You Must Remember This

Libby Holman, a Jewish girl from Cincinnati, arrives in Manhattan in 1925 and begins to make a name for herself as a torch singer, trading on her racially-ambiguous skin tone and deep voice at a time when white hipsters think the height of cool can be found in Harlem. Libby and friends like Tallulah Bankhead sojourned uptown not just to listen to Black music, but also to explore their bisexuality. Through mutual co-star Clifton Webb, Libby meets Jeanne Eagels – one of the greatest actresses of her generation, and a high-profile casualty of Roaring 20s debauchery. (00:00) Torch Singer, Accused Murderess, Bisexual (09:05) A Confederate Jew (17:53) Sex Appeal to Burn (25:59) “Coon Shouting” and Libby’s Racial Ambiguity (41:32) Blackface on Broadway with “Moanin’ Low” (49:10) Sex Tourism in Harlem (58:28) Jeanne Eagels

Listen to a trailer for The Bisexuals, the new season of You Must Remember This, coming September 15. A sultry, racially-ambiguous singer who became a sensation on Broadway in the late 1920s and 30s, Libby Holman popularized a number of jazz and blues standards of the Great American Songbook. At the height of her fame, Holman shocked her mostly queer coterie by marrying the heir to the Camel cigarettes fortune. Within months, Libby’s husband was dead, and Libby was accused of his murder. The ensuing scandal marked the star as a “black widow,” and in the years to come, a number of friends and lovers who drifted into Libby’s web wound up dead. The most famous of these was Montgomery Clift, who like Libby was bisexual, struggled with substance abuse, and felt misunderstood within a pop culture that increasingly demonized anyone who didn’t fit neatly into the post-WWII American ideal. Over 8 episodes – with a cast of characters including Elizabeth Taylor, Josephine Baker, Tallulah Bankhead, Billie Holiday, Jane and Paul Bowles, Nicholas Ray and more – The Bisexuals will begin by describing Libby’s rise to stardom, and her sexually-fluid social life, in the New York theater scene of the 1920s. From there we’ll explore the murder scandal that transitioned her from fame to infamy in the 1930s. Then, we will skip to the 1940s and 50s, and a very different climate than the free-wheeling 1920s when Libby Holman thrived. The cultural pendulum had swung back the other way, and there was no possibility for a movie star like Monty Clift to be openly queer. By the time the social and sexual revolutions of the 60s began to be felt, both Libby and Monty were too deeply scarred by trauma, stigma and addiction to benefit.

If you're a fan of You Must Remember This, we think you'll also enjoy Talking Pictures, a podcast from TCM and HBO Max. On this episode, Oscar-nominated actress Rosie Perez sits down with host Ben Mankiewicz to discuss the films that shaped her career—Do the Right Thing and Fearless—as well as early favorites like Saturday Night Fever and Double Indemnity. She reflects on building a career in an industry that didn’t readily accept her for who she is, and speaks candidly about being raised in a strict Catholic home for girls. In the Super 8 segment, she tells Ben about an amazing boxing story she’d love to see on the big screen.Listen to Talking Pictures wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on HBO Max

If you like You Must Remember This, you might also enjoy Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford, a podcast about stories of historic human error, catastrophes, and heists, and the lessons we can learn from such mishaps. In this episode of Cautionary Tales, Tim examines what happens when the bright lights of Hollywood collide with the far less glamorous world of tax evasion. When Ernest Borgnine was cast as the lead in the 1955 romantic drama, Marty, he thought it was his big break. But he soon discovered Marty was not exactly a dream gig. Listen to Cautionary Tales every Friday wherever you get your podcasts.

If you’ve finished all episodes of The Old Man is Still Alive , I’ve got another treat for you from Jake Brennan at Hollywoodland . Have a listen to this episode of Hollywoodland about John Waters, from his beginnings in X-rated art films to cult classics like Hairspray and Crybaby, as he created and cultivated his own peculiar niche in film while nurturing a legendary troupe of players who became a family of outcasts.

