008 Counterculture Sex Symbol Transcript (Peter Fonda)

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Michael: This person died in 2019 age 79. Thank you for walking with us. When he was 11, he shot himself in the stomach with a pistol and decades later, he insisted that it was an accident, not a suicide attempt.

Friend: What about the guard that played professor Snape in the Harry potter movie? Alan Rickman?

Michael: No, but good. Guess he did die. He inspired John Lennon to write the line. I know what it's like to be dead in the Beatles song. She said, she said,

Friend: yeah, this one's hard.

Michael: He had piercing blue eyes, affirm jaw, and then imposing frame, which were inevitably compared to his father's

Friend: Johnny Cash.

Michael: Not trying to catch. He earned two Oscar nominations, almost three decades apart,

Friend: Bob Dylan.

Michael: Not Bob dylan. He's still with us and the 1970s and eighties, his career. Cool. While that of his sister flourished,

Friend: I can't picture anybody. And he was an award winning actor or nominated. This is tough

Michael: in 1967, Roger Corman cast him in a script that included Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, Dennis Hopper, and Susan Strausberg.

Friend: I was actually going to guest Dennis Hopper, but I've not a clue.

Michael: He earned a best original screenplay nomination for easy rider.

Friend: Oh, Peter Fonda.

Michael: Today's dead. Celebrity is Peter Fonda.

Peter: we're rich, man. We're retired in Florida now. Mr.

Know, Billy,

we blew it.

That's what it's all about, man. I mean like, you know, and then you'd go for the big money, man. And then you're free.

Michael: welcome to famous and gravy. My name is Michael Osborne

Amit: and my name is Amit Kapoor.

Michael: And on this show, we go through a series of categories about multiple aspects of a famous person's life. We want to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer the big question. What do I want that life today?

Peter Fonda died 2019 age 79

category one grading the first line of their obituary, Peter Fonda, the tall lanky actor who became a star and a counter-cultural sex symbol in the film, easy rider carrying on the Hollywood dynasty begun by his father, Henry. Died Friday in Los Angeles.

It's more concise than what we've heard lately.

Well, okay.

So, you know the question, would they mention easy rider? First one, right. Had to, so that's in there. How do you feel about the word lanky? Is that uh is that

Amit: It's a pejorative?

Michael: It is a

pejorative.

Amit: Yeah.

Michael: I don't think so.

Amit: I don't think lanky is a good thing. There's a better way to say it.

Michael: I

guess. It's, it's not inaccurate.

It's a good word to describe Peter Fonda's Physique.

Amit: Yeah. Do you think usually lanky is an unattractive thing?

Yes,

Michael: really?

Amit: Yes.

Michael: I just think of it as skinny. I think it sort of has negative connotations maybe, but I don't think of it as pejorative

necessarily.

Amit: I think it just means having long limbs, not even necessarily skinny.

Yeah.

Michael: Well, but I can't think of somebody who's lanky. Who's like cut

Amit: or a little chubby.

Michael: Right?

Amit: Of course you can

Michael: Who give me. an example Who's lanky and Chubby. I want one

example.

Amit: The guy on everybody loves Raymond who played the brother.

Michael: Yeah. he's got kinda the funny voice

Amit: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah.

Amit: He's a little like Potbelly.

Michael: Okay. Okay. Okay. I guess you can be

Amit: He's got very long arms

Michael: Yeah no that's that's good.

I think his name's Brad Garrett for

what it's worth,

Amit: but I like it.

I like that you can be lanky and a sex symbol.

The

Michael: bigger question to me was whether you mentioned his father in the first line of his obituary, that's a very deliberate decision. Yes. No dynasty that began with his

Amit: dad. Yeah. It's strange that there's a weird attribution there of kind of saying like dynasty, like why does that have to be there?

Michael: Well, I think that so much of who he is, how he's remembered, what his legacy means and how we understand him as a famous person. He exists in the shadow of his father, Henry Fonda. That's my interpretation of his life. But if that is true, do you think that the author of the first line of his obituary said, we need to mention his dad in this first line, the first line

Amit: of the obituary likely had some relationship with

Michael: Henry Fonda.

You may, as a fan. Yeah. You know, it

Amit: may have been of that age bracket or maybe not. Maybe he just in his head, he hears Fonda. And that's the first one that comes out.

Michael: It's interesting. You say that a lot of people have no idea who Henry Fonda is. I mean, I think if you ask millennials who Jane Fonda is, they're going to now, Bridget Fonda, Fonda's kind of a toss up.

Peter is even kind of a toss up, I think for some but Henry. He is a gilded actor of, you know, the golden age of Hollywood. So whether or not to mention his dad in the first line, I think it's probably right. It was the correct choice to figure out a way to mention his father. But it's just kind of weird.

It says

Amit: a lot. Yeah. Because I think as we've seen thematically, the first line is tends to encapsulate the entire

Michael: biography. Well, and as you pointed out, I'm not sure how much more there is to say actually. I mean, I think that there's a lot we're going to explore and this conversation about Peter Fonda's life.

But if I were to grade this, I'd give it a nine out of 10. I think it hits all the important points about what we think about and what we're going to remember him for the years of very accurate characterization. I think it's interesting that they pair lanky with sex symbol. They had to get the word counterculture in there because he, that was important and they had to get easy rider in there.

Then they mentioned his dad. So you're giving it a nine, I think. So I just think that like, I'm not sure anything was missed and the things that needed to be said were said, um, Overly impressed may maybe an eight, because there's not any true cleverness in here. I'm not sort of impressed

with

Michael: verbiage, but it's definitely economical.

Amit: Yeah. I agree with you on the brevity and the concise sense. I think it got everything. I just find the lanky unnecessary, especially knowing his relationship with his father. That it wasn't great. I don't know that it's necessary that that's, you know, in the first line of the obituary, but I am with you on it being concise, encompassing to the point.

So I'm going to go with six and a half. Okay. But I do have to ask you a question. Do you think the writer of the obituary was more fond of him?

Fucking dumb. I held that for 45 seconds.

Michael: Well done. Okay. All right. Category two, five things. I love about you here. And I work together to come up with five reasons that we care about this person, what we want to talk about them while why their fame is worth examining. When you want to kick us off, you want me to go

Amit: first?

Um, if yeah, it sounds like you're excited. I want you to go first. Okay.

