068 Sentient Princess transcript (Carrie Fisher)

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[00:00:00] Amit: This is Famous and Gravy, life lessons from dead celebrities. Now the opening quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

[00:00:07] Michael: This person died 2016, age 60. She offered wry commentary in her books on the paradoxes and absurdities of the entertainment industry.

[00:00:19] Friend: Okay. She's a, uh, like, Ask Emily. Brutus, I don't know. I need more!

[00:00:25] Michael: Okay. Her first book was made into a movie directed by Mike Nichols.

[00:00:29] Friend: So she's a writer. Mike Nichols? Is that, like, the romance guy? I'm thinking Nichols Parker. I'm still stumped. Any more help?

[00:00:37] Michael: She had a recurring role on the British comedy, Catastrophe.

[00:00:42] Friend: What genre is that?

[00:00:43] Michael: It's British comedy, but yeah, it's funny. Anyway.

[00:00:46] Friend: Oh my gosh, I'm getting worried. I don't even know who this person is.

[00:00:49] Michael: She dated Dan Aykroyd and was married to Paul Simon.

[00:00:52] Friend: Um, Wanda Am I way off? Wanda Rattner? No? Okay. Is that her name?

[00:00:59] Michael: I think you're thinking of Gilda Rattner.

[00:01:00] Friend: Oh my god, yeah.

[00:01:03] Michael: But it's not Gilda Rattner who was married to Gene Wilder. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Not Gilda Rattner. Alright. Oh boy. She played Princess Leia in Star Wars.

[00:01:13] Friend: Dang it. I know her name, but I can't think of it. All I can think of is take your broken heart and turn it into art. I know her face. Carrie! Carrie Fisher!

[00:01:24] Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Carrie Fisher. Oh, thank God you got it.

[00:01:29] Archival: You've been very open about your life. Spread Eagle. Have there been consequences in your life for, you know, what some people might think of as oversharing? Oh, I think I do overshare and I sometimes marvel that I do it. But it's sort of, in a way, it's my way of trying to understand myself. I don't know, I get it out of my head.

[00:01:54] It creates community when you talk about private things and you can find other people that have the same things. Otherwise I don't know, I felt very lonely with some of the, um, issues that I had or history that I had, and when I shared about it, I found that others had it too.

[00:02:17] Welcome to Famous Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne. And I'm

[00:02:20] Jennifer: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong.

[00:02:21] Michael: And on this show, we're looking to make life better. We believe that the best years might lie ahead. So on each episode, we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years and we go through a series of categories reviewing their lives to extract wisdom and inspiration.

[00:02:36] At the end, we answer the question, would I want that life today? Carrie Fisher died 2016, age 60. So, before we start, Ahmet is not here today. We are instead lucky to be joined by our friend of the show, Jennifer Keishon Armstrong. Jennifer is an entertainment journalist. She's written a number of books.

[00:02:57] She's appeared on the show before. Uh, she has a new book coming out. When's it come out? January 16th. January 16th. And it's called So Fetch. And it's about the making of Mean Girls? That is correct. Okay, tell me a little bit about the book. Why did you want to do a book about Mean Girls and So Fetch?

[00:03:13] Jennifer: You know, I was really coming at this from interest in Tina Fey and I covered Tina's sort of rise in the 2000s when I was at Entertainment Weekly.

[00:03:24] This is when it was like the heights, you know, like she was playing Sarah Palin. Yeah. 30 Rock was starting all this stuff, but she was coming off of Mean Girls, which was kind of a first big victory for her, besides, of course, you know, being the first female head writer at Saturday Night Live and being on Weekend Update.

[00:03:41] But this really, you know, showed everybody that she could write full length feature films, that kind of thing. Like this put her in a whole new category, and as we have seen, you know, ever since she is one of the most influential comedic voices of the last 20 years, and certainly an idol for a lot of women.

[00:04:04] Michael: And I like what you said there first about Tina Fey as this, you know, feminist figure in the entertainment industry, and ties to today's episode. There is some Tina Fey, Carrie Fisher connection. Maybe you can speak to that a

[00:04:18] Jennifer: little bit? Absolutely. Well, I mean, the first thing is that she actually did a guest spot on 30 Rock and it's one of my favorites.

[00:04:24] I have an idea.

[00:04:25] Michael: We open on a New Orleans abortion clinic. A beautiful mulatto. I don't think we're allowed to use any of those words. Why not? It's live television. I mean, we used to say s t and d k. No, we didn't. Did you? We did, we pushed the envelope. What about race? I mean, I say that is the last taboo. No, no, no, we, uh, you can't do race stuff on TV.

[00:04:50] It's too sensitive. Liz, you're not a cog in their machine.

[00:04:54] Jennifer: I know! It's such a Carrie Fisher moment. It's such a sort of Tina Fey moment. It's like a passing of the torch kind of moment on the

[00:05:00] Michael: show. Yeah. Alright, let's get into it. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary. Carrie Fisher, the actress, author, and screenwriter who brought a rare combination of nerve, grit, and hopefulness to her most indelible role as Princess Leia in the Star Wars movie franchise, died on Tuesday morning.

[00:05:22] She was 60. Jennifer, your reaction. You've also, we should say this, you've written obituaries before. That's the other area of expertise you bring to this. So, I don't know, what's your first reaction? What stuck out to you?

[00:05:34] Jennifer: Ah, my first reaction is like, uh, um. Yeah, I had a

[00:05:38] Michael: little bit of that too. Well, okay, so I can talk about some of the positive things.

[00:05:42] I like that they got actress, author, and screenwriter. Agreed. That was essential, and I think I, before doing the research, didn't appreciate how prolific she was as a writer. I did not know about her career as a script doctor, so I do like that they got that in here. But I love your reaction of, eh, is it too vanilla in terms of its description?

[00:06:03] I'm bummed

[00:06:04] Jennifer: out by the prevalence of Leia. Yeah. I like the nerve grit and hopefulness only because I think what they're trying to do is, like, sneak in some stuff under the auspices of Leia. That's how I'm taking that. And then on the other hand, I just feel like the more I have gotten into thinking about her, the more that I, perhaps like her, went on this journey toward Okay, I guess Leia really was huge and it's hard to really get around that and that that is what she's best known for.

