Speaker 1: From Workhouse Connect and aj Benza.
Speaker 2: Fame. He'd like to be walked on a leash and
Speaker 2: play really dirty kinky sex games.
Speaker 1: Is uh the guy put the cock in the peacock network. Okay, bitch, Hey.
Speaker 2: Everybody aj Benzi here with fame is a bitch.
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Speaker 2: is strange to me. I would think you'd want to
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Speaker 2: either way, I'm gonna give you a free show once
Speaker 2: a week. Drum up some more business, some more interest.
Speaker 2: And while I have all of you, let me just
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Speaker 2: been going great. Five days a week. We've got Politics
Speaker 2: is a bitch. Every Sunday, We've got every Thing is
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Speaker 2: once a week. And Relationships is a bit between me,
Speaker 2: Mike and Arena Wood our relationships Guru. She is married
Speaker 2: to our best friend Kenny Wood. So I'm out there.
Speaker 2: You can hear me everywhere. But I'm gonna give you
Speaker 2: a free show every week. Hopefully that'll motivate you.
Speaker 1: Guys to want to hear my silly voice every day.
Speaker 2: My get sick of it in time, but not a
Speaker 2: bad thing to have handy when you want to hear it,
Speaker 2: when you want to hear good gossip, but just old
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Speaker 2: I mean, you name it, I've got them all. I've
Speaker 2: been out here living the crazy life for well, I'm
Speaker 2: sixty three now, so let's say my life's been crazy
Speaker 2: for fifty years. First thirteen were kind of normal, I suppose.
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Speaker 2: One C one t Okay, let's talk about Hollywood before
Speaker 2: I jump into a story about a famous choreographer that
Speaker 2: I'm sure many of you are familiar with.
Speaker 1: The first thing I want to bring up.
Speaker 2: Before I get into that, I'll just give you a
Speaker 2: taste of the kind of stuff I do on my
Speaker 2: Patreon show, and that is the fact that I've been
Speaker 2: at this gossip game for over thirty years, and not
Speaker 2: only do I know plenty of people and just know things.
Speaker 1: In general.
Speaker 2: I have this crazy, spidy sense about what's going on,
Speaker 2: and I've been proven right hundreds of times in the
Speaker 2: last eight years that I've been on on this podcast.
Speaker 2: But real quick, the Keith Urban Nicole Kidman split, everybody's
Speaker 2: kind of trying to figure.
Speaker 1: Out what happened.
Speaker 2: You've heard the rumors about well twenty years, and they
Speaker 2: started to just kind of separate. It happens to people.
Speaker 2: There's another roomor out there that at this silly that.
Speaker 1: Keith was wearing a lot of Nicole's wigs.
Speaker 2: I'm not privy to knowing how many wigs the cole
Speaker 2: Kivin has or how many she wears, but there's a
Speaker 2: silly rumor out there that he was.
Speaker 1: Wearing her wigs.
Speaker 2: I've never seen him in a wig. Maybe they do
Speaker 2: that at night when they get hot and heavy. I
Speaker 2: can't even imagine it because every picture I see of
Speaker 2: them together on the red carpet, she's wearing flats and
Speaker 2: he's wearing Frankenstein's shoes with like three or four inch
Speaker 2: platforms on the bottom of dress shoes.
Speaker 1: It's comical.
Speaker 2: Not alone could drop a couple apart when you're five
Speaker 2: to eleven five ten and he's five six. That's trouble.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're all the same height lying down, but
Speaker 2: still movie stars and recording artists walk together on red carpets.
Speaker 1: Looks a little silly.
Speaker 2: You really see his feet or her as in a picture.
Speaker 2: She also bends her knees to make leaf she short anyhow, Look,
Speaker 2: I mentioned the other day on the show that the
Speaker 2: Keith more or less has been dabbling back in the
Speaker 2: cocaine the cocaine funny had before Nicole and during Nicole
Speaker 2: at the beginning of their romance, she put her foot
Speaker 2: down and said, you gotta go to rehab if you
Speaker 2: want this to be serious.
Speaker 1: And he spent three months in rehab before he supposedly
Speaker 1: kicked the habit.