Michael: The family life, the Hollywood dynasty thing. And it's not just that his father was Henry and his sister was. And that his daughter is Bridgette. It's also the in-laws at one point, he called the Ted Turner, his brother-in-law and Bridget Fonda went on to marry Danny Elfman of ongo Boingo fame.

And all the Tim Burton movies were at the Simpsons theme song. So his son-in-laws is Danny Elfman ex step father-in-law was Noah Dietrich, who I went down the Wikipedia rabbit hole with. He was a confidant of Howard Hughes. So there's just the way the family life sprawls into like well-known figures of a lot of different stripes that all sort of circle Hollywood.

This is Hollywood royalty. Now, whether or not I love that. It's a different question.

Amit: Yeah. You, you love it in the sense that you don't fawn over it, but you love that it like exists as a fact.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, one of the things I found as I got into Peter Fonda's life, I needed to know more about Bridget and about Jane and Ted Turner and Henry Fonda and all these peripheral characters, Dennis Hopper for that matter, Roger Corman.

So it was actually sort of hard to know where to stop. I kept trying to say like, okay, how do I put Peter in the middle of all this? Well, uh, do you want to go on number two? Yeah, I'd

Amit: say the intersection with music in his life, his friendship with the members of the birds that led him to become friends with the beetles, Buffalo, Springfield, I think intersected with part of his life and then obviously the soundtrack for easy rider and so forth.

But even before easy rider, just the fact that there was the intersection of him with the counter-cultural music world, the Beatles above all. Yeah. I love that.

Michael: It makes his characterization as a countercultural figure about more than the character he played in easy rider. There's a believability to it.

Exactly. And, um, authenticity to

Amit: it. But I liked this cohesion behind it, about what, everything that happened in the sixties in the most important things that happened in, in civil rights and so forth. But it all starts with a kind of counterpart. And yeah, the music was through all parts, the civil rights and all of the political freedoms and so forth.

Michael: Yeah. The Vietnam approach.

Amit: Yeah. Correct. I really like just going back to the origin of number two, that music and Hollywood in this case, intersected in the,

Michael: yeah. Uh, okay. I wrote, probably took acid with the Beatles that whole, uh, she said, she said there that John Lennon said Peter Fonda inspired. I saw some that said that that happened at a party.

Some that said that that happened at a party while on acid, hard to say, but be cool. The trip with the Beatles. So I kind of had that one. Yeah.

Amit: What's the jury. Is that a separate number three or are you saying that that's a two to

Michael: add to the relationship with music as a

Amit: tool? All right. I'll just go with ease with, uh, uh, you're not gonna be three.

Yeah. I'm gonna take it because it's an easy one. I think it's not going to require as much follow up. Okay. The tinted sunglass. I think he really made that and owned it all throughout life.

Michael: This was going to come up from analyte or category. I'm glad he brought it up. If you Google image, Peter Fonda, no other filters, the number of images where he's wearing tinted sunglasses.

I mean, it's like at least 80 to 90% of them. Yeah.

Amit: And it's like partially tinted, right? Obviously sunglasses are inherently tinted, but they're like cartons. Totally

Michael: good. Colin that I think he can claim that fashion wise. If I can take number four, I was going to say age well, he's a handsome older man.

You know, at age 78, he's still maybe a little lanky, but he's looking pretty good

Amit: and married. So being a sex symbol and lanky,

Michael: not everybody can pull it off into their late seventies. This is sort of a weird thing to say, but I kind of like his face. Like I kind of liked the angularity of it, the straight lines of it, the little bit gone, but I feel like I could almost draw it these right for the camera.

Right. Obviously came from Hollywood royalty, but kind of like this face. Yeah. He, it feels a little weird to say

Amit: it alone. I think that's very nice to say. That's very self-assured to say. All right. That's number four.

Michael: What do you have, do you all want to offer a number five?

Amit: Yeah, I'll take it. The ability to make fun of himself as this, like counter-cultural motorcycle icon.

So he was in Cannonball run, which was what? 1980 something early eighties, 81, I believe. Yeah. Which was kind of like the exact opposite of easy rider. It was like go cross country for a prize. Yeah. He was in wild hogs, which was like the Tim Allen motorcycle movie. Um, so I liked that. I liked that humility and the ability to make fun of himself.

Michael: What's your relationship with motorcycles?

Amit: I don't have one. I would like to learn how to ride one. Yeah. I do have a mini one. A Vesper. Yeah. It's not even like, it's not even easy. No, it gets even better. It's not even a brand named Vesper is like the closest thing I went to the Vesta dealership. Cause I kept, decided I wanted to scooter and they had Vespas that were X dollars and they also have things that are almost Vespas, which were X minus $1,500.

And I opted for that, but it sits really nice. Oh, so you've been on a motorcycle. Uh, yeah, I suppose. So I've been on one. Yeah, I like it. I mean, I like, I believe in like that feeling of going down the road and when in your face, the world just, I don't know, it just feels so much bigger when there's not that full roof over your head and windshield in

Michael: front of your face.

What's your relationship with the movie? Easy rider. So I

Amit: would probably watched easy rider the first time when I was about 21 years old. I didn't think it was good, but I really liked it for the symbol. So yeah, I was one of those things. I remember one of my friends during my college years and he was like, always, like, we went out and, you know, coming back at the end of the night, he was like, let's turn on an easy rider.

And that's what we like fall asleep. Do. And you easy rider or motorcycles, let's start with motorcycles. They

Michael: scare the shit out of me. Alison, my wife wants volunteered at an emergency room and she did it for like several weeks and what she would hear over and over from all the doctors is never get on a motorcycle.

That's probably true for whatever reason that freaked me out, but they look like fun. And I do like riding my bicycle, but that's not the same thing. The movie easy rider. I think that what you said I connect with. I don't think it's good necessarily, but I like it. I think it's got some really funny parts.

This scene where they're smoking a joint around the fire, Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson that I'll rewatch any day of the week. I saw

Amit: a satellite and it was going across the sky and it flashed three times at me and zigzag and whizzed off, man. That was it. UFO Lehman back at you, but some of it doesn't hold up to me.