[00:06:37] I,

[00:06:37] Michael: I 100 percent agree. Her role in that movie is obviously very important and I think that there are some, you know, I don't know. I saw a lot of people talking about like what Leia represented in a movie in the 70s in terms of leadership, in terms of, you know, not being a damsel in distress, in terms of, you know, her kind of equality with the other core members of the cast.

[00:07:02] But you're right, it's at the expense of a whole bunch of other things. I suspect Part of that was because she died at 60.

[00:07:09] Jennifer: Yeah. Yeah. Um, there is like, you know, they do talk about the other stuff as the obituary goes on. And like, there's a great line later on that you, you're kind of alluding to, which is Ms.

[00:07:19] Fisher established Princess Leia as a damsel who could very much deal with her own distress. Uh, which I think is a really nice, I almost want, it's like, if you're going to have Leah in the lead, I almost want that there. Um, but as I kind of thought about it more and more, she was a witty. caustic, you know, she could banter kind of princess.

[00:07:39] You know, she really held her own, like you said, with the guys, not just in terms of action, but also like Harrison Ford, you know, they actually have almost this like, um, screwball comedy repartee. And so in that way, there is a consistency between like Princess Leia and her character Marie in When Harry Met Sally.

[00:08:00] And her real life persona, you know, she is always Carrie Fisher in

[00:08:04] Michael: the end. Okay, so one of the things that does have to factor into the first line of an obituary is what you know this person for. You know her from Star Wars, fine. What would be number two on that

[00:08:16] Jennifer: list? In my world, it's probably her role in When Harry Met Sally.

[00:08:20] Michael: That's what I was thinking, but I think actually the thing that she's Second most famous for is her mental health struggles. I think that her struggles with addiction and her, you know, public speaking and forthcoming this again, we're going to get into this about being bipolar. That association was so strong that I actually think that that's right up there almost more than any other movie she was part of.

[00:08:47] So I, and I'm actually a little bit surprised. That they're not mentioned in the first line of the obituary. I would have thought there had been some nod to her mental health.

[00:08:59] Jennifer: If you go to her website, Write the Second, it says mental health advocate. It doesn't say actress, it doesn't say writer, and I think she would be thrilled to be known for that in the end.

[00:09:10] I also

[00:09:11] Michael: think she would be At peace with being Debbie Reynolds daughter and Eddie Fisher's daughter, you know, I mean, she again was born into celebrity. That also kind of feels like an omission here. I mean, this was, she was famous from age two. The more I look at the first line of the obit, the more I feel like There's actually some pretty big omissions here and the outsized attention to Princess Leia and okay great It's nice and kind of cute that you can draw some characteristics between Princess Leia's role and Carrie Fisher the woman As you and I have been talking i've gotten angrier and angrier at this The first line of this obituary.

[00:09:48] However, I also was told by a friend recently Quit being such a jerk when it comes to this. These obits are very hard to write. So I would like you to grade it first. Oh my

[00:09:58] Jennifer: god. I'm so torn. I'm gonna go with a

[00:10:00] Michael: seven. Oh, wow, that's better than I would. Okay, so I

[00:10:03] Jennifer: was gonna go six or seven was kind of my feeling.

[00:10:05] I was I was i'm gonna

[00:10:06] Michael: give it a five. I mean, I I I really think that there's a missed opportunity in terms of her significance as a mental health advocate and this doesn't come close to doing that justice. Plus, you know, grit, nerve, and hopefulness. Those are nice words, but they're not like special words.

[00:10:26] So there's things missing here. I'm disappointed. I'm giving it a five.

[00:10:29] Jennifer: Yeah, you're, you're talking me down too. I, I agree. If those, those words could be especially smarts, like, Smarts and wit. I need some

[00:10:38] Michael: nod to her intelligence because I think it's, I think it's tremendous actually. Yeah. I agree. If not troubled.

[00:10:43] Okay. Let's move on. Category two, five things I love about you. Here we come up with five things we love about this person. Five reasons we want to be talking about this person in the first place. Would you like me to start? Or would you like to start? I could

[00:10:57] Jennifer: start only because I'm going to be really controversial with my first one given everything we just said.

[00:11:02] Hell yeah. Go for it. I'm going to say one. Actually, Princess Leia, this is good. We have to, we have to have it in there. She gave girls a hero when we just didn't have many. And also the, like I was kind of alluding to before, she couldn't help but make Leia a super cool chick. Do you know what I mean? Like think about, you have to remember it's the seventies.

[00:11:28] Right. That's super, super important here. It's not now all of our heroines look like this woman. Now, not look, they literally do not look like her. Yeah.

[00:11:35] Michael: Not with the hairstyle, but

[00:11:37] Jennifer: no, but like all of our heroines are like this. All of them are like super cool. Witty girls who can hang with the guys can give it back to Harrison Ford.

[00:11:46] It's because of her, who she was. I'm, I'm sure of this, that this is why this. Heroin could be this way that she was, they definitely sexualized her, but that's not how I think of her at all. When I think of when I was a little girl, how everyone was Leia for the Halloween, that is partially because, oh my God, whoever came up with that iconic look, congrats to you.

[00:12:10] You did it. Mm-Hmm , it's done. No one else can ever do it again. On the other hand, it's not just that. It's not the buns. and the white glowy dress. It's because we wanted to be the girl that was in it. So I really want to salute her, not because Princess Leia existed, but because of the way she put herself into it and made into, you know, this iconic thing that is a very good thing to have been

[00:12:34] Michael: iconic.

[00:12:35] That actually is not a terrible segue into my first thing I wanted to say. I wrote Great Friend and especially Great, lewd, gift giver. Um, because, uh, I don't know if she saw this, like she gives some really like lewd, um, pushing the envelope kind of gifts. The book you suggested I read, Sheila's book, starts off with a story with her and Salman Rushdie, who is a good friend and Sharon Hogan.

[00:13:04] Yeah. And she got Salman Rushdie. I feel like awkward saying it, but it was a pair of, it was, it was chocolate boobs that he is apparently won't has kept in the freezer ever since. It's like, this is important to him. Um, um, one occasion she gave, uh, her dad, who was a very problematic figure. She got him a stripper like for his birthday.

[00:13:24] And this is like not something. She wants, but she's like, this is, this is important to him. I love these gifs. These show up all throughout this biography and the story of Carrie Fisher. It's a symbol of what a great and thoughtful person she is. And this comes up again and again, what a great friend she is.

