetko All things technical: Justin Zangerle Executive Producer: Jim Lichtenstein Music by: Brian Sanyshyn Transcription: Mushtaq Hussain https://stillherehollywood.com http://patreon.com/stillherehollywood Suggest Guests at: stillherehollywood@gmail.com Advertise on Still Here Hollywood: jim@stillherenetwork.com Publicist: Maggie Perlich: maggie@numbertwelvemarketing.com
James Gunn's Superman (2025) is in cinemas right now, and is really good! It has a wonderful central performance by David Corenswet, and is as colourful as it is hopeful, and we need that right now. As I'm off this week, it felt like a good time to revisit the late Christopher Reeve's iconic performances in Superman II, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, Superman III & Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.Technically the first ever quadruple-bill episode (if you also count the Richard Donner cut of Superman II, which we do), as voted for by Patrons of this podcast for, on the history and legacy of Superman II, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, Superman III & Superman IV: The Quest for Peace ! The sequels to the previous episode on SupermanSUPERMAN II was inevitable after Richard Donner completed 75% of the movie, filmed at the same time as Superman (1978). His work on the sequel was halted during Superman's production, but as Superman flew into the box office and became a critical and financial success, the sequel was fired up again... and Donner himself was unceremoniously fired from the movie by the Salkinds, and replaced with Richard Lester; a move that didn't go down well with the cast and crew...SUPERMAN II: THE RICHARD DONNER CUT came about due to the open secret of Richard Donner's material existing in a vault somewhere. After a few legal issues, notably with the estate of Marlon Brando for the production of Superman Returns, a new 2001 DVD version of Superman also led to the discovery of 6 tonnes of unused, previously lost material shot by Richard Donner for Superman II. In an unprecedented (at the time) fan campaign to see Donner's cut, it was finally released to acclaim in 2006...SUPERMAN III is less of a Superman movie, and more of a comedy vehicle for the late, great Richard Pryor, but that didn't mean it was easy to get made. A lot of people were still annoyed at the Salkinds for their treatment of Richard Donner, including Christopher Reeve himself. Reeve almost didn't return as the iconic character, but changed his mind and relished playing Superman vs Superman (which was also almost the title of the movie), but in retrospect it would be a movie he wouldn't have too much fun with, despite the slapstick tone...SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE would only be made after the Salkinds sold the rights to The Cannon Group; a production company known for making low quality movies en masse to make as much profit as possible. Cannon's plan though was big franchises: they bought Superman with the intent of spending $36 million on Superman IV. They were also making Masters of the Universe, the first big screen adventure for He-Man. But Masters of the Universe's financial woes would drastically affect Superman IV, with disastrous consequences for the Superman franchise, and leading to a 19-year wait for Superman to return...This episode was originally released on 16th November 2023Mentioned in this episode:From the ArchiveThere's no new episode this week, so I thought you might be interested in revisiting this slightly older, but no less brilliant episode. Just bear in mind, this episode is several years old, it may not sound quite as polished as newer episodes, and new information may have come to light in recent years with regards to the making of this movie (please see above for the original date of release) Please enjoy this time capsule of an episode. Thanks for...
"I coulda been a contender!" This week on Cocktails & Classics, we're heading to the docks of Hoboken with the powerful 1954 classic, "On the Waterfront." Join us as we dissect Marlon Brando's Oscar-winning performance as Terry Malloy and explore the film's themes of corruption, redemption, and moral courage. We'll discuss its impact on cinema, its iconic dialogue, and its lasting legacy. Feeling classic? Craft a classic cocktail while you listen! Don't miss this gripping episode, fueled by classic cocktails and powerful discussions. * Brando's Masterclass: Dive into Marlon Brando's legendary performance as Terry Malloy, discussing his method acting techniques and how he redefined screen acting. * Historical Context: Explore the film's connection to the Hollywood blacklist and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). * Supporting Cast & Characters: Highlight the powerful performances of Eva Marie Saint, Karl Malden, and Lee J. Cobb.What's your favorite Marlon Brando performance or iconic movie quote? Share your thoughts on "On the Waterfront" and your ultimate classic film lineup on Instagram! #CocktailsAndClassics Don't forget to share this unforgettable episode with your friends and family! Subscribe and leave a rating wherever you listen.