Yeah. It's kind of disjointed. There's not really a plot. Yeah. But it captures

Michael: the time too. I mean, it's got a vibe to it. That's like, that looks like the mind's eye image of the

Amit: 1960s. Yeah. And the fact that it, I think it came out in 1969 and literally the end of the sixties and the hippies are like shot at the end.

Yeah. There's crazy. Overtimes.

Michael: Shall we move on to category three. We shall Malcovich Malcovich Malcovich Malcovich. This category is named after the movie being John Malcovich in which people take a portal into John Malcovich his mind, and they can have a front row seat to his experiences. What's your Malcovich Malcovich moment for Peter

Amit: Fonda.

Mine was getting arrested at the 66 sunset strip riot. Which were, uh, I don't even want to pretend to be a historian on these, but they were basically the hippies verse, please type them fried square versus hip, but they were violent. Right. And those specific riots were referenced. Like a lot of songs were born out of that specific event and he was there at the forefront of it.

And this is 1966. He had been in movies. He's a legitimate star at this point, but he's still getting arrested for it. That's what I want to be behind. Like the fact that you are a star you're standing for something and your still getting arrested. I mean, this is by no means. The Selma bridge, but it's still a pretty significant moment.

Michael: It's kinetic. Yeah. I mean, you're right there at the forefront of something happening and you feel like involved and it's important. And you know, as much as you have power, you are trying to participate in a growing collective sort of aggradation of that power and taking it to the man, but

Amit: you're still a star.

Yeah. Right. And so I think it's being able to look at that experience knowing of who you are inside versus also what you are doing at the moment, what you are choosing to stand for, and that you're on equal footing for other people that are fighting for a similar cause.

Michael: That's good. I circled around this for awhile.

I never saw the movie juliis gold, but this was his second Oscar nomination. I tried to watch some of it, frankly. It's pretty boring movie. He was cast because apparently Nick Nolte, he turned down the role. But one of the reasons I think it generated the reaction to date is that it does seem, and I read New York times article all about this, that he was playing a version of his father.

The quote I got from the article, it says it may be only in Hollywood or according only to Hollywood system of rendering psychological truths that a man can come to terms with a remote and an expressive father by playing a remote and an expressive father in a movie. I think it'd be interesting to play your dad in a movie, whatever your relationship is with your father, whether it's good or not, or, you know, if you're a woman, your mother to play a parent, I guess it doesn't matter.

But I kind of like that idea. I kind of liked the idea that I would have the opportunity to pretend to be my dad and like try and put on display outwardly what I experienced on the other

Amit: side. Do you think it would be therapeutic?

Michael: It sounds like it was for him and yeah. I mean, I think if the relationship is troubled, yes.

I think that's an interesting way to have a kind of creative catharsis. Yes. I do think it would do therapeutic. How is that? Not an exercise in empathy, regardless of the story elements, you're sort of like trying to look at the world through their eyes. I think that would be incredibly therapeutic. Yeah.

Amit: Yeah. I could see that. I didn't think about that. That's a good one. All right. That's happened a few times recently, I come straight out of Compton, ice cube son played him. I want to say there's been other instances of something like that

Michael: category for how many marriages also, how many kids, and is there anything public about these relationships and then Peter Fonda's case?

It is three marriages. So shall I go through these real quick? Yeah. Okay. So Susan Brewer, 1961 to 1974. So Peter was aged 21 to 34. So it was a young man and it is with his first wife that he has his two children, Justin and Bridget, come back to that in a second. Cause I have more to say about the children, a second marriage, Porsche, Rebecca Crockett, 1975 to 2011.

So ages 35 to 71. One quick note on that, I read that Porsche Crockett was actually, uh, a descendant of David Crockett. So it's just the whole into like, just wanted to throw that in with my five things I love about you like the extended family.

Amit: So like yeah. In the family tree, Davy Crockett goes all the way down to like

Michael: Danny Elfin kind of not the bloodline, but yes, there is a, there is a degree of separation there.

And then I don't know how to say her last name. Margaret 2011.

Amit: Shouldn't have said it. You should have

Michael: just said Margaret I'm just go with Margaret D 2011 to his death in 2019. So age is 71 to 79. So he was basically married his entire life to somebody,

Amit: very

Michael: short periods, very short periods of being married.

Oh, not being married. The one that is weirdest to me is the. Long marriage in the middle that ends

Amit: at 71 years.

Michael: That's like a 35 year marriage. That ends and divorce. Is there a, was

Amit: there any public information about what we know about? Oh,

Michael: I found, um, I didn't find a whole lot of information about why the marriage in divorce.

I don't know what all there is to say, but

Amit: the question you're raising is what does it mean to be married for 36 years? And that marriage ended at 71 years of age? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Through the evolution of, of recording the show, the questions I raise in my head, just they change every time. Like is

Michael: the reaction to that?

Just like basic fact information, age 35 to 71. He was married before and he was married

Amit: after. Like not knowing any of the facts about what led to the end of the marriage, it on the surface. It bothers me. You're

Michael: right. Every time we get to this category that I see a discomfort Dawn, upon your face, if there's a long-term marriage, the last 60 years, you sort of wonder, well, did they hate each other and just gut it out.

If there are a series of divorces at certain ages, we're sort of like, well, we don't know enough. Of course we never know enough. I think it is still worth having as a category because it's a stat that I think we might care about in life. There should be no judgment that there is a divorce, or even if there's a lot of divorces, it's just sort of a stat that tells you a little bit about the quality of the initial decision.

Amit: Well, it's all, you got to go back to the point of our show, right? But the point of our show is that that the listener may see themselves in some part of somebody's life and that ultimately it can help them to find their own life and make their own decisions and guide their own path in some large or very, very tiny way.

Yeah. What you said that you see in me is like, you know, every time that there's a long marriage that ends not in divorce, but ends because death has done them part, uh, it seems to be something that I, I say, yay, good for them. And that when there's something complicated, especially after it, if it ends after many decades, my face cuts.

That's my reaction too, without

Michael: knowing anymore.

Amit: That's my reaction too. But you said, I mean, you said if I make a vowel to somebody and I hope it happens for the rest of my life, so you have done that. Let's be clear so far, so many years. How many years? Oh,

Michael: oh God, we got married in 2006. So over 15

Amit: now.