[00:13:42] And in a way, you see that in her later movies, especially when Harry met Sally. Like, she is just a gal you want to hang with, and you feel like I don't know. She's vulnerable. She's, you know, but she's got a good take on you. And she does seem like somebody who could live your life better if she were in control of it, right?

[00:14:02] I don't know if she can apply those same lessons to herself, but if she were in control of your life, you'd kind of trust her with it. You're a great friend of people. Yes, I am. You know? I'm the best friend you can have. I don't know about the best life and all the other stuff. Uh, because I'm loyal.

[00:14:15] Because I'm alert. Because I'm fierce. Because I'm, well, I could be accused of being tender. Uh, because I will go the distance with you. Vulnerable. Unfortunately, yeah. And I am weak, uh, and I am, through that weakness is, you would find my strength. But I, that's an unfortunate circumstance. And what's the strength?

[00:14:35] Well, after I am weak for a period of time, you know, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Exactly. Or puts you on a talk show. Every time somebody who's close to her talks about her, like, you just feel this, like, ability to confide and see and, um, and be in close relationship with. So, I love that in our movies, I love that especially as this gift giving thing, but overall, I came away from this research feeling what an incredible friend and what lessons about friendship are in here.

[00:15:04] So that's my number two. All right, what do you got next? What do you got for number

[00:15:07] Jennifer: three? Uh, let's see. I think I'm gonna, because I'm me, I feel like I should have this as my next one. Okay. She made kind of like a comeback or whatever you want to call it. I know some people hate that word. career pivot?

[00:15:20] Yes. By becoming a writer. Yes. I think this is really cool. If there's a way that she kind of lived out the Princess Leia ness, I know that you never live that down, but like there's usually a phase in your life after an iconic character like that when You really don't want to be known for that. People usually come around, which she did.

[00:15:40] But she kind of like, got through that time essentially by being like, you guys, I don't know if you know this, but I am an incredible writer. And she really is good, is the key here. And she does it mainly with postcards from The Edge, which I love that she made. This, it's not even a mid career thing per se, but like a recovery period from her iconic period by becoming a writer.

[00:16:05] And this stays with her right throughout the rest of her career then. She does it in all kinds of different ways. She writes this as a novel. It becomes a movie that she writes the screenplay for. She becomes a script doctor on some big, uh, Cool movies where once you know it, you're like, like sister act where you're like, yeah, that, that checks out, totally checks out and it makes sense for her because she's super well connected.

[00:16:27] So like, you know, she has all these famous friends, so she can get work pretty easily in this way, but is also really good. And then she starts to use it more and more. I mean, it starts from the beginning, but really starts to kind of like use it as. It's her way of dealing with her mental health issues and then becoming a mental health advocate.

[00:16:46] Michael: And I'll pile on to that because I had this on my list as well. I mean, I love a good career pivot. One thing that makes it even more impressive to me, she never graduated high school. All right. This is maybe a little bit. On the nose now, given everything we've talked about, but I my number four, I just have mental health by in the air, and I think it just has to be pointed to, and I think what I really liked about it with Carrie Fisher is that her life and her mental health public advocacy was a Real reminder to me that there is no such thing as normal.

[00:17:18] There's this very famous quote of, you know, people asking her, what's it like to be Eddie Fisher's daughter and Debbie Reynolds daughter. And she's like, you mean compared to what I, when I was an accountant's kid and a car salesman's kid, like it means like, I have no point of reference. I don't know how to answer that.

[00:17:37] There's a couple other quotes I wrote down that I just love. There's one. You can't find true closeness in Hollywood because everybody does fake closeness so well. It's a great line. And then she in 2016, shortly before her death, got this honorary lifetime achievement award from this entity at Harvard.

[00:17:57] And at that speech she said, I've never been ashamed of my mental illness. It never occurred to me. Many people thank me for talking about it. Mothers can tell their kids when they're upset with the diagnosis that Princess Leia is bipolar too. I think that All of this, I mean, you could go on and on about her contributions here and her, I don't know, her willingness to speak publicly about it.

[00:18:19] Maybe she didn't have much of a choice because she's so in the limelight. But I think that, I don't know, this is a real theme of Famous Gravy for me, is that celebrities are symbols. Their lives are symbolic of who we are and their qualities are qualities that we have. They're just a little bit more pronounced or exaggerated or amplified.

[00:18:39] And Saying, like, the world is crazy and I have a hard time with my own self perception and it's led me to this dual diagnosis of bipolar and addiction and, and, uh, substance abuse disorder. And yet I'm smart, and yet I'm talented, and yet I can, I have creative output, and yet, you know, I have close friendships.

[00:19:00] Like, we need to see that, and we need to see that in men and women, and we need to see that in strong women. And every time she spoke about it, I felt really grateful for it overall. So that was my thing. Number four. What I do is I make light of stuff. It better get funny fast or it's just gonna be something that haunts you.

[00:19:18] You, you also write in the book and I openly, I mean about depression and bipolar disorder and I do. You do? Maybe it was my mother's probably mad. My mother once said, 'cause I some show it said I'm mentally ill. She said, dear, you're not mentally ill. You're manic depressive. Do you think there's stigma?

[00:19:36] The stigma you write about. You say there's still a stigma and you don't quite understand why. I don't get it because I think if you're manic depressive and you're living with it, it takes balls. We're the female equivalent. And it's weather. These are moods that happen independently of what's going on in your life.

[00:19:54] Such a pioneer that way. It's a little hard to overstate the contribution here. I think that's part of the reason I was so frustrated with the first line of the obituary, is that I think that, I really think that it was known at the time of her death that she was that kind of pioneer. That's why I feel like the New York Times should have gotten it.

[00:20:12] Absolutely. Obviously, these diseases never go away, and she has to treat them for the, uh, for all of her life, and that's hard, but I do think that, that she finds gratitude in her voice, and as an advocate, as her life goes on, and finds expression for it in her creative output. So, anyway, like I said, we could go on and on about it.

[00:20:31] What do you got for number five? I've got a few other things, uh, but I'll just shoehorn them in. So, do you have something you're

[00:20:36] Jennifer: excited about? I'll throw this out, which is just her incredible sense of humor about her Hollywood upbringing and her parents iconic relationship. Your

[00:20:44] Michael: mother was married to My father.

[00:20:46] To your father. My, uh Hey, these days, you know, that's something. My father was a man named Eddie Fisher, and, uh, he They were best friends with, uh, Elizabeth Taylor and her Husband at the time, Mike Todd. Mike Todd tragically passed away in a plane accident, and my father consoled Elizabeth with his penis.