In part two of our season finale, we explore the final decade of John Huston’s life and career. As he was slowly dying of emphysema and undergoing massive turmoil in his personal life, Huston continued to work almost compulsively on both passion projects ( The Man Who Would Be King , Wise Blood , Under the Volcano ) and paycheck gigs ( Annie ). His career ended, fittingly, with two collaborations with the next generation of Hustons, Prizzi’s Honor and The Dead . (00:00) The Man Who Would Be King (10:20) Marital Strife and Relocating to Puerto Vallarta (16:37) Wise Blood (20:49) Annie (29:25) Under the Volcano (34:49) Prizzi’s Honor (42:42) The Dead and The Old Man is No Longer Still Alive

This series began with the story of a director who wrote his autobiography to secure his place in history after his career had gone down the drain. It ends with the story of a man who wrote his autobiography as a “dead man walking”...and then continued to make movies for another half a decade, until the literal last breath left his body. Hollywood’s original “nepo baby” director, John Huston was never a conventional studio system stalwart, and in some respects he was able to go with the flow of changing times a lot better than some of his contemporaries. In part one of our two-part season finale we’ll talk about his flight from Hollywood to Ireland, literally playing God, Huston’s long fallow period in the late 60s, Anjelica Huston’s misbegotten film debut, Huston’s reinvention in the New Hollywood era and the health crisis that almost ended it all. (00:00) John Huston…In the Beginning (09:22) Huston in Exile (15:40) Playing God and Facing Mortality (24:01) Casting Anjelica and Working with Orson Welles (34:11) Fat City (41:43) Noah Cross and Chinatown

This episode was originally released on March 3, 2015. Listen to help prep for the next episode of our new season, The Old Man is Still Alive. She was the raven-haired beauty whose lily-white persona was forged by her supporting roles in Gone With the Wind and several Errol Flynn swashbucklers. He was the real-life swashbuckler, the heroic lover/drinker/fighter whose directorial debut The Maltese Falcon , was an enormous success. They met when Huston directed de Havilland in his second film, In This Our Life , and began an affair which would continue, on and off, through the decade, as he joined the Army and made several controversial documentaries exposing dark aspects of the war experience, and as she waged a war of her own, taking Warner Brothers to court to challenge the indentured servitude of the star contract system. De Havilland’s lawsuit went all the way to the California Supreme Court, and had massive implications on the future of labor in Hollywood and beyond.

How does an artist once perceived to be ahead of his time fall behind the times? The choreographer/director of Golden Age classics like Singin’ the Rain and Funny Face left Hollywood for all the 60s and the first half of the 70s, perfecting a certain brand of sophisticated comedy/romance abroad with films like Charade , Bedazzled and Two for the Road . His rough Hollywood re-entry was marked by exercises in nostalgia for eras gone by (Lucky Lady , a movie about Prohibition Era gangsters starring Burt Reynolds and Liza Minnelli; the 1930s spoof Movie Movie ) and attempts to give audiences of the 80s what it was assumed they wanted (the sci-fi debacle Saturn 3 , the sex comedy Blame it on Rio) . (00:00) What Makes Donen Fascinating (07:56) Charade (15:39) Two for the Road (26:19) Bedazzled — The Gold Standard Stoner Comedy (30:18) Staircase, Funny Face, and The Little Prince (35:38) Lucky Lady (47:16) Movie Movie (57:36) Saturn 3, “A piece of shit” (01:02:42) Blame It On Rio

This episode was originally released on December 22, 2015. Listen to help prep for the next episode of our new season, The Old Man is Still Alive. In the 1940s, Louis B. Mayer was the highest paid man in America, one of the first celebrity CEOs and the figurehead of what for most Americans was the most glamorous industry on Earth. In 1951, Mayer was fired from the studio that bore his name. What happened -- to Mayer, and to movies on the whole -- to hasten the end of the golden era of Hollywood?