Okay. So I, I'm not married as our wide fan base knows. Um, and I'm, I'm 43 reasons we have this

Michael: show is

Amit: to fix that. And I'm 43. So I mean, granted, it's not just a button series of, of, uh, that I've gotten to this point. There's some level of fear and distance and avoidance that I have. And so I, I interpreted,

Michael: choose to interpret it differently, knowing you reasonably well, I think that is one interpretation almond.

Another interpretation is that you haven't found the right one and you know, you haven't found the right one.

Amit: But the right one, you also have to be willing to look for it. And part of me, there is a built up fear of being trapped. And when I see something like Peter Fonda, who was married for, and in a 36 year marriage that ended, and he got remarried at 71, it really like tightens my chest to think at some 0.1 or both of them felt

Michael: if what we're driving at is desirability based on no other information here.

I don't

Amit: desire that you don't desire three marriages.

Michael: I know that's right. And I don't desire a, I walked away from a marriage in my mid thirties and lasted 35 years and ended in divorce.

Amit: That's fair to say,

Michael: walked away from one marriage ended. Another marriage began less than a year later or about a year later.

And that lasted 35 years and then ended in divorce that honest. No,

Amit: I don't deserve it, but why does this keep happening? I realized this is the endless question of American culture and love and romance and marriage here. But you know, every year, tens of millions of people or whatever, make a vow that says till death, do you part and every year, a higher number than that.

And that vow. Is everybody just sort of lying to themselves a little bit at the beginning and they're saying, oh, there's a small chance that this might be

Michael: at work. I, I don't know that I have a great answer for that, but I'll, I'll give you one answer to it, which is, I think that the, one of the problems we have with marriage as an institution is that we come to it with too many expectations about all the hats the other person is supposed to wear.

Your spouse is meant to be your sex partner, your business partner, your roommate, your co-parent, your best friend. The list goes on and on, and people are not able to sort that shit out before they say I do. They just.

Amit: They can't fathom that.

Michael: Right. And you don't realize which of those roles is going to be more important as you age and as you get more and more entangled and involved with each other, as things go, and that sometimes there comes a point where it's like, I need to take off one of the hats that I'm asking you to wear, and I need to go find that somewhere else.

And that doesn't have to be an existential crisis, but that shit is hard to sort out. So I, you know, look, we're a social animal. We certainly want to have, if nothing else sucks regularly. I know that's one of the reasons I got married, the among many others, I don't know, among everything else I listed. So that, that need for security and stability.

I, you know, I don't think we quite realized the level of need we bring to a relationship and the expectation we put on a single individual when we say I

Amit: do. Yeah. So it's not that we're diluted. And it's just that you learn over time, these hats that you wear, those can become unfitting over time.

Michael: And the institution of marriage has evolved into a much more complicated thing as the decades have gone on.

And I don't think that this was true a hundred years ago. I'm not saying it was better, but I do think that we now come out like, you know, you are meant to be my love story. When you say I do to somebody, this is this, you are my happily ever after you don't even recognize the ways you're looking for validation in what you're trying to get needs met in a relationship because you don't know yourself enough.

So that's my theory of the case of why there's so many divorces, because that's why you're asking.

Amit: I'm just, I'm I'm asking about the cycle, but why, why does the cycle just repeat itself over and over and over and over again?

Michael: Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know. I don't, I don't think Peter didn't either because clearly

Amit: he didn't and this is the question I died still don't know, you know, our show, we get to the VanDerBeek in the end and saying, do you want this life?

Each one of these pieces is just an ingredient that by no means, can we say I do or don't want your life because of your love history. But what we are saying is that three marriages over a lifetime, and one that ends in your seventies. To both of us seem somewhat disheartening. Yeah. Shall we move on while we're still on the marriage and family category?

Because I think you had more things to say about it

Michael: that I did. I got curious as to what his daughter Bridget had to say about him, Bridget, by the way, I did not quite realize that she had more or less retired from acting. She did some good movies. Jackie brown is the one that sticks in my mind because she was also in single white female, single white female, and in singles for which, for whatever reason, that movie sticks in my mind.

I remember that was very important for our age group. It kind of was the soundtrack was a big deal and yeah, I mean, she appeared in a handful of other things. She retired around the same time. She married Danny Elfman in this profile. I read about Peter Fonda. He divorced her mom, the descendant of David Crockett around the time Bridget was eight and that apparently left some scars.

They reconnected later in life. Yeah. Richard told reporters that she was constantly surprised at how much she's like her dad. And one thing she said is that, uh, you don't have to pry anything out of my dad. There was a lot of pain there and you can't expect it to just be gone. He wants to be seen for who he is and is always trying to explain himself.

I think if he could be telepathic, he would be, I found that to be an interesting thing for a child to say about her dad. Yeah. It doesn't sound like he was an asshole. It sounds like he was trying, but it does sound like this is a one and done. And I think it has a lot to do with his father. I think his father was an emotionally disconnected and perhaps rageaholic, I don't know, would lose his temper.

Also have a different time. I also did try and get as much into the relationship with Jane as sister as I could. And. It seems like a nice relationship. Yeah. As far as I can tell, I, I, I don't see them saying bad things about each other. There's one story about Peter arriving at an airport, and then there's a sign that says feed Jane Fonda to the whales and he rips it up and goes to jail for it.

Uh, because he's defending his sister.

Amit: What does that mean? Feed Jane file? I

Michael: think it was because she, at the time was protesting nuclear power and this was some pro nuclear power operation that had, because Jane Fonda obviously was very, very politically active. I mean really since the sixties and yeah, that he'd defended his sister's honor.

And like, and she, she was also quoted as like they're on his death bed. Yeah. So, you know, there's not a ton of pictures of them together, but seems like in as much as they have a shared respect there's friendship there, and that plays into this question about family life. Yeah. Category. Yes, net worth. I got 40 million.

I got

Amit: 40 million. Perfect. Yeah. For that age seems about right. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael: I came from a well-to-do family acted his whole life and you know, if it had been a little bit lower, I would have been a little uncomfortable with it. I don't

Amit: know. He also wasn't like he wasn't a blockbuster actor. Right. What he's best known for is easy rider.

I was the 1969 movie, but it also wasn't like I was ahead of his career in a lot of ways. Yeah, absolutely. But it wasn't being screened in theaters in like Eastern Europe,

Michael: you know, it is worth also noting that I, I think that there are some, there's definitely some disputes between like a riff group between him and Dennis Hopper.