[00:21:13] I love you. I've always loved you. I love you more every time I see

[00:21:18] Jennifer: you. It's another manifestation of I'm just embracing every part of yourself and also the idea of kind of essentially making fun of yourself before others. All of those things that she does over and over again. Weirdly, I actually think you don't see this kind of honesty that much from Hollywood, from Hollywood royalty.

[00:21:38] They kind of want to act like, right? There's so much about like, Oh no, we're going to act like we're normal. We eat normal cheeseburgers and we, yeah. Like we're cool. We're celebrities. They're just like us. Like they all. Sort of want to act like we want to thank our seven nannies for helping and you're like no one Do you think this is relatable right now?

[00:21:57] Like they want to be relatable, but they like kind of aren't and she becomes relatable by Embracing that this is not normal in a way. Yes. Yes. That's the best way I can say

[00:22:07] Michael: it when you were a young girl Did you want to follow in their footsteps? Did you want a taste of that? Why not? I saw the heartbreak of celebrity.

[00:22:14] I went, get me away from that. And yet at 19, you, you, you go after and you get the role of Princess Leia in the Star Wars films. Did you have any idea how much fame that was going to bring you? Never, and all I did when I was really famous, which was a long ago, was wait for it to end. She also, I just gotta squeeze this in, she had some of my favorite cameos of all time.

[00:22:35] Blues Brothers especially, but the one, you mentioned 30 Rock, I loved her in Catastrophe. The one that never gets mentioned anywhere that's maybe my favorite is Austin Powers. We have some newcomers here today with us. Say hello to Scott and his father, Mr. Avill? Evil. Actually, Dr. Evil. Hello, Dr. Evil. Hello, Scott.

[00:23:04] Hello, everybody. So, Scott, why don't we start with you. What brings you here with us today? I just think, like, he hates me. I really think he wants to kill me. Now, Scott, We don't want to kill each other in here. We might say that we do sometimes, but we, we really don't. Okay, let's recap. So, uh, number one, you said Princess Leia.

[00:23:26] Uh, number two, I said, uh, great friend and great lewd gift giver. Number three, you had Career

[00:23:33] Jennifer: pivot

[00:23:33] Michael: via writing. Yes. Uh, number four, I went with mental health pioneer. And number five, you said

[00:23:39] Jennifer: Sense

[00:23:39] Michael: of humor about Hollywood. Sense of humor about Hollywood. Let's take a break.

[00:23:49] Michael, I gotta tell you about this place. There is a bookstore I discovered, and they have prices on the books. They, in fact, named the store Half Price Books. Are you talking about Half Price Books? Yeah, Half Price Books. No, it's not Half Price Books, it's Half Price Books. It should be Books Half Price.

[00:24:10] It's Half, H A L F. Half price books. Oh, as in one half? Correct. Yeah, half. No, no, no, but I want full books. Oh, no, no, you get the full book, and you get it at a fantastic price. That's why they call it half price books. Well, I think I have to go there now. I think you do have to go there now. Let's start by checking out the all new HPB.

[00:24:36] com where we can find our local store, plan our next trip. Buy online, pick up in store, create our own wishlist, and more. HPB. com.

[00:24:49] Category 3. Malkovich, Malkovich. This category is named after the movie Being John Malkovich, in which people can take a little portal into John Malkovich's mind, and they can have a front row seat to his experiences. Here's my Malkovich. So, she writes postcards from the edge. It's not exactly autobiographical, but you can read a lot of autobiographical elements into it.

[00:25:11] It's about a woman who has to go into rehab for a period of time, and when she comes out of rehab, she has to live with her mother because the Hollywood studios won't insure her. Her mother is also a famous actress. In the biography that I read, her mother Debbie Reynolds is cast as something of the negative character in a way, but her mother also Seems to be Not just okay with the book and the movie but actually likes it and it sounds like they watched it together I'm going to read a little bit here Carrie told interviewers that she was grateful Debbie was such a good sport about being turned into the negative character.

[00:25:52] I feel the argument weighed heavier against the mother in the movie due to the editing and performances, and I feel enormously guilty. A little later on she says, My mother is so fantastic that she can sit and watch that movie and say, Honey, give yourself a break, or let me give you the one that you can't get.

[00:26:09] Do not feel bad about this. I don't. It's a great movie. I don't need a better mother than that. Writing a movie in which your mother is a negative character and having your mother like the movie can be a great perspective shifter for a once resentful daughter. Carrie's gratitude to her mother was real.

[00:26:28] This moment really stuck out to me. So, she is a rebellious teenager and she does have a, you know, contentious relationship with her mother when she's younger. And then she has this bottoming out around postcards from the edge. This, to me, was the real pivot moment in their relationship. I want to be behind Carrie Fisher's eyes after her mother has watched the movie.

[00:26:53] Because there is this, like, I'm telling the story of our relationship, and you're the negative character here, But I think there's also some love in here. What's your reaction to that? There's something about the creative output, the resetting of a relationship, and, like, I don't know. I mean, picture doing that.

[00:27:14] I just wonder what that's like. And who is this for, ultimately? Is this for the audience? Is this for the reader? Is it for the viewer? Is it for us? Is it for me? And maybe those questions aren't important, I don't know. But I want to be behind the eyes after her mom watches that movie.

[00:27:30] Jennifer: That's such a good one.

[00:27:31] It's, I love the, the, I cried at the end of Postcards from the Edge and there's this scene where, because it's when Meryl Streep's, you know, who is the Carrie Fisher character, sings.

[00:27:42] Michael: Pull back them dark and dusted drapes.

[00:27:50] Let in some light

[00:27:56] Tell the bellboy come and get my trunk

[00:28:06] Jennifer: And her mom is like kind of up in the rafters watching her with great pride, and I cry when I see that. I was thinking about her watching this happen, essentially, but you, you nailed it better. Um, I think it's so interesting too that Debbie Reynolds apparently had wanted to play.

[00:28:22] Michael: The mom originally. The Shirley MacLaine role?

[00:28:24] Yeah. Or the role played by Shirley

[00:28:25] Jennifer: MacLaine? Yeah. Yeah. And Mike Nichols just said, the only thing I read is Mike Nichols said, it's not for you.