Our exit today has us fighting ghosts and trying to get a date to another prom. This week, we are looking at two spoofs that attempt to satirize two genres that were very big at the time. First, we are going to talk about Scary Movie 2, written by Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Alyson Fouse, Greg Grabianski, Dave Polsky, Michael Anthony Snowden, and Craig Wayans and directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans. Next, we are going to talk about Not Another Teen Movie, written by Mike Bender, Adam Jay Epstein, Andrew Jacobson, Phil Beauman and Buddy Johnson and directed by Joel Gallen. Both films employ a plethora of writers to try and craft sharp parodies or spoofs. But do more writers mean more laughs?Along the way, we discuss Tim Burton, She's All That, David Letterman, Tim Curry, Vanilla Sky, many teen actors, the emergence of Chris Evans, Natasha Lyonne, Marlon Brando, and why one of these movies works so much better than the other!Thememusic by Jonworthymusic.Powered by RiversideFM.CFF Films with Ross and friends.Movies We've Covered on the Show on Letterboxd.Movies Recommended on the Show on Letterboxd.
See J.P.'s thirty second version of "The Birds" here: https://youtu.be/kjiSyts0xnk?si=1KZK5e7fOymLmtLU EPISODE 98 - “BEHIND THE SCENES: GETTING TO KNOW THE TEAM BEHIND FBTHS” - 7/28/25 As they say, it takes a village. And that is very true here at FROM BENEATH THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN podcast. This week, we decided to pull the curtain back and reveal two unsung heroes of the show who work tirelessly behind the scenes at the podcast. Meet Executive producer and Post Production Supervisor LINDSAY SCHNEBLY and Associate Producer and Researcher JOHN PRICE RICHEY. They are the true backbone behind this show who do an amazing job keeping us technically proficient and as factually accurate as possible. Listen and get to know these two remarkable artists who both have very interesting stories to tell. We would be lost without them! SHOW NOTES: Sources: Wikipedia.com; TCM.com; IBDB.com; IMDBPro.com; Movies Mentioned: The Birds (1963), starring Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, & Suzanne Pleshette; Vertigo (1958), starring James Stewart & Kim Novak; It's a Wonderful Life (1946), starring James Stewart & Donna Reed; The African Queen (1951), starring Humphrey Bogart & Katharine Hepburn; Singin' in the Rain (1952), starring Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, & Donald O'Connor; The Bad and Beautiful (1952), starring Kirk Douglas & Lana Turner; Sunset Boulevard (1950), starring Gloria Swanson & William Holden; 8 1/2 (1963), starring Marcello Mastroianni & Claudia Cardinale; My Favorite Year (1982), starring Peter O'Toole; Mulholland Drive (2001), starring Naomi Watts & Laura Harring; The Star (1952), starring Bette Davis & Sterling Hayden; Cinderella (1997), starring Brandy & Whitney Houston; Ninotchka (1939), starring Greta Garbo & Melvyn Douglas; The Red Shoes (1948), starring Moira Shearer; City Lights (1931), starring Charlie Chaplin & Virginia Cherrill; North By Northwest (1959), starring Cary Grant & Eva Marie Saint; The Sting (1973), starring Paul Newman & Robert Redford; The Godfather (1972), starring Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, & James Caan; The Godfather II (1974), starring Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro & James Caan; The Shop Around The Corner (1940), starring James Stewart & Margaret Sullivan; The Merry Widow (1934), starring Jeanette MacDonald & Maurice Chevalier; The Poseidon Adventure (1972), starring Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine & Shelley Winters; Grand Prix (1966), starring James Garner & Eva Marie Saint; --------------------------------- http://www.airwavemedia.com Please contact sales@advertisecast.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Send us a textJoin former child actor Moosie Drier, and author Jonathan Rosen, for another edition of Forgotten Films! This time, we're joined by guest Ike Eisenmann, as we take a look at 1980's The Formula, starring George C. Scott and Marlon Brando, with a guest appearance by Ike, himself!Support the show
Former Tonight Show host Jay Leno relives unforgettable encounters with Hollywood legends such as Orson Welles, Elizabeth Taylor, and Marlon Brando.