I don't think it ever got into court, but are there were some court cases around this? I take that back. Whether or not who is still profiting from it, I think was a question, but who gets credited for what is an ongoing dispute? Those two hated each other as time went on. Apparently. Yeah. There's actually, when Dooley's gold gets nominated in 1999, The actor who wins for best actor is Jack Nicholson also in easy

Amit: rider.

And was he in, in 1987,

Michael: as good as it gets. And I read a story about Dennis Hopper. Somebody was sitting with him, watching him, watch the Oscars, where he's sitting there like woo for Jack Nicholson. Cause he and Jack stayed buddies. But Dennis Hopper sounds like a PreK. All right. Anyway, category six, Simpsons SNL or Hollywood walk of fame.

This category is a measure of how famous a person is. We include both guest appearances on SNL or the Simpsons as well as impersonations. So let's get Hollywood walk of fame out of the way. Yeah. You got it in 2002?

Amit: Uh, I know on the one Simpsons one, I didn't write down the exact sketch. He was referenced.

He wasn't on it. Right. As one of Mr. Burns is like henchman has the ability to reprogram people

Michael: Yes

Amit: and he makes the comment that he was able to reprogram Jane Fonda, but not Peter.

Michael: Yes

Amit: Is that though. Is that the reference? Okay.

Michael: That's

all I found for Peter.

Amit: That's all I found too, but that's a reference.

Michael: It's pretty good.

Amit: It's pretty good. And it's pretty like, it's pretty deep. I mean, it's, it's a compliment buried in a joke. Um,

Michael: the character, I think is called Conform Coworker and he also mentions in the same skit that he successfully got Paul McCartney out of wings, much to Homer's anger

Amit: Out of a

wings, the TV

show?

Michael: No. Paul McCartney was in a band called wings after the Beatles and Homer gets all pissed off about it.

Amit: Oh

Michael: yeah.

Amit: Funny. I thought you were referring to the show where they it's like the two guys in the Nantucket airport.

Michael: Yeah no

Amit: I really had a moment there that like Paul McCartney

was supposed to

Michael: Paul McCartney, was in a

very different wings.

Amit: Yes.

Michael: Finally, SNL, I did see that he was parodied in a very early Saturday night, live with Jane Curtin and a sketch called Josh Ramsey, VD detective, which I don't know anything about that sketch, but I want to

Amit: know more. I don't think you need to know anything. I think you can tell

Michael: VD detective. Yeah, that's pretty funny.

Okay. Plenty famous,

Amit: uh, of, of what we are defining as this era's pop culture. Recognition.

Michael: Okay. I don't know where else to talk about this, but I do feel like I want to talk about his fame because unlike a lot of people on our show, he was sort of born into fame. You're right. That we may not have known his name.

Had he not chosen to go into movies, he could have been just a famous actors kit. Still fame does not look fun to me. Most of the time being recognized on the street, the loss of privacy, it would suck to be. Born in the son of a famous actor. Wouldn't it like that in that, on its face. Isn't it self evident?

Like that's kind of a shitty luck in life.

Amit: Yeah. Because you either follow or you try really hard not to follow. Right. And sometimes you do, but

Michael: less of the person, regardless of how admirable he is as an individual and in Henry Fonda sounds like a distant, emotionally unavailable hard-ass. I mean, there's the story about, and we haven't mentioned this yet, but their mother killed herself and the dad Henry didn't tell them that.

And Peter discovered it years later as an adolescent,

Amit: didn't tell them how she

Michael: died. Didn't tell them how she died yet. Tried to cover up the fact that she committed suicide. Yes. Like that's fucked up. Right? That's fucked up.

Amit: I mean, do you have, you will soon have

Michael: a get, I kind of get it. I know

Amit: what you tell us.

Michael: That they were sick that, you know, it was in a lot of pain and they hurt themselves. Yeah. I

Amit: mean, the situation is inherently very fucked up and very, very hard. Right. And it can, it can fuck up the child no matter what, no matter how it's treated, no matter what's divulged. And

Michael: I think royalty, whether it's actual royalty or Hollywood royalty or any, or political royalty, like being born a Kennedy, like all of

Amit: that looks like it sucks.

Yeah. He's just, don't get a choice.

Michael: Like you're starting with one arm tied behind your back. Either you meet expectations or you figure out how to present for the world, the way you're supposed to. And, you know, one thing in Peter Fonda's credit that he was part of this iconic film about the youth movement and that he is the child of that that stands in such contrast to the previous generation, like good for him.

You know, he talks about, I'd never hungered for fame like that. I didn't have that locked in life, no matter who I was, I was always going to be Henry Fonda's son. He's absolutely famous. He chose to be famous in a kind of different way. He hit the trifecta, as you said, but I, but my heart actually goes out to him.

And I think I like, and as much as this is a conversation about desirability, I don't think I'd want any

Amit: of this fame. I don't want to be born into a famous life. I think that's right. I mean, there's right ways to do it. Right? Like you, we know so little about his own son it's I think it's when you do it and you, are there a fully expected to follow in the same path or you follow on a similar path by

Michael: choice?

Yeah, I think it's also particularly difficult if. In the realm of acting where, what your job is as an actor or an actress, is to play other people and portray characters that people connect or don't connect with. And I think Henry Fonda is emotionally removed and distant from the family. I mean, that's on Henry Fonda's Wikipedia badge.

So I think it's probably pretty goddamn true yet. He's playing characters and 12 angry men and grapes of wrath and so forth that, that America and the viewing public loves and connects with. You know, we never really know who these people are. And if that's your parent and they do that for a living, do you, you know, don't, you always kind of feel like you never really get to know who they are even

Amit: more.

Yeah. Yeah. You, we're also talking about children when they're adults here. Like when you are a child child, you know, you want to be daddy. Yeah. That's a hard thing. I mean, that must be a hard thing when you, when you are an adult and you have an opportunity to be him, that how difficult that can be in that situation.

Michael: I think we're a great, it's a burden.

Amit: I don't know. I don't, I, I, I'm not comfortable saying that as a blanket statement. I'm just saying

Michael: it's complicated. I think it was a burden for Peter Fonda and that's pretty clear.