Speaker 2: I've heard that that was part of the drama, that
Speaker 2: he's been dabbling too much and she's not happy with it,
Speaker 2: and she realized she couldn't change him. Hard to change
Speaker 2: somebody at that age when they've been doing something for
Speaker 2: a long time and without you. What I'm hearing that
Speaker 2: makes more sense is this situation that possibly he had
Speaker 2: a fling or a fair or strong like, a strong
Speaker 2: liking strong liking, that's the word liking. Affection for his
Speaker 2: guitar player named Maggie Ball. Maggie, I think he's twenty
Speaker 2: five years old. Cute girl, plays a mean guitar, always
Speaker 2: next to Keith on stage, singing into each other's mouths,
Speaker 2: as singers and guitar players often do. That can create
Speaker 2: a kind of a sexual vibe. Of course, So the
Speaker 2: rumor is that they had a flame. And here's the
Speaker 2: thing that bothers me most. And here's why I think
Speaker 2: this is true. This is where my spidy sense comes
Speaker 2: into play. When this thing broke, somebody got a hold
Speaker 2: of the rumor that the guitar player or somebody had
Speaker 2: his eyes on So they reached out.
Speaker 1: And found her father.
Speaker 2: And her father commented, which you shouldn't ever comment on
Speaker 2: your movie star or recording artist children. They're big enough
Speaker 2: to do their own pr don't talk for them. Let
Speaker 2: them talk. And he said something to the effect of, no,
Speaker 2: I can't of it together. I mean, I mean, was
Speaker 2: there a problem?
Speaker 1: No? Is he having an affair? No? No, no, that's
Speaker 1: not true. Is your daughter having an affair? No she's not.
Speaker 2: Okay, fine, thanks dad, But Maggie Bough has a boyfriend
Speaker 2: and has had a boyfriend for a while. And if
Speaker 2: you're her and the rumor's out there all the newspapers
Speaker 2: and websites and magazine newspapers, I'm dating myself, all the
Speaker 2: places in the world where we get news. If that
Speaker 2: little kidbit is out there.
Speaker 1: If you're a Maggie Baugh and you've got a boyfriend
Speaker 1: you love, you immediately shut down the rumor. Keith Urban
Speaker 1: should have shut it down as well. None of them
Speaker 1: did it. Why would you do that, especially if you're
Speaker 1: Maggie Baugh. Why keep that rumor hanging over your head?
Speaker 1: Cut it down and say no. If you indeed love.
Speaker 2: Your boyfriend, let him know how much by saying that's
Speaker 2: a ridiculous comment. We're strictly professionals who tore together and
Speaker 2: have toured together for X amount of years.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: But there's no rumor. I love Nicole and Keith both.
Speaker 2: They're wonderful people. I wish them well. That's how you
Speaker 2: handle it. You don't keep your mouth shut and let
Speaker 2: people decide whether or not you're banging Keith Urban. At
Speaker 2: least she's just as short as he is, so that
Speaker 2: works to her advantage perhaps. Anyhow, that's food for thought
Speaker 2: and those are the kind of things I like to
Speaker 2: get into on the Patreon ship or a virtually unfiltered
Speaker 2: But I'm gonna turn the clock back now to like
Speaker 2: eighty ninety years ago, because last week I went on
Speaker 2: the show and I was asked what my favorite episodes
Speaker 2: of Mysteries and scandals were when I hosted that back
Speaker 2: in the late nineties, and I gave a bunch of
Speaker 2: answers to Peg and Twhistle who jumped off the Hollywood
Speaker 2: sign the Black Dahlia.
Speaker 1: Oh, there's so many George Reeves.
Speaker 2: I mentioned Ramon Navarro, who was beaten at death with
Speaker 2: a wooden dildo bro given to him by Rudolph Valentino Azimov,
Speaker 2: a big old lesbian or a sex club kind of
Speaker 2: a not a sex club, but I hang out in
Speaker 2: Hollywood where all the stars could go and not be
Speaker 2: seen and do the drug day life. Men could be
Speaker 2: with men, women with women. Nobody was the wiser. Anyhow,
Speaker 2: I thought of another show that I liked a lot
Speaker 2: because it really well, it struck home, and I'll tell
Speaker 2: you why I toward the end of this episode. But
Speaker 2: I'm gonna talk about Buzzby Berkeley, the famous boreographer.
Speaker 1: This is back in the thirties and forties. He was
Speaker 1: a household name, you know, W. C. Fields, may West.
Speaker 2: There were there were many many stars that were household
Speaker 2: names back then, and these folks making a fortune back then.