[00:28:30] Michael: Yeah. I think it's more effective that it's not them. That it is fictionalized. And that they are, and not to mention like, A plus talent, Shirley MacLaine and Meryl Streep, you know, for Christ's sakes.

[00:28:41] Like that, like. It's

[00:28:42] Jennifer: because of who she is. Yeah. I'm sure. Yeah. That they could do this. All right. What's your Malkovich? I chose. The 2010 shooting of the Wishful Drinking special for HBO. And I was thinking about if I had to narrow it down to like one, one moment, you know what I mean? It would be there's at the very end, her sort of triumphant ending is that she gets carried off on a fake gurney by like fake doctors and a fake Jesus into a waiting ambulance outside.

[00:29:10] Which is so like, I just think it encompasses everything that we've been talking about. That's so great about her. Like she just finished the show that they're actually shooting for a wider audience, right? She's been doing this for a while. It's clearly a triumph. And this show is like the culmination to me.

[00:29:27] This might be like her masterpiece. It's the culmination of everything. It's like her humor about Hollywood. It's her humor and insight about her mental illness. It's totally embracing every part of her that probably when she was younger. She thought, Oh my God, I hate this. I would never want to embrace this part of me.

[00:29:46] You know, all of that stuff, push it away. And here she has embraced everything to such great acclaim and also helping other people. And I just think this has to be such a triumphant feeling of just like, I've done what I came to do, like I've done, I've done what I was put on earth to do. I

[00:30:03] Michael: read the book and watched the performance and I agree, there is this culmination to it.

[00:30:08] And it's actually, I know we're not going to do Over Under, but I've been thinking a lot about, it's a complicated question, but I don't know, let's just do it. The completeness of her life. She dies at a young age, right? 60 is an objectively young age, but it's not exactly 35 it's not 18 and there's a lot of people who knew Carrie Fisher at 18 and 35 It did not think 60 was in the cards for her.

[00:30:37] She died young but it Didn't feel like a incomplete life to me in a way, and I guess I just wanted to say that Because you used the word culmination. I guess I bring it up because the theme of death Hovers over this show in a way that I don't know how to think about sometimes, but there is a, a kind of ephemeral quality of completeness that I think I'm trying to understand better.

[00:31:02] Jennifer: Yeah, I, I mean, I did say culmination, like it did, like, and that is what flashed just now. It wasn't when I was thinking about it before, but just when I said it, like I just kind of went like, oh wait, ah, that's so crazy. Like I, and it dis, it really did feel like the culmination of what she was. put on earth to do.

[00:31:18] That's what I keep thinking of it as. This is a person who found the thing and she took every, I mean, even something that just flashed in my head is that would have been a headline in somebody else's life story. But as like a footnote in hers is that she, you know, eventually was with Brian Lord, the agent who is the father of her child.

[00:31:38] And then he. Leaves her for a man. Yeah, I think we're

[00:31:40] Michael: about to get into that

[00:31:41] Jennifer: actually. Yeah. Another man like dies in her bed like this woman made a list of all the worst things that happened to her and made an incredibly funny show out of it and gives like truly great advice. She has all these amazing soundbites about, I'd like to

[00:31:56] Michael: share some of the wisdoms that I've learned from going through all this nonsense.

[00:32:01] First one, resentment is like drinking a poison and waiting for the other person to die. I think that's a wonderful Malkovich. And I wonder if it felt like a culmination to her. I mean, in as much as that's a Malkovich that has curiosity behind it. Um, okay. Jennifer and I decided that we are going to choose two categories next.

[00:32:22] The first of these is going to be love and marriage. And then we're also kind of tacking on family here because it's just fun and interesting in the case of Carrie Fisher. So how many marriages, how many kids, and is there anything public about these relationships? Uh, my god, yes, and we've talked a lot about this so far, but um, she was briefly engaged though never married dan acroyd uh, she left dan to get back with her one husband and the This is hard to figure out exactly how long this relationship lasted because it sounded like they were on and off again They were so she married paul simon In August of 1983.

[00:33:01] They were divorced in July of 1984, but it sounds like they were on again and off again, both before and after the marriage. So when they were actually married, she was 27, divorced. Age 28. This is before she goes to rehab. Anyway, uh, roughly dated Paul Simon starting in 1977 and it kind of on again off again for 12 years And then she did have an affair with Brian Lord who was the CEO of Creative Artists.

[00:33:29] Is that right? Yeah, so like big deal big deal agent Uh, he was the father of her one child Billy They were never legally married, but he did leave Carrie Fisher for a man. So he came out. Um, so some Headline grabbing stuff in that whole history, but why exactly did we decide this was the category? I guess we don't really have to talk about

[00:33:54] Jennifer: this, but what's your take?

[00:33:55] We have to talk about these and we can talk a little, I think we thought we could talk a little bit too about her relationship with her parents and her mother in particular, but like it's hard to ignore Paul Simon. I want to believe that this was like a great love of her life. We'll never know for sure.

[00:34:10] Yeah. Right. I mean, he did write songs about her. She seems to, she seems like she always still had affection for him. Like I always got the, the feeling afterwards that they still had great affection publicly for each other. Yeah. It wasn't like, oh, that jerk. And it's like, we can surmise things at least, right?

[00:34:26] That this was a relationship that spanned her 20s and then a bunch of stuff happens. Like her going to rehab and into mental institutions. So I'm sure she was struggling. Right. And

[00:34:38] Michael: manic episodes and depressive episodes. I mean, it's so hard to disentangle the truths of her lives. I think that there's also You know, the bizarre social environment she's born into being the child of a Hollywood star.

[00:34:53] And I think what makes this really hard for her is power. What kind of power asymmetries and how they would show up in her relationships. Because, I don't know, something I'm looking for in a life partner, and I think a lot of us are looking for in life partners in as much as that's a goal. Is some measure of equality, you know, like too much power asymmetry in any relationship in either direction is I don't know.

[00:35:22] It feels like ingredients for unhealthy relationships That just must have been really hard for her because she certainly talks about how You know, her mother showed her the blueprint for difficult relationships with men, right? Debbie Reynolds also had multiple marriages, and not just multiple marriages, but men who also fleeced her, right, drove the bank account to zero.

[00:35:44] That's right. Um, I mean, I think what's sort of interesting about this category and our conversation around it I always think about this in terms of family and friends and where marriage gets weird. You don't really get a choice about your family, you know. That's right. They, they are who you were born into, like it or not.