Amit: Could be okay. Could be. I'm going to give you more likely than not. Category

Michael: seven over, under, and this category, we look at the life expectancy for the year that they were born to see if they beat the house odds, Henry Fonda born 1940, the life expectancy for a man in 19 48, 60 0.8 years.

He died age 79. So you

Amit: beat it. They didn't like, not as much as some of

Michael: our previous guests. Uh, he didn't, he didn't Ross Perot this, but he did. He, did he get, I don't know, 19

Amit: years. It's going to be interesting though. If you're born in 1940, if you are even paying attention to what your life expectancy is, it's going to be like, you will die in the year 2000.

You're gonna be like, whoa, wow. You know, make it, I'm gonna make it to 2000. But Peter lived at 79, 79.

Michael: That's pretty good. I think that's a great number. I don't know if I want to go. I think I said this to you before. I don't know if I want to go that far into my eighties,

Amit: but I know. Um, but it's tough right now.

I think where you and I are because of the ages of our parents. Sure. And I don't like hearing a number like 79 because it's like, you know, my parents are in their seventies now. My

Michael: parents are coming up to

Amit: 79. Yeah. And so it troubles me to think that like, I want to celebrate living to 79 for somebody born in the forties.

No,

Michael: but I do think that's a good run without necessity. I mean, you know, one of the things I love about Peter Fonda's that he aged well, and it did seem like he was pretty vital. Like you look at clips of him in 2018 a year before he died and he's looking pretty damn good. And that's mostly what over-under is about.

It's not just how long do you make it and how long do you make it? And it still looks pretty good gracefully. Totally. Yeah. And you've got, you know, like, can you walk, you know, can't you are all the marbles there. That's. Hoping for it here. And it looked like he did pretty well on that score.

Amit: Yeah. And I think you're going to change your tune on this.

Like don't want to live deep into my eighties thing. I just

Michael: need to see you done in a way that looks really appealing. Cause I see the body's breaking down and I wonder how I would spend my time.

Amit: Yeah. I just think the breakthroughs that could possibly happen in the next 40 years, techno optimists. No, I'm not even saying techno.

What if it's just a plant and I don't mean that in like some psychedelic way, but you know, what if just, you just don't know. You just don't know that however far we get in space travel or whatever that there is the elixir of eternal youth. No, not eternal youth, but of just graceful aging. Yeah.

Michael: Maybe. I don't know.

It feels like it's still a misplaced value demand society. It seems like there's a time to do. Yeah, but

Amit: I, the other side of that is that just like, you're also worried about running out of things to do, that's going to be new

Michael: to boredom. I'll give you

Amit: that, like, who knows where this space thing goes, who knows where all these versions of reality, there may actually be like one of them that, that sits with you.

It just could be very different. It's possible. I'm going to move on. Even with, back to the future too, like that didn't get you excited.

Michael: I haven't seen the hoverboards yet. And I think we already hit

Amit: the same point of that was roads weren't like of that relevant. Yeah. And granted, we delete it a while ago and it didn't happen, but that it was somebody's vision.

Michael: This I'm fighting to have an optimistic view of the future. And maybe that's what this is about when I say I'm wondering how long I really want to go. I just think that I want to make peace with the idea of being mortal. That's part of what this is about. That's part of the reason that's part of the reason somewhere between 79 and 91 feels about.

Amit: Yeah. And that's where I just that's. I think that's where you and I. I dunno, it could be. That does feel about right. If the world continues at the exact same pace of right now,

Michael: this is the problem with the future. As we always take what's going on in project linearly and that's probably an accurate, yeah.

So a good one.

Amit: Yes. We are a linear leak. And to go from category seven to category eight

Michael: man in the mirror, what did Peter Fonda think of his own

Amit: reflection? Did he like the way he looked? I mean, you obviously did. Well, I liked the way

Michael: he looked, but I'm not sure he did really. I wonder if, because I do think the central truth of his life had to do with a very complicated relationship with his father and his shadow.

Always stood and he kind of looked like his dad. Yeah. And I wonder if he saw that and wrestled with that. I wonder if he wouldn't have wanted to face that was decidedly, not a Fonda face.

Amit: Yeah. Even though like the first line of his obituary, he used the word sex symbol clearly, but also used, referenced his father.

Yeah. I didn't think about that angle because I was going to go a resounding yes. Yeah. Just by the mere fact that the overarching theme of this category is physical appearance. And do you like it? Do you carry yourself in such a way that, you know,

Michael: handsome? Do you like it? That's the question. So I have questions.

Amit: You have a question. If you had to put it yesterday,

Michael: I'm going to say no, I think that this is a person who did not get what he needed as a young age, as a young boy. I think that he had a mother who killed himself in a distant father and decided to partake in a profession where he's playing other people, because he's not sure of exactly who he is.

And

Amit: you hypothesize that manifested in his perception of his own physical appearance. That's right. Okay. Interesting. I don't I'm I'm just, I'm going more vanity and I'm going, he was handsome. He was known for being handsome. He was well liked for being handsome when it's that clear that your Anthem, I think you like it.

And so I'm giving a yes on this one. All

Michael: right. Let me ask one more, a question on this though. You do believe that it's possible to be good looking and did not like your reflection though, don't you, or do you, uh,

Amit: yes, I absolutely believe

Michael: that. And that's, that's what I'm theorizing here. Outgoing message.

Did he, like his voice is the next

category.

Amit: So to go back to what your argument against man in the mirror was, I don't know what his father's voice was, but his voice was nice. It was great. Yeah. It fit his image. And especially if I just think of the lines and easy rider, it's just breathy and cool. You know, it's like, it's very cool.

Yeah. So I would have to think, yes, I

Michael: could not agree.

Amit: So Michael, we each do our own set of research. As we prepare for these shows, I notice you always reference a biography and you have like a paperback biography with you as we come to studio. So I am to assume that you're getting these from some online mega Mart. Is that correct?

Michael: No, not at all. The first thing I do when you and I decide on our next dead celebrity, is I go and find out, is there a biography on this person and is that biography available at half price books?

There's a store right up the street from me, an actual brick and mortar store where I can walk in when I go there to find. Do they have a biography for our next debt celebrity, but I always wind up picking up more books. I go through the children's section, I'm a sucker for a good page Turner. So I go through the murder mystery section.