Speaker 2: So we're going back ninety eighty years ago. And when
Speaker 2: it came to musicals and all these elaborate dance numbers
Speaker 2: you see in the old movies, Buzzby Berkeley's films were
Speaker 2: pretty much often described as the ultimate expression of what
Speaker 2: Hollywood's glitz and glamour should look like. And if you
Speaker 2: think about all of film history, there really haven't been
Speaker 2: too many choreographers who can lay claim to the kind
Speaker 2: of success that Busby Berkeley gained as well. Just a
Speaker 2: visual stylist and somebody that was completely original and way
Speaker 2: ahead of the curve.
Speaker 1: And he was so ahead of himself. He was behind.
Speaker 2: That's how much he knew, and that's how much he
Speaker 2: poured into the movies and the dance numbers he choreographed. Really,
Speaker 2: outside of Bob Fosse who Life Story I love, foss
Speaker 2: only choreographed five movies, and I can't think of any
Speaker 2: other one who did. I mean, Berkeley had at least
Speaker 2: eleven under his belt before he died, so clearly he
Speaker 2: was head and shoulders above all the others who held
Speaker 2: the job since he did.
Speaker 1: But you gotta remember when he came out. When he
Speaker 1: came out, it was throwing the Great Depression.
Speaker 2: And back then, whenever people bought tickets to one of
Speaker 2: his films, they didn't go to the movie.
Speaker 1: DIDs wanted to see a particular start. They didn't care
Speaker 1: who the story even was, they didn't care.
Speaker 2: Who directed the picture, they didn't care what the story
Speaker 2: was about. They just wanted to see something visually dazzling.
Speaker 1: And they knew as soon as they sat down in
Speaker 1: that theater and the projective began to flicker, they were
Speaker 1: gonna feel differently and leave that theater and in a
Speaker 1: tremendously good mood, which is not always the way it
Speaker 1: works out nowadays. And the sequence, the dance sequence, is
Speaker 1: that he created God, go look at his movies.
Speaker 2: I mean, some of the most beautiful sequences ever put
Speaker 2: on film. This is obviously way before CGI, and there
Speaker 2: weren't many special effects that these directors or choreographers could use.
Speaker 2: And to this day you look at his movies and
Speaker 2: you're gonna still go, oh my god, how did they
Speaker 2: pull that off? What kind of a step is that?
Speaker 2: How did he shoot this thing? Where's the camera? You're
Speaker 2: gonna ask yourself a thousand questions next time Turner Classic
Speaker 2: Movies runs a marathon of his of his films, sit
Speaker 2: down and watch what he was able to accomplish while
Speaker 2: most of his colleagues in Hollywood was still trying to
Speaker 2: figure shit out. But even though he was, you know,
Speaker 2: recognized as a legitimate genius, of course, he, like many
Speaker 2: other creative people, had personal demons.
Speaker 1: We've seen plenty of those. I've had plenty of those,
Speaker 1: fought them off, continue to fight them off. It's a
Speaker 1: lifelong battle for some people. And as a result, his
Speaker 1: story serves and his life serves as.
Speaker 2: Just another example of what we always say, there's a
Speaker 2: fine line between genius and insanity, between brilliance and insanity.
Speaker 1: And that's where his life was. And let's go back
Speaker 1: to eighteen ninety five when he was born in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: It was born William Berkeley, but he went by. His
Speaker 1: parents gave them the nicknamed Busby after the actress Amy
Speaker 1: Busy Busby. She was popular on Broadway at the time.
Speaker 2: So man, they had their sight set on this kid
Speaker 2: right away, and he was a MoMA's boy, inseparable from
Speaker 2: his mother.
Speaker 1: I mean, it gets kind of great.
Speaker 2: It gets, you know, after he got older, she still
Speaker 2: lived with him most of his adult life, and this.
Speaker 1: Includes four of his six marriages. That might be why some,
Speaker 1: many of them failed wives, don't want their mother in
Speaker 1: law in the same kitchen, in the same house.
Speaker 2: They don't want to smell their perfume. We're here, they're talking.
Speaker 2: Coughing is easy. They just want to be with their
Speaker 2: man and a kid or too. But here's where things
Speaker 2: get interesting. As a teenager, he attends a military academy upstate,
Speaker 2: New York and eventually serves as a.
Speaker 1: Field serves in a field artillery.