George Cukor had always experimented within his relatively broad lane, often finding nuanced ways to explore women’s lives, including their sex lives, under the constraints of the Production Code. But after winning the best Director Oscar for Best Picture-winner My Fair Lady in 1964, Cukor’s career slowed down considerably, and as the 60s turned into the 70s and both gender roles and the movies went through massive changes, Cukor was still making the same kinds of things he would have made at the peak of the studio system, regarding which he adopted an extremely defensive stance. Then, suddenly, in 1981, with Rich and Famous , Cukor caught up with the sexual revolution – a decade too late. (00:00) “George Cukor’s filmography is his most eloquent defense” (07:21) Thriving Under the Studio System (11:43) Heller In Pink Tights and The Chapman Report (21:26) My Fair Lady and Cukor in the Sixties (40:53) Justine (48:03) The “I’ll do anything” Tour and Financial Woes (54:40) Rich and Famous

This episode was originally released on March 21, 2017. Listen to help prep for the next episode of our new season, The Old Man is Still Alive. How did a star whose persona seemed to be all about childlike joy and eternally vibrant sexuality die, single and childless, at the age of 36? In fact, the circumstances of Marilyn Monroe’s death are confusing and disputed. In this episode we will explore the last five years of her life, including the demise of her relationship with Arthur Miller, the troubled making of The Misfits , and Marilyn’s aborted final film, and try to sort out the various facts and conspiracy theories surrounding her death.

Henry Hathaway started directing in the early 1930s and though he made movies of all genres, he was particularly associated with Westerns. This allowed him to ride out the 1960s making pretty much the same kinds of movies with the same stars (Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum) that he had been working with for decades. But shortly after the massive success of Hathaway’s True Grit in 1969 – for which John Wayne won his only Oscar – the director felt he was being put out to pasture by a changing industry. His last film would be Hangup (also known as Super Dude ) a work-for-hire that he claimed he took only as a favor to the producer, and which was dismissed at the time as a sop to the Blaxploitation trend - not least by Hathaway himself. (00:00) “Less Than Meets the Eye” (06:18) “Screaming Henry” (10:06) WWII and The House on 92nd Street (16:50) Kiss of Death (21:42) Legend of the Lost (29:36) How the West Was Won, Circus World, and The Sons of Katie Elder (40:27) True Grit, Airport, and Raid on Rommel (50:57) Shoot Out (54:58) Brut Productions, Hangup/Superdude, and the Last of Henry Hathaway

For over 40 years, William Wyler was one of Hollywood’s most dependable classicists, culminating in 1968 with the ultimate New Hollywood-era throwback to Old Hollywood, Funny Girl . Then, for his final film in 1970, Wyler uncharacteristically directed a searing indictment of contemporary race relations, called The Liberation of LB Jones . (00:00) When Wyler Went Weird (Twice) (04:05) Neorealism, Auteurism, and the Cahiers Crowd (12:41) WWII, Ben-Hur, and Turning Down The Sound of Music (20:49) The Collector, Terrence Stamp, and Samantha Eggar (34:17) How To Steal a Million, Audrey Hepburn, and Peter O’Toole (40:11) Barbra Streisand and Funny Girl (48:32) Wyler’s Swan Song: The Liberation of L.B. Jones

This episode was originally released on January 6, 2015. Listen to help prep for the next episode of our new season, The Old Man is Still Alive. This is the story of how Bette Davis evolved from a wannabe starlet who was constantly told she was too ugly for movies, to the most powerful woman in Hollywood, by playing heroines that had never been seen on screen before — to borrow a term from Davis herself, sympathetic “bitches.” After Pearl Harbor, the tenacious Bette became the figurehead of the Hollywood Canteen, a nightclub for servicemen staffed by stars, which was the locus of the industry’s most visible support of the troops on the home front. The Hollywood Canteen was a catalyst for propaganda in more ways than one, aims Hollywood furthered by telling the story of the Hollywood Canteen in a movie called, um, Hollywood Canteen , starring Davis, John Garfield, Barbara Stanwyck, Peter Lorre and other celebrities as “themselves.” The movie and most press accounts of the Canteen portray it as a miraculous force for good in the world, which it probably was, but that narrative leaves out a lot, including illicit affairs, a murder, and an FBI investigation whose findings would have an impact on the blacklist of the following decade