They also have rare collections. They have signed stuff. I don't know how this sounds to you, but I actually, I love the smell of half-price books. It's got that old

Amit: books. Well, I do, I like that too. And that a great smell. Yeah. And you know what? Half price books is currently celebrating 50 years of buying and selling books, movies, and music.

There are more than 120 stores and you can find out more about half price books@hpb.com.

Michael: Okay, next category, regrets, public or private. What we really want to know is what, if anything kept him awake at night? I was not all that creative here. I said the relationship with his dad.

Amit: Yeah. I, well, I took that to a different degree and I said, pursuing acting. Yeah. Which was carrying on that dynasty that may have been conflicting.

He was able to do it in such a way that he represented something very different from the Hollywood that his father was a part of. Ah,

Michael: he represents the break between, you know, the golden age of Hollywood and new Holly. Yeah.

Amit: But I wonder if just that's if ever that was the question. Just like, I mean, it's a question for a lot of people in a choice of career because you have to choose.

Uh, pathway, you know, that pathway branches out in, into many things, especially nowadays, but yeah, just given all we've said, I just have to wonder if acting in general, I'm going to

Michael: resurrect this one. The other public regret I've got is the tweet he had in 2019 where he

Amit: 2018, I'm sorry, 2019 is the year he died.

Michael: That's right. The Tweedy ad in June, 2018 where he said we should rip Barron Trump from the arms and first lady, Melania Trump, and put them in a cage with pedophiles. I don't know why he had to add that with pedophiles BS

Amit: at the end, but I think just to make it, no, I

Michael: know, but it was so he apologized for this, the secret service investigated him for this.

And he said, I went too far. If he had left off that last phrase with better falls and that put bear in pro Trump in a cage, do you think it would have been more forgivable? No, you can't.

Amit: Do you can't touch the children? Not just the presence and politicians with is

Michael: the point he was making. We are touching the children at the.

Amit: Correct, but it doesn't matter. That's like, I think it's not a tit for tat kind of, yeah. This is a show. I mean, our show is, is, uh, covers the topic of fame. But when children are children, you cannot talk about them. At that time later, you can talk about them. You can talk about a 13 year old bear Trump when he is 40, maybe, but you can't talk about it while he is 13.

Well, and he did apologize. Yeah. But he's also, I mean, look at the parallel, right? To some kid that had a lot of problems at age 10, 11 son of somebody, very famous. And here he is at 78 years old, making a very attack, not on Barron Trump at all, but on what's happening politically and the actions being taken at the border.

But he chose to use that as what is the worst thing that could possibly happen is that we expose this child to trauma. Like that's the punishment you deserve for the types of things that you're allowing. That's a really good

Michael: call. The circularity of that. I had not put that

Amit: together. I don't know that it crossed his mind.

Michael: I don't think it did, but I don't think most things cross people's minds. I think the point of this category even is that sometimes we react emotionally and we're not putting thoughts into our actions. And when he says a child should be ripped from his father's arms and put into a cage mother's arms, but the mother's arms a parent's arms and do a cage like he

Amit: who lost his mother at age 10.

Right.

Michael: It is a wrong thing for anyone to say, but it's sort of in the context of this conversation, in the story of Peter Fonda's life, kind of interesting. I

Amit: hadn't put that together and nor did I, until we approached this point, but it's a really wrong thing

Michael: to say. All right, I got two more good dreams or bad dreams, or this is a question.

They have a haunted look in the eye. What'd you come up with?

Amit: I went with bad dreams. I see something, you know, I don't see wide-eyed you've definitely got the cases of losing your mother to suicide at age 10, which granted he didn't know that until age 15, but either way he lost his mother at age 10. He nearly died at age 11 from a self-inflicted accidental gunshot wound.

Those alone. My God could haunt you for life.

Michael: I agree. I went bad. I told you earlier, I went to Google images. I think somebody who set the stage to always be wearing tinted glasses or sunglasses, like he is always wearing those is hiding something. We're not getting a clear look at his eyes. Yeah. I think this is a pretty clear.

Dreams. Yeah. Something there. You and I both independently came to that second to last category, cocktail, coffee or cannabis. I'll just offer mine while I am making things complicated and other categories. I just want to smoke a joint with

Amit: Peter Fonda. You do? Yeah. You just want to do you

Michael: just want to get high with captain America and like sit around that campfire and just be high?

Amit: Yeah. I don't need nothing, nothing more. You just want to shoot hoops with Michael Jordan and you just want to do what you're supposed to do with them, especially

Michael: because for me, this category is often about what lingering curiosity do I have? It's the reason this is the second to last question for me before the VanDerBeek is that, what do I not know about this person that I think I might be able to unlock with some drug and I don't know what lingering questions I have.

About Peter Fonda. There's maybe more that I don't understand, but I feel like I understand it enough and I just wanna get home.

Amit: Yeah, that's good. I mean, I don't, I don't fault you for it. I went simple. I went coffee, but not exactly coffee, like just like an iced coffee or an ice lemonade and just like walking and talking.

And I think some of that goes into the voice that we talked about, this like cool calming voice. And I just think he'd have interesting things to say about just his view on life. Like I did something very similar last week, a guy that I had met just a new guy and all we did was walk on the trail and just taught for an hour while we were literally sipping like iced tea.

I think that's kind of what I want on to fund that. Well,

Michael: we've arrived. We're at the VanDerBeek named after James Zander, who famously said in varsity blues, I don't walk your

Amit: life.

Michael: So based on everything we've talked about, the big question is Amit. Do you want this life? I can lead us off if you want.

Yes, please. As we've gone on, this has become more and more of a resounding no, for me. And I am wondering what I'm missing. Like I'm wondering what the case for the yes is here. I do like how he

dealt

Michael: with his fame. I do like how we dealt with aging. The marriage thing certainly troubles me. The wealth is fine, but the haunted look in the eye more than anything else.

And just a lot. He was dealt in life. I get it. It's a lot of privilege. It looks, you know, he's a sex symbol and he's born into Hollywood royalty without thinking too much about that, you know, a younger adolescent version of Michael might've said. Yeah, of course I want that. I don't see anything. I really am like itching for here.

And I see a lot that I'm wary of afraid of repelled by, and it's not because I don't like Peter Fonda from what I can tell. I like this guy, my heart goes out to this guy. In some ways he seems sensitive. He seems like he's trying, but he also seems hurt in a way that, that I never saw any grand resolution of, and maybe I could keep looking, but yeah, I don't think I want this one.