Speaker 2: Unit in World War One, and what he gained from
Speaker 2: that was that he realized he liked and really enjoyed
Speaker 2: the structure and the precision that military life offered. I
Speaker 2: feel the same way. I just didn't have the balls
Speaker 2: to enlist. I was petrified of war. I looking back, man,
Speaker 2: it would have been a great thing to do, to
Speaker 2: serve for your country. It really would have been. But
Speaker 2: hey can look at a review mirror.
Speaker 1: So the war ends and he's continuing to serve as
Speaker 1: a conductor for US Army parades and some of the
Speaker 1: stage shows day threw, and that's when he discovered that
Speaker 1: he had a talent for organizing marching units.
Speaker 2: And before long he was directing battalions of over five
Speaker 2: thousand men. And it just got bigger and it got
Speaker 2: more complex as time went on. Eventually he leaves the
Speaker 2: Armed Services, didn't have a lot of prospects for jobs
Speaker 2: lined up, so he went to Broadway trying his hand
Speaker 2: on stage, which is sounds pretty simple. They went to
Speaker 2: Broadway and tried his I mean it's not that easy,
Speaker 2: but he went tried his luck.
Speaker 1: Couldn't really act, so that didn't get him any work,
Speaker 1: but he got a name from That's all you need
Speaker 1: in this town.
Speaker 2: People need to know your name. Once they know your name,
Speaker 2: they'll figure out what you do best. And what he
Speaker 2: did best was organizing chorus lines. I know, sounds a
Speaker 2: little fay, but he wasn't. He was a heterosexual man,
Speaker 2: many marriages, many affairs. But the thing is he really
Speaker 2: didn't ever aspire a career in choreography. But you know,
Speaker 2: after all those years of taking part in those army drills,
Speaker 2: he developed his talent and it was undeniable, but it
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with the military. So because his name,
Speaker 2: because of the name for himself, his name got around
Speaker 2: Hollywood and people start looking turning their heads, and he's
Speaker 2: on the fast track to become a star.
Speaker 1: So the movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn offers him a contract
Speaker 1: to come to Hollywood, and the job he got back
Speaker 1: then was to his insist on several films that had
Speaker 1: a lot of elaborate singing and dancing numbers. And this
Speaker 1: was the beginning of the dawn and sound in the
Speaker 1: film industry. And that's when if you go back to
Speaker 1: that era, so many movies we're just musicals.
Speaker 2: I personally can't watch them. Rosalie used to love them
Speaker 2: as a kid. But they might still stand up if
Speaker 2: you enjoy dancing, but I'd rather a drama. But they
Speaker 2: were the big thing back then, for sure. And it's
Speaker 2: not just me telling you that. If you look back
Speaker 2: in history, people poured into the theaters to see Buzzby
Speaker 2: Berkeley's musicals forty Second Street, Footlight Parade, gold Diggers of
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty three, this title I Love Dames and Fashions
Speaker 2: of nineteen thirty four as well as in Caliente and
Speaker 2: Wonder Bar with the Lauris del Rio, beautiful de Lauris
Speaker 2: del Rio, who Buzzby Berkeley had a fleet with before
Speaker 2: she moved on to the equally talented and just as
Speaker 2: nuts Orson Wells. So now we're at nineteen thirty three
Speaker 2: Warner Brothers making a picture called forty Second Street. As
Speaker 2: I said, and by that time the studio had Jack Warner.
Speaker 2: He had this feeling that I think the public's getting
Speaker 2: sick of the same old bullshit song and dance routine.
Speaker 1: They see this all the time in the movies.
Speaker 2: So the last minute, Warner gets rid of all the
Speaker 2: musical numbers planned.
Speaker 1: For that film.
Speaker 2: It's kind of hard to even think of that film
Speaker 2: without dance numbers. But Jack Warner, head of the studio,
Speaker 2: they're out.
Speaker 1: So to get.
Speaker 2: Around this last minute bullshit maneuver, the great producer Daryl
Speaker 2: Zenitt hired Berkeley to do the choreography, but he had
Speaker 2: him to shoot all the sequences at night when the
Speaker 2: studio heads were no longer. There can't do that today.
Speaker 2: Everybody works in the studio knows what you're do and
Speaker 2: they know way or on the lot, what stage you're
Speaker 2: on et cetera, and all the penny pinches these days,
Speaker 2: and the accountants watching how much money is spent, Not
Speaker 2: to mention social media. It could never happen today, making
Speaker 2: people work at night, and no one figured out.