Hollywood’s 1960s began with Billy Wilder winning three Oscars for The Apartment . But Wilder’s biggest success would also prove to be his last film to be afforded such respectability, as Wilder largely abandoned the type of material that the Academy embraced, and veered gleefully into disreputability. Of the 9 films Wilder made in the 20 years after The Apartment, in this episode we’ll pay special attention to three that were engaged with the rapidly changing culture – in Hollywood and beyond: One, Two, Three (1961); Avanti (1972); and Fedora (1978). (00:00) Wilder’s Long Journey to Weirdness (10:50) Wilder in the 1960s and pre-production on Avanti! (22:18) Italy, Juliet Mills, and Generational Strife (29:18) Critical Reappraisal and Legacy (36:50) Fedora and the Ghost of Sunset Boulevard (46:04) “A quintessential old man’s film” (56:25) Wilder’s Last Films and Later Life

This episode was originally released on December 14, 2021. Listen to help prep for the next episode of our new season, The Old Man is Still Alive. In the mid-1960s, 47 year-old Dean Martin proves he's still got it by knocking the Beatles off the top of the pop charts, and by launching his long-running TV show, which brought a version of his nightclub act into America’s living rooms every week. But his middle-aged drunk schtick sours as the decade of hippies and Vietnam wears on. Sammy Davis Jr has his own challenges, living up to the expectations of a new generation of activists--and he only makes matters worse by embracing Richard Nixon. After disastrously dabbling with Motown, Sammy records “The Candy Man” -- a silly novelty single that he hated, but which ended up saving his career.

As a cameraman during World War II, George Stevens shot footage of the liberation of Dachau that showed the world the horrors of the Holocaust – and scarred Stevens himself for life. Pre-war, he had been a director of frothy comedies; post-war, he committed himself to making epic films about “moral disasters.” This yielded a number of masterpieces – A Place in the Sun, Giant, Shane – but by the mid-60s, though more in demand than ever as a director, Stevens felt he lost touch with the audience. He only released one film in the 1960s, The Greatest Story Ever Told – an epic about Jesus, and an epic flop – and then , in an attempt to come full circle to his comedy roots, concluded his career with The Only Game in Town (1970), an awkward mashup of old and new featuring the two biggest transitional stars of the day, Warren Beatty and Elizabeth Taylor. (00:00) Nothing Lasts Forever (11:16) The Liberation of Dachau: “Where I really learned about life” (19:25) Making The Greatest Story Ever Told (34:43) Editing and Releasing The Greatest Story Ever Told (45:34) Enter Warren Beatty and Liz Taylor: The Only Game in Town (01:03:53) The Berlin Film Festival Controversy

This episode was originally released on October 28, 2014. Listen to help prep for the next episode of our new season, The Old Man is Still Alive. Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift were best friends and co-stars in three films. The first, A Place in the Sun , is an undisputed classic which captures both stars at the peak of their talents and physical beauty. The shoot of the second, Raintree County , was interrupted by a horrible car accident in which Clift’s face was disfigured. This episode tracks Taylor’s relationship with the troubled Clift, from their first, studio-setup date through his untimely death — the result of what some have called “Hollywood’s slowest suicide.”

Long an antagonist to Hollywood’s norms (not to mention its actresses), Preminger began the 1960s by directing a massive blockbuster ( Exodus ) and earning his second Oscar nomination (for directing The Cardinal ). But towards the end of the decade, with 1967’s Hurry, Sundown , he began a run of six films which attempted to respond to changing times, all of which flopped. We’ll focus primarily on two of these: the much-maligned Skidoo , an indictment of both hippies and the true American establishment which Preminger prepared for by dropping acid with Timothy Leary; and the unfairly forgotten Such Good Friends , the rare sex comedy of the era to understand the extent to which the sexual revolution did little to liberate women from the expectations of men. (00:00) Otto Preminger: “Always kind of weird” (07:16) From Batman to Bunny Lake (19:13) Otto Goes Gonzo: Hurry, Sundown & Skidoo (34:18) Generational Clash: Nilsson vs. Preminger (45:19) Junie Moon and Such Good Friends (57:28) The Final Years and Films