[00:36:01] You have, in some sense, ultimate choice over your friends. And say, you know, I, I can. I always have the freedom to leave this friendship if I'm not giving or receiving love in a way that meets my expectations for what relationships look like. Marriage is weird because you're like, you're a friend and now we're going to be family, right?

[00:36:18] So you like cross those streams in some sense. And yeah, I don't know where I'm going with this. Maybe I'm not really making a point. But I think that. She did receive love and was the recipient of love and was the giver of love in friendships. And you see that in a lot of plays. Damn sure see it with her dog.

[00:36:38] That dog is hilarious. Oh, the dog too.

[00:36:40] Jennifer: That should be in this category. Gary should be in this category. Yeah, he kind of was.

[00:36:45] Michael: He kind

[00:36:46] Jennifer: of was. He kind of is. Yeah, he was like on the plane with her at the end, like he was there, he

[00:36:53] Michael: was it. You know he said that tongue sticking out, that dog was hilarious. I don't know, I mean, so I guess like, all of this is to say, if this category is in some sense a question of What do we think we see based on available information and our intuition in terms of the experience of love in her life?

[00:37:12] There are places where I do feel like a persistent deficit may be born out of her own self judgment, but it's not a gross deficit. If I take the sum total of her relationships and look at, you know, her some rough measure of relational wealth in her life, I feel like that is present. I mean, is that more or less what you're seeing too?

[00:37:33] Jennifer: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I also, we haven't really talked about this much because I don't think there's a ton out there about it, but what I have seen of her relationship with her daughter seems good. Yes. Um, you know, so she got a daughter. I think that's super important because she has her daughter at like 36.

[00:37:47] Yeah. And yeah, that relationship quickly doesn't work out, but like. That's key to me. Like maybe she would have gotten married again if she was on the hunt for a child. You know what I mean? Whereas like, she, she had this beautiful daughter. And so, and she see, like, it seems like once again, from what, at least the way she tells it, it's like similar sense of humor kind of being passed down from, you know, the grandparents to Carrie to her.

[00:38:11] They all seem, um, Like they're in a pretty good space. And then she has this, you know, thing with her mother. It kind of looks like a marriage, right? It's almost like a marriage. It's like in the end, these two women who both had their own issues that were different end up in this symbiotic relationship.

[00:38:29] They live near each other. So, oh my god, like everyone pointed this out and I think it's just true. Like her mother dies right after her

[00:38:36] Michael: 20 literally the next day, literally

[00:38:38] Jennifer: the next day that she was like, no, thanks. I'm, I'm good. The

[00:38:42] Michael: cosmic significance and that she and her mother, it sounds like as much as told her brother, Carrie Fisher's brother, I want to be with Carrie and all, but it didn't kill herself, but all, but made a decision to die.

[00:38:53] Or it seemed like that in some grand cosmic sense, it's kind of incredible. Definitely. Okay, let's take a break. The other category you and I decided to do is our poorly described category, outgoing voice message. So, in this category, the idea is to speculate on how somebody felt about the sound of their own voice when they heard it on an answering machine, but probably the more important question is also, would they have had the humility to record it themselves, or did they use the default setting?

[00:39:23] This question of humility and oversharing and, uh, her impulse on it, I think there's Something to talk about there. Let's start with the voice. I love how critical she is of Leia's semi British accent, which, which was the result of Carrie Fisher having done theater training in London. And so when you hear her talk as Princess Leia, it's like, is that an accent?

[00:39:46] And that's just, you know, fresh off the training in London. I'm kind of curious actually, just to spend a minute on this, Jen. Like, her voice has this, you can almost hear it, like, it's, I don't quite know how to do it, but there's this grounding. And you can almost hear it at, like, the roof of her mouth, where, you know, the nose and throat kind of meet.

[00:40:06] Um, you know, like, there's a lot of intonation, and it seems deliberate. And so I had, I had to say at one point to my mother when she was yelling at a nurse, Mom, not cool. Like, how do you think she felt about her voice?

[00:40:22] Jennifer: I want to say that she was into it. I want to say she was confident about her voice in the

[00:40:27] Michael: end.

[00:40:27] And conscious of it, I think. That's the other question. Is there voice awareness with her?

[00:40:32] Jennifer: I think so. I mean, she was essentially a monologuist, you know, toward the end of her life. So I feel like she does have this kind of nasal, um, and there's a little grit to it, too. But, um, if we're presuming she's doing this voice, this, this message later in life, I would say that she has, that she had confidence in her voice in the sense that she was using it in this, you know, it's like a monologue for however long that is more than an hour.

[00:41:01] And I think she had made peace with.

[00:41:05] Michael: I agree with that. I think, I think that there is a lot of self acceptance of who she is and what's going on inside, which I think a little bit where you're getting at there. One question I really have here relates to humility in a way. I mean, she is, I don't want to use the word oversharing because it presumes that you shouldn't be doing it, but I'm just going to use it for convenience.

[00:41:28] She is. Sort of oversharing before social media exists, right? There is this public telling and sort of, you know, sometimes gossipy and scandalous and, but also sometimes, you know, I don't know, real sort of sense making of what the inside of celebrity looks like. I mean, part of, I think what's interesting about Carrie Fisher is, I do feel like some of what social media brings out in all of us Good and bad is Exemplified in her kind of 10 or 15 years before it's available to all of us You know what?

[00:42:06] I mean? And and so I do see her Mental health advocacy as largely being, you know, born of humility and born of choice. And I, and I, I'm sort of like prone to give that more generous interpretation, but I don't know. I also wonder if she feels like, well, everybody's had the cameras on me since day one. So. I guess everybody gets to know everything and it's not a question of humility, but actually a feeling of powerlessness.

[00:42:35] Yeah, I mean,

[00:42:36] Jennifer: you can't really separate her upbringing from everything, right? It's like she starts out like this child of this hugely scandalous and watched relationship. Yeah. And so, you know, we can never know what her life looks like as a, you know, kind of regular person who has the same qualities. Like, would we even be listening to her?

[00:42:56] Would we care? It's hard to know. I

[00:42:59] Michael: think where this gets complicated for me is in what I alluded to earlier about the disentangling of things. I sometimes feel like social media is making us all crazy because now our lives are public and there's this sort of impulse. And all but obligation to be performative in just how great we're doing.