Speaker 1: And after that was.
Speaker 2: Done, Daryl Zanik tacked all the musical numbers onto the
Speaker 2: end of the film and gave it to Warner as
Speaker 2: a final result.
Speaker 1: And believe it or not, it was great. It actually
Speaker 1: was revolutionary.
Speaker 2: The forty second Treat was one of the original backstage dramas.
Speaker 2: It has three big dance songs, shuffle Off to Buffalo,
Speaker 2: I'm Young and Healthy, and of course forty second Street.
Speaker 2: All three of those numbers last twenty minutes. That's unheard
Speaker 2: of nowadays. They tell you this scene can't come more
Speaker 2: than thirty seconds. For us, the viewers is going to
Speaker 2: try to channel unbelievable. See what social media has done
Speaker 2: to us, MTV, all these things did to us.
Speaker 1: This fact, the fact that we need instant gratification. You
Speaker 1: can't just allow things to move on and progress. No,
Speaker 1: I want it now, and I want it all.
Speaker 2: So didn't take long for Berkeley to figure out the
Speaker 2: power of the moving camera, and.
Speaker 1: He would he had these shots.
Speaker 2: He would he would track and follow the motions of
Speaker 2: all the dancers, plenty of dozens and dozens of dancers,
Speaker 2: and he would sometimes fly around and above them on
Speaker 2: wires or on big.
Speaker 1: Purchase that were built. It was unheard of and it
Speaker 1: was stunning. Go look at his movies. In addition to that.
Speaker 2: He contributed one of the most famous lines, you're going
Speaker 2: out there a young stuff, but you gotta come back
Speaker 2: a star. That's forty second Street. And that's some of
Speaker 2: the reasons why it became one of nineteen thirty three's
Speaker 2: biggest money makers, nominated for Best Picture. But more important,
Speaker 2: amid Busby Berkeley, one of the most sort of after
Speaker 2: talents in the biz, also saved Warner Brothers from bankruptcy
Speaker 2: touring the Great Depression. But he wasn't easy on anybody.
Speaker 2: This guy would work dances until their feet bled. He
Speaker 2: had this you know, he came from the military, and
Speaker 2: he had this perfectionism about him. And you know, many
Speaker 2: actresses don't really come to the stage or the set
Speaker 2: thinking that way. But you know there's one particular dancer,
Speaker 2: Eleanor Powell was dancing one of the numbers and she
Speaker 2: kept dancing despite everybody seeing and her complaining about the
Speaker 2: blisters on her feet, and they began to bleed because
Speaker 2: he wouldn't he wouldn't stop until he was absolutely one
Speaker 2: satisfied with every movement. Very demanding dude. You know, he
Speaker 2: ran as a as a drill sergeant of the army.
Speaker 2: He ran these rehearsals like a drill sergeant, and he
Speaker 2: would plan every detail, every formation, and he expected his
Speaker 2: dancers to do what he said, when he said it, and.
Speaker 1: For how long he needed it. He was that kind
Speaker 1: of guy.
Speaker 2: Wasn't really focusing on artistry as much as athleticism. And
Speaker 2: if you watch his movies, how the girls were seemingly
Speaker 2: all synchronized in their movements.
Speaker 1: And if you remember, there's.
Speaker 2: A lot of shots of what looks like a kaleidoscope,
Speaker 2: which I used to pronounce the kid is kalidioscope, but
Speaker 2: the kaleidoscope, remember those things. And through the kaleidoscope you
Speaker 2: could see all these showgirls and these geometric patterns with
Speaker 2: intense precision, and the visual effects were stunning, and it
Speaker 2: really it began to objectify, and even some said dehumanize
Speaker 2: the dancers and not really treated them as people, but
Speaker 2: as elements of part of the film, kind of deep.
Speaker 1: Grueling work conditions didn't bother them at all.
Speaker 2: Back then in history, course, girls did have it hard.
Speaker 2: Dances were forced to dance for a very long time,
Speaker 2: They didn't get paid a lot of money, and they
Speaker 2: were judged on their appearance period.
Speaker 1: There was no.
Speaker 2: Dei back then. You got the game because you were
Speaker 2: good or very good to look at. And that perfectionism
Speaker 2: made things even.