And I'm even wondering what the case for a yes. Might be. So talk it out with me for a second. Uh,

Amit: well, let me just, let's start with where I land and I have to talk myself through it. So the beginnings are hard. The famous father who's distant, the losing your mother at age 10. That's not even the beginnings.

That's a lifelong. Then you have to endure and the nearly dying at age 11, it's really, really hard to have those and not jump to a no, I look at the path that he carved, you know, of being this sort of counter-cultural cross counter-cultural like what I said about the music and the Hollywood of being an actor that his father wasn't up still kind of honoring your father.

But carving your own path within that hand that was dealt and you were, it was important to a lot of people, not just because he was a good looking man, but he was a symbol of, it sounds cheesy, but a symbol of freedom without being a super freaky Charles Manson type of Pippi, it was just like, you know, we're out to discover America.

That's what easy rider was kind of a bell, but that's really what Peter Fonda played for a long time. It's kind of that like we're out to discover, you know, the

Michael: freedom is a good phrase and I don't think there's anything at all cheesy about it. Time period is about, I think that that's what that movie was all about.

And I think it exists because of him and who he was and how he portrayed.

Amit: Yeah. And I think that's some important, like, I think that's a really important thing to have in a real life. Human being, the major accomplishment. Yeah. And the love life. Again, we talked about that for so long. I can't wrap my head around it, but I can say that he had no periods in which he was wanting.

For anything. He, even if he had three marriages, he went from one to the other. So I'd like to believe that he felt loved throughout. And the latter part of his career was funny at times. Like, you know, he did some of these B grade movies. He made fun of himself. He did an important documentary with, I don't know if it's a documentary or movie, but something with Tim Robbins about the BP oil spill,

Michael: it was in some other good movies.

Three 10 to Yuma is cool. The limeys gray is an escape from LA Muscat from new York's the better movie, but need, give it a shot.

Amit: But he also did some causes without just yelling. He invested himself in some causes. And then I go back to what, what you said about what his sister said, like around his, I don't know if it was.

In the eulogy or just something she said is just like my sweet baby brother is gone. So I don't know. There's some really hard parts, but there's some importance there. And I think it's a good play of a difficult hand. I think there was love there. I think there was admiration from those closest to him as well as from a long fan network.

So I'm going with a yes, not a very strong resounding yes, but I'm going with a yes.

Michael: You're not just being a contrarian.

Amit: I don't know. I don't know if I am that's that someone's going to analyze the data one day and be like, they never agree. They just choose what the other one did or saying.

Yes.

Michael: And I admire you for it. I just don't know how you can talk out all those things and still arrive at.

Yes.

Amit: If I were to just say that you were a symbol of freedom and discussing. And you meant that to not just tens or thousands or a hundred thousand people, and you are loved by those closest to you, you do not have detractors from your siblings, children. Maybe you do it from Dennis Hopper. That's the beauty of, of the VanDerBeek.

You have to weigh all those things in your brain and your subconscious, and you can not assign any math or any weight or say, this is the one thing that pushes it over the edge or keeps it in. But you are just doing some subconscious math and saying, I know all these things, what I wanted or not. And what I think you're leaning to a pretty resounding no.

And I'm leading to a slight, reasonably assured. Yes.

Michael: Squirmy. Yes. Yeah. So, well, let me say one more thing before I leave it, because I will say yes, I started off as a resounding no, I lost some of that resolve in hearing you talk about freedom as a value, because I do know that I care a lot about that. I mean, one of the reasons.

We love the music of the sixties. And we love a movie like easy rider, you know, it's a road trip movie basically, and go out and discover something like I want to be on that life. Quest. I want freedom in my life. I want to have adventure. And if you are known and are associated with that, like, that's pretty cool.

So it definitely makes my resounding no, a little squirmy.

Amit: Yeah. Very few people deserve to suffer well, and nobody wants to suffer. And I think what you're saying is you're just, you're feeling the suffering more. All right. I grew up at the house divided once again where the house doesn't divide though is in our next category.

Cause in our next category, I'm not taking away your role of introducing the category because you will still do. But what we do here is we say, no matter what we said to the VanDerBeek, no matter what we said on everything leading up to this point, we want to make this case that this individual deserves a good afterlife.

And that's what this last, I don't do even call this last one, a category. No, it's just the end of our show. It's the end of our show. But it's like the, the origin story of it is we start with the things we love about this person. And we end with making a case for why they have a good afterlife. And what we are saying is that everybody deserves both of those things.

They deserve to be loved for certain reasons, and they deserve for somebody to make that case for them.

Michael: And this category is the pitch of the pearly gates. So, um, pretend you're Peter Fonda you've died. You've gone to the pearly

Amit: gates. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to take it. I'm Peter Fonda talking to St. Peter.

Oh, look at that. I mean, right there, maybe we just laugh. It's like your name is Peter. My name's Peter. We're connecting already. So 1940 to 2000, 19 two very different Americas. And that changed a lot in this period that we colloquially call the sixties, even though it was before that. And after that, but it's really when the tide turned and we had a lot more belief in granting individualism, freedom discovery, finding yourself, trying to treat everyone as equals.

And I. I had a pretty big part of that. I was in movies and my most famous one. I went around the country with an American flag on my jacket. I was a symbol of what is possible. And I think that's what I stood for in that decade that I, I came up and the country turned and I carried that forward. I've fought for things.

I've fought for liberties until my, my last year on this earth, I was still very concerned about the harms placed on immigrants. I believed in freedom and inequality and I made it a pivotal part of my life. And I did it a while. Giving love. I had a sister who the world may know better than me. I have two children.

I left with a loving wife. I'm just going to leave with this St. Peter and its freedom, equality and love.

Michael: Let me in,

thank you for listening to this episode of famous and gravy. If you're enjoying our show, please go to apple podcasts to rate and review. You can sign up for our mailing list@famousandgravy.com and you can follow us on Twitter at famous and gravy. Our show was co-created by Amit Kapoor and me Michael Osborne, mixing mastering and sound design for this episode was by Jacob Weiss graphic design by Brandon Burke and original music by Kevin Strine.

Thank you again for listening and hope to see you next

Amit: time.