The Geek Buddies with John Rocha, Michael Vogel and Shannon McClung
On this special crossover episode, The Cine-Files aka John Rocha and Steve Morris welcomed The Geek Buddies' Michael Vogel to be a guest for Part1 of their discussion and analysis of 1978's SUPERMAN from director Richard Donner and starring Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Ned Beatty, Gene Hackman and Marlon Brando. The Cine-Files is a podcast hosted by Steve and John that enters the world of great film and explore its themes, history, filmmakers and the influences it has on movies today. The Geek Buddies hope you enjoy this special episode and try out Steve and John on The Cine-Files wherever you download podcasts! FOLLOW THE GEEK BUDDIES: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Geek_Buddies Follow John Rocha: https://twitter.com/TheRochaSays Follow Michael Vogel: https://twitter.com/mktoon Follow Shannon McClung: https://twitter.com/Shannon_McClung Follow Steve Morris: https://x.com/srmorris Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week in the Wrap Party, Zeth and Jake are talking about the legacy of Marlon Brando, cinematic descents into the jungle, and your recommendations for sweaty summer movies and classic movie soundtracks. Next week, get ready for our episode on Jayne Mansfield. In the meantime, Zeth and Jake want to hear from you. What sweaty summer movie gets your blood pumping? What movies are you watching? Join the party and give us your recs and reviews! Call or text (617) 906-6638, email disgracelandpod@gmail.com, or reach out on socials @disgracelandpod. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Marlon Brando once broke a paparazzo's jaw with one punch. He hired private investigators to find his son when a fake kidnapping went horribly wrong. He nearly sank an already doomed film shoot all by himself when he arrived in the Philippines overweight, underprepared, and demanding millions of dollars. And at the very moment he was trying to resuscitate his career, he found himself desperately trying to resuscitate his daughter's dead boyfriend in his own living room. This episode contains themes that may be disturbing to some listeners, including sexual assault and suicide. If you're thinking about suicide or are worried about a friend or loved one, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This week in the Wrap Party, Zeth and Jake are talking about the great Michael Madsen, who recently passed away at the age of 67, as well as debating what is the greatest movie soundtrack of all time, and their music and movie recommendations inspired by this week's full episode subject, Sharon Stone. Next week, get ready for our episode on Marlon Brando. In the meantime, Zeth and Jake want to hear from you. What's your favorite movie soundtrack of all time? Join the party and give us your recs and reviews! Call or text (617) 906-6638, email disgracelandpod@gmail.com, or reach out on socials @disgracelandpod. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - GET THE NEWSLETTER Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: Instagram YouTube X (formerly Twitter) Facebook Fan Group TikTok To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
RIP Michael Madsen. He was a great guest over the years. In this explosive full episode of Opie's old Radio Show, Hollywood legend Michael Madsen joins comedians Jim Norton, Mark Normand, Adam Pally, and Cheech Marin for a no-holds-barred conversation. Madsen dives deep into his Chicago upbringing, from running a car chop shop in his mom's garage and breaking into a liquor store with Chris Penn to sliding down a fire pole with his firefighter dad. He shares raw, hilarious stories from his iconic roles in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, The Hateful Eight, and Kill Bill, plus surreal run-ins with Marlon Brando, Michael Jackson, and a wild Lawrence Tierney. Packed with gritty humor, heartfelt family reflections, and unfiltered Hollywood truths, this episode is a rollercoaster of epic anecdotes.