Speaker 1: Worse for these girls.
Speaker 2: They'd work, like I said, till their feet bled. You
Speaker 2: could see some blood come through their white Kipezia dance shoes.
Speaker 2: And because his films are so popular with the public,
Speaker 2: then of course he's given complete artistic control over the
Speaker 2: musical numbers. You can see the dancer's eyes rolling back
Speaker 2: in their heads when that news was announced. But with
Speaker 2: that power, he began to push both himself and the
Speaker 2: technology he was using well that was available to him
Speaker 2: to all of Hollywood at the same time. And in
Speaker 2: the process of doing that, a new art form was born,
Speaker 2: and it was something that never previously existed on such
Speaker 2: a grand scale. I mean, he had these visions that
Speaker 2: were so elaborate that Warner Brothers was forced to build
Speaker 2: one of the largest sound stages ever constructed.
Speaker 1: Just to film these musical numbers. Sometimes he'd have holes
Speaker 1: cut in the roof of the studio, of the set,
Speaker 1: and he'd be up on the roof filming down, you know,
Speaker 1: having people hold his legs. Just insane shit, very hard
Speaker 1: to create these sequences, and he never ever wanted to
Speaker 1: repeat any of his past accomplishments, passed movements, past sequences.
Speaker 1: Everything had to be original every time out, always trying
Speaker 1: to top himself. And between that and the constant demands
Speaker 1: from the studio brass, combine with his life being what
Speaker 1: it was, he was living in the middle of a
Speaker 1: pressure cooker. And what do you think happens when these
Speaker 1: actors or dancers, directors.
Speaker 2: Anybody in Hollywood. What happens when you're living in a
Speaker 2: pressure cooker. Well, of course he began to drink like
Speaker 2: a sailor on leave, and he would work till three
Speaker 2: four in the morning.
Speaker 1: Now, if you've seen any of his movies, you know
Speaker 1: that some of his musical numbers featured water, a lot
Speaker 1: of girls diving in the pool at the same time.
Speaker 1: You've seen those synchronized swimming at the same time as well,
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you why he used water.
Speaker 2: Water made him relax because when he was stressed out,
Speaker 2: when life was too hard, he would lay in the
Speaker 2: bathtub for hours and drink endless martinis.
Speaker 1: I never drank in the bathtub.
Speaker 2: I might have had a sip of wine, but I
Speaker 2: knew a guy who was an alcoholic who worked with
Speaker 2: me years ago, who used to drink wine in the
Speaker 2: shower out of the bottle. Whenever you think you have
Speaker 2: a problem, just think of going that far. Hey y yi,
Speaker 2: but yeah, sit water in the bathtub, calm himself down,
Speaker 2: pound martinis. I'm sure there was second Al's back then
Speaker 2: that he was popping too. And not everybody, I mean
Speaker 2: not anybody was straight.
Speaker 1: In my book, back then, the studio heads gave him
Speaker 1: out to people lose weight, stay awake, go to sleep,
Speaker 1: get up again.
Speaker 2: More energy it pills were everywhere. But that's the way
Speaker 2: he said. He could only come up with new ideas
Speaker 2: laying in the water in the bathtub, drinking martinis. And
Speaker 2: you know, he had this habit of drunk dialing his
Speaker 2: dancers had four or five o'clock.
Speaker 1: In the morning.
Speaker 2: I mean, just you know, because he's trying to come
Speaker 2: up on a new routine and wanted some feedback, wanted
Speaker 2: some thoughts a madman.
Speaker 1: Imagine how much more he even up to, or how
Speaker 1: much more he'd be up their asses if he could.
Speaker 2: Send texts back. Then, Oh my god, but here comes
Speaker 2: the bad side of life. Nineteen thirty five, while he's
Speaker 2: at the height of his fame. He's at a party
Speaker 2: celebrating the completion of his latest film. He's driving home
Speaker 2: along the Pacific Coast Highway, which we call the PCH,
Speaker 2: which is where all those magnificent mansions burned down several
Speaker 2: months back during the fires of Malibu and the Palisades.
Speaker 1: And he's probably trunk.
Speaker 2: I say probably or possibly, because we really never got
Speaker 2: the answer to that.
Speaker 1: But listen.