[00:43:23] And some of that is even saying, I'm not doing so great, but I'm going to be performative in how I describe how not great I'm doing. I don't think celebrity made her bipolar. Diagnosis or her addiction diagnosis any simpler. I think it had to have made it worse But would they have been more treatable with the absence of celebrity?

[00:43:48] I don't know I mean, yeah, you you presume so right they all but had to and I think that there's something in her story That feels like a lesson about you know that that Social media technology that's now available to us all that way. And what kind of neuroses and I don't know, character defects and to some extent, uh, mental health conditions are brought out by that, you know, I don't know if any of that's making any sense and I'm not trying to make some bigger commentary on like, boy, social media sure does, sure does suck.

[00:44:18] Or celebrity sure does, but I don't know. I am, I am on some level.

[00:44:21] Jennifer: It does. I mean, there's, that's not, you know, this is a theme of your show for sure. It's the kind of gets in the way to some extent, right? The celebrity, it's like, that's always a mitigating factor of everything else with the person. But it also, I mean, I'm gonna, Oprah has said before something to the effect of like, celebrity just magnifies.

[00:44:39] It's all of your qualities, good and bad, essentially. And I think that that's what's happening here. And what you're saying is like, we're all celebrities to some extent now. Oh,

[00:44:49] Michael: celebrity or even celebrity imagining that happens, right?

[00:44:53] Jennifer: Yeah. Of like publicness or whatever it is. Yeah. That. She's dealing with before the time when the rest of us have to.

[00:45:00] Michael: Like, the, the mega theme of Famous and Gravy is, uh, what were the cards you were dealt and how did you play them? These are just crazy cards to be dealt, Ian. No one

[00:45:10] Jennifer: else has had these cards. No one else

[00:45:11] Michael: had or will ever have these cards. Thank goodness.

[00:45:13] Jennifer: Yeah, right. It's a very specific set of

[00:45:15] Michael: cards. And, and, and there is, you know, I think what's come out of our conversation so far is there's a lot of admiration for how she's played them.

[00:45:23] The question of desirability is separate from that, right? Uh, so maybe let's move on to the next category. Coffee, cocktail, cannabis. This is where we ask, which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity? It's maybe a question of what kind of drug sounds like the most fun to partake with this person, or another philosophy is that a particular kind of drug might allow access to a part of them we are most curious about.

[00:45:46] I assume we both went coffee, cause we can't get

[00:45:48] Jennifer: bored. You got it. We can't get bored. We're not, we're not monsters. Okay.

[00:45:54] Michael: Right. Poor Carrie Fisher. Right. Um, okay. So you were talking as well. I'm trying to derail this one. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but you know, one of the things that I always look for with, with a cup of coffee is like, am I going to be in a great, like sort of engaged, intelligent conversation with somebody?

[00:46:10] I would love to sit down and talk to Carrie Fisher, everybody who's, you know, all the talk show hosts when they sit down with her, like, you're the best. And like, she's got friends, she's smart. Are you contemptuous of talk shows? Not at all. This is my arena. It certainly is. You are one of the best. I'm good at this.

[00:46:29] I'll square off with you. And you're good at it too. I've been told to watch out, not to watch out, but that you have your area of certainty. Yeah. And we're in it. Area of certainty is what? The thing that you know what to do. That's right, and we're in yours. Your own turf. No, you just said it's yours as well.

[00:46:44] Well, so we're, that's why we're doing this together. And the other thing, people did say to me, when she comes on, you're going to love her. She is just perfect for you. I don't know what I would ask, though. I don't know where I would take the conversation. Where would you, if you were given the opportunity, I mean, hell, you'd probably, Do this, you know,

[00:46:56] Jennifer: you have, it's hard though.

[00:46:58] It's hard because she's told us everything. Yeah. So it would, I, in some ways it's like a cop out answer, but in this case, I might just like want to sit down and like, Let it go and let it just go wherever it goes, kind of thing. Mm hmm. I guess I would be kind of curious about some of the turning points we've talked about.

[00:47:15] Like, we've, there's been parts of this, right, where we actually don't have all of the information. And we're like, oh, that's interesting. I'd like to know more. I, I mean, you may be able to guess. I might have some questions about Paul Simon. Yeah. Um, you know, like, that might be a good place to start. Like, was Paul Simon the great love of your life?

[00:47:32] Yeah. Um, is that the reason that you weren't with anyone else, or is it just more of the other stuff we talked about? Just because, like, that's a good starting point of things. I think we've all had conversations. It's like, if youonce you start to get into the relationships, that gets you places pretty fast.

[00:47:47] Michael: I've got something that I think you'll appreciate. I hope so. I I've heard her talk on a lot of occasions with deep affection for LSD. That's not on the table here. That's true. But you have, uh, an interest in psychedelics and Yeah. There is this, like, renaissance right now with psychedelics and mental health and I, I, you know, God, I don't know where exactly to take this, but I am curious to hear you weigh in on, like, I would love to talk to her about her experiences with psychedelics.

[00:48:17] I'd love to know if she ever considered them in a clinical setting for treating addiction and or bipolar and what kind of efficacy she would imagine with that. Because I think she would have something really insightful to say that I'm not sure we're hearing or seeing. in this discussion right now about, with the renaissance of psychedelics.

[00:48:39] Jennifer: Yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, she was a little, I think, if I'm getting this right, she seems a little bit early to have really, I mean, not that no one was talking about their, them as treatment for difficulty, you know, for mental health issues at that time, but it was so like. In John Hopkins lab, you know, not that she couldn't have, if anyone could have access, it would probably have been her.

[00:49:00] But I feel like they start to sweep Hollywood, you know, more like the mid 2010s. Yeah. A little bit later. Like

[00:49:10] Michael: I would really love to hear her take on, on the hope and potentially the perils that we don't hear about, you know

[00:49:16] Jennifer: what I mean? Completely. And I have been more interested in that of late. Cause I don't want to run around just being like, this is.

[00:49:23] Um, but on the other hand, that sentiment

[00:49:29] Michael: is out there right

[00:49:29] Jennifer: now, right? Yeah, for sure. For sure. And I think it's important to note that like not every experience is perfect with this and people have real issues, real problems in addition to all of the good stuff. Yeah. On the other hand, it's just, it does make me wish that she had made it to the point where maybe she could use this versus and had had like electro shock and everything else.

[00:49:48] Like, what do you think, would this be something you'd be interested in? You know, or I'm also kind of. I'm intrigued by the idea of talking about, as a, as an addict, like, I know we've talked about that this helps addiction issues, but I would be, I'm, I'd be interested in hearing like, does this make her nervous?

[00:50:04] Michael: Yeah. What lines does it cross? Does this open the door for, you know, substance abuse in a way that violates a principle of abstinence? Yeah. So basically we both want to have coffee and talk about, talk about drugs, Gary Fisher. Okay, good. I'm glad we're in agreement on that. We found consensus. I think we've arrived Jen.

[00:50:24] Uh, the final category, the Vanderbeek, named after James Vanderbeek, who famously said in Varsity Blues, I don't want your life. God, based on everything we've talked about. This is

[00:50:37] Jennifer: such an interesting one.

[00:50:38] Michael: And I, I can try and lead off without necessarily weighing in on an answer. You know, a recurring theme has been this upward staircase.

[00:50:47] You pointed out her career pivot into writing, and that's important. And I think that there is, um, there is an ongoing effort to deal with some really, really hard cards dealt. There's a lot of impact legacy in meaning. I also am very aware of my inabilities to really understand the depth of pain that she experienced.

[00:51:12] I think I also probably cannot, empathize with the heights and, you know, feeling of elation that I think was also maybe part of manic episodes, maybe part of certain drug episodes. Like there, there's a lot of emotional amplitude in both sides in this life. The young death gives me pause, the lack of a life partner gives me some pause, but the deep committed friendships and the interesting You know, story of it all.

[00:51:42] Ugh, I'm right on the bubble. What are you thinking of? Like, what's going through your mind as you weigh this question?

[00:51:48] Jennifer: Yeah, and I really didn't come into this with an answer, because I was like, ugh. Uh, I think it would be so hard. I mean, I know this is very existential. I'm like, me and my body, if I had to suddenly go into her experience, I think I'd have a really hard time with the mental health stuff, but I think it would be so scary.

[00:52:06] That's the way I'm trying. That's like what I'm thinking of is for me personally, I've struggled with anxiety. And like, when that comes on, it feels so scary. And I'm guessing hers was much more than mine. And so I just think that part would be just Really hard to do, on the other hand. Like the resilience that she showed and like, I think there's nothing better in the world than to see like a grand struggle and someone over, I think she overcame it.

[00:52:37] I don't even really know that much about like the details of her death and stuff and I don't really

[00:52:40] Michael: care. Yeah, I don't either. I mean, I can, I guess just because I looked into it, I was curious about this. The toxicology report came out later and there were some drugs in her system. Did she have a relapse and what was the magnitude and like you said, I don't give a shit actually because yeah, whether or not she was sober the moment she died is actually I don't think Yeah,

[00:53:02] Jennifer: I just think like the way that she overcame this, we've seen so many other people, so many other Hollywood stories where people didn't partially or totally overcome these kinds of struggles.

[00:53:14] I'm thinking weirdly because I guess it's just been in the world. In the past couple years of like Britney Spears, you know, she's not there yet by far, but telling her story was a huge first step. And I think of the way that Carrie Fisher was able to embrace her story and tell it in this way of that you can tell she processed it.

[00:53:34] You know what I mean? Like, that's the thing about watching like wishful drinking is there's a feeling not only of like, Oh, she's starting to come to terms with it, or she has a little bit of a sense of humor, like she's processed it, she's made it, she's made meaning out of it, and she's bringing it to you.

[00:53:47] Yeah. And that is so huge. On the one hand, I would hate to have to experience what she has. And on the other hand, I would love to have shown the strength to overcome that and turn it into art. Well

[00:54:01] Michael: said. So, does that leave you as a yes, then? I guess I'm a yes. Yeah, no, we're gonna make a call. Look, it's a yes today.

[00:54:08] I guess I'm a yes. Okay. Okay. No, God, I mean, Jesus, you made a hell of an argument just now. And I think that I'm there with you. I think I'm also a yes. I want to put a major asterisk on it. I mean, I think that famous engraving is ultimately Meant to be an empathetic exercise and to try and imagine and I can't think of somebody We've done on the show where I've been more cognizant of my inability to empathize and in saying yes I don't want to make a claim here that I Understand the level of that pain and what that torment inside can feel like that said when it's described and when it's described By her it's not Unfamiliar.

[00:54:55] It's not totally alien. It's like, you know, I don't think I have a bipolar diagnosis, and I don't think I'm a candidate for that, but I still, this sounds so dangerous to say, but I, I think I, I get it. I, I, at least I can get approximate it, but it's also, you know, nothing more than an imagining anyway. So I don't know.

[00:55:15] I guess I, whenever I say yes, given the circumstances, or say no. You know, I just want to acknowledge the limitations of the whole thought experiment to begin with exactly. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, but i'm a yes, too. And I think it's the upward staircase. I think it's the Relational wealth. I think it's the unacknowledged legacy and I think it's like As time goes on who knows how history is going to regard these things But I I think that she's a really fascinating and important figure who influenced a lot of people including tina fey And I think in as much as like the phenomenon of celebrity is something to be understood, which I know you're interested in as well.

[00:55:56] Yeah. I think she's like an outstanding case study. So there's a lot more to be like taken apart here and understood.

[00:56:08] Jennifer, you are Carrie Fisher. You have died. You have ascended to the heavens. You are standing before St. Peter, the Unitarian Proxy for the afterlife, you have an opportunity to make a pitch. What was your grand contribution to the stream of life?

[00:56:26] Jennifer: Well, I was dealt a very specific and at times difficult set of cards.

[00:56:32] I overcame great challenges and I used my unique talents and a great deal of vulnerability to do an incredible service to people struggling with mental health. Turning my suffering into art in the best possible way. Let me in.

[00:56:54] Michael: Thank you so much again to Jennifer Keishin Armstrong for that conversation. Again, her new book is called So Fetch, The Making of Mean Girls and Why We're Still So Obsessed With It. It's available January 16th, wherever you get your books. Famous and Gravy listeners, we do want to hear from you. If you want to participate in our opening quiz where we reveal the dead celebrity, email us at hello at famousandgravy.

[00:57:16] com. If you're enjoying our show, please tell your friends. You can find us on TwitterX, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Threads. Our handle is at Famous and Gravy. We have a newsletter you can sign up for on our website, famousandgravy. com. Famous in Graveyard was created by Amit Kapoor and me, Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss.

[00:57:34] Original theme music by Kevin Strang. Thank you so much for listening. See you next time.