Speaker 2: If he's pounding Martini's in the bathtub, he's drinking at
Speaker 2: a wrap party the period he loses control of the
Speaker 2: car and goes on the wrong side of the road,
Speaker 2: side swipes a car, plows them to another car. Three
Speaker 2: people are killed. He gets arrested, charged with second degree murder.
Speaker 2: If you've listened to the show before and ever watch
Speaker 2: Mysteries and scandals, it's very hard to lock these stars up.
Speaker 2: So the trial begins, and of course Berkeley was brought
Speaker 2: in on a stretcher into court. He had some head
Speaker 2: and leg injuries, unable to stand, he said, But we
Speaker 2: all know what that's about. And Warner Brothers, the studio,
Speaker 2: had their own set of problems because the public still
Speaker 2: had this big appetite for Buzzby Berkeley's pictures, and he
Speaker 2: was scheduled to work on three more movies back to
Speaker 2: back to back, and they waited for him to be
Speaker 2: able to walk, then they right away shifted the production
Speaker 2: schedule to nights. This meant that he now had to
Speaker 2: sit in a courtroom all day, then go to work
Speaker 2: every night, usually till three or four o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 2: for months and months on end. And for his part,
Speaker 2: he agreed to the schedule because he said he felt
Speaker 2: he needed.
Speaker 1: To work to get over the terrible guilt he felt
Speaker 1: at the time he was eating him up.
Speaker 2: And Warner Brothers was quick to get a lot of
Speaker 2: their employees at the party who were there to testify
Speaker 2: at the trial on his behalf. There was a lot
Speaker 2: of evidence to the contrary, but Warner Brothers marched up
Speaker 2: several quote unquote stars in their roster who went on
Speaker 2: record to say that he wasn't drunk at the party,
Speaker 2: and he wasn't drunk when he got into the car,
Speaker 2: but that would have been completely out of character for
Speaker 2: a guy like I said, since sinnadatham and pounds martinis
Speaker 2: and his past behavior was documented, he was drunk, and
Speaker 2: probably as a result of his testimony, the.
Speaker 1: Trial ends in a hung jury. Trial number two, Same
Speaker 1: thing happens third trial.
Speaker 2: Right now, you're thinking guilty, right, No, Finally he gets acquitted.
Speaker 2: But of course that his life begins to spin out
Speaker 2: of control. You'd think having such a close call with
Speaker 2: death and then prison would change you and say, you
Speaker 2: know what, I'm gonna slowed down. Life's been great, but
Speaker 2: it got wild. I gotta slow down and just use
Speaker 2: my head. Stop being samaniac. But no, life spins out
Speaker 2: of control. He marries and remarries over and over again.
Speaker 2: Then he becomes very erratic on the set. At least
Speaker 2: one actress back in the day claimed he almost got
Speaker 2: her killed while filming a very ambitious sequence as part
Speaker 2: of a film. He's working on the movie Girl Crazy
Speaker 2: with Judy Garland, and she was just as nuts as him,
Speaker 2: and she got him fired because she said he was
Speaker 2: making unnecessarily. Well, she said he was making him to
Speaker 2: do unnecessary dance scenes over and over and over again,
Speaker 2: and you know, she couldn't help. And it's funny. Reminds
Speaker 2: me of when I was hosting Mysteries and Scandals. I
Speaker 2: had a producer named Danny. Danny was a small guy,
Speaker 2: gay and bipolar, and I never heard that turn back
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety six or seven.
Speaker 1: It's like, what is that.
Speaker 2: Oh, the like he's got like two people in his head,
Speaker 2: you know, schizophrenic. No, it's bipolar.
Speaker 1: It's not that bad, but he has to take a
Speaker 1: pill and then he Mellie evens out and it's fine. Well,
Speaker 1: that night we were doing the Judy Garland shoot, and of
Speaker 1: course a gay man wants to do the Judy Garland
Speaker 1: shoot because all gay men love Judy, and Danny gets
Speaker 1: very demanding, probably as demanding as Busby Berkeley. I'm dying.
Speaker 1: It's one two o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2: We're on the Walk of Fame, Hollywood Boulevard, right next
Speaker 2: to Judy's prince in the concrete.
Speaker 1: He wants me to kneel down and said, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna kneel down.
Speaker 2: Every show ends with me standing by the by the Star,
Speaker 2: or ends with me at their palm print or footprints.
Speaker 2: Most shows ended that way. I never kneeled down. I
Speaker 2: got a twenty five hundred dollars suit on. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna put my my armandi on on concrete. No, I'll
Speaker 2: stand up. We battled about that, but me and Danny
Speaker 2: went Danny used to Danny did the Maylon Monroe shoot.
Speaker 2: Of course he did because every gay man loves Marilyn Moreau.
Speaker 2: And back then he wanted me. We were in the
Speaker 2: mausoleum where Marilynd is buried, and he wanted me to
Speaker 2: put a rose in that little receptacle they have on
Speaker 2: the side of the mars.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm not doing that. It looks silly, it
Speaker 1: looks dumb. He wants.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm not, But you know what, I was young
Speaker 2: yet at the job. I didn't want to ruffle too
Speaker 2: many feathers, so I did it. But I fucking regretted
Speaker 2: to this day. It looks so hacky, it looks stupid,
Speaker 2: and I got mad at Danny was like, take your
Speaker 2: fuck pill. He actually went home, took his pill, came back.
Speaker 2: We worked at four o'clock in the morning on that.
Speaker 1: Shot crazy stories.
Speaker 2: Anyhow, Buzzy Berkeley is now spiraling downward. But he had
Speaker 2: two constants in his life, the bottle, like I said,
Speaker 2: and the affections of his mother. What do you think
Speaker 2: happens around this time? His mother dies cancer after a
Speaker 2: very long battle. Dead gone. That was the final strug
Speaker 2: mental breakdown that he had. Was kept at bay for
Speaker 2: a few years, but then it manifested itself with a vengeance.
Speaker 2: Not long after his mother's died. As mother's death, he
Speaker 2: tried to kill himself by slitting his throat and wrists.
Speaker 2: One of his servants found him lying on the bathroom Florida,
Speaker 2: pool of his own blood. The servant binds up all
Speaker 2: his wounds, calls an ambulance and definitely saved his life.
Speaker 2: And when Buzzby Berkeley finally recovered he after surgery, he
Speaker 2: told a friend and I quote, I'm a hasband and
Speaker 2: I know it. I can't seem to get myself straightened out,
Speaker 2: rainy En. At the time, I'm broke. When my mother died,
Speaker 2: everything seemed to go with her.
Speaker 1: But as much as you think, okay, that's a wrap,
Speaker 1: col it quits. No, he still keeps on working, still
Speaker 1: keeps recovers from his wounds, but then gets admitted to
Speaker 1: a psychiatric war in Los Angeles for six weeks. Ugh.
Speaker 1: And then he tells that same friend what that was like.
Speaker 1: It was a nightmare.
Speaker 2: See, I was thrown in with these dirty, disheveled, bedraggled creatures.
Speaker 2: They were so short a space. My cot was placed
Speaker 2: at the corridor where these horrible characters passed me day
Speaker 2: and night. I knew that if I wasn't already mad,
Speaker 2: I soon would be. On top of that, Berkeley went
Speaker 2: from one hundred and seventy pounds to one hundred and
Speaker 2: seven pounds, and he had six hundred and fifty dollars
Speaker 2: to his name. Is it curtains yet? Is the show over?
Speaker 1: No? He makes it come back again, gets work again,
Speaker 1: makes several more movies that audiences loved in the sixties.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you how he was able to do
Speaker 1: that through hard work determination.
Speaker 2: Yeah, somewhat mostly through drugs, because it's no coincidence that
Speaker 2: all of a sudden he's interested in work again. Also,
Speaker 2: that came the same time that certain illegal substances were
Speaker 2: becoming more widely used throughout Hollywood and society. So drugs,
Speaker 2: thoughted to become widely available, and back then college students
Speaker 2: in the sixties, it was not uncommon for college students
Speaker 2: to go see his movies and watch those musical numbers
Speaker 2: all fucked up because they'd watched these visual accompaniments and
Speaker 2: it lended them, said, lended itself to them getting even higher.
Speaker 2: Isn't that wild that Buzzby Berkeley got there high bigger
Speaker 2: because of his dance sequences.
Speaker 1: Unreal net drugs can be good until they're bad.
Speaker 2: They're always bad, but they can start on fun and
Speaker 2: good then it gets awful. So a lot of the
Speaker 2: young people who went to these or go to these
Speaker 2: Busby Berkeley retrospectives really on coning because they're interested in
Speaker 2: what kind of.
Speaker 1: Camera he used.
Speaker 2: They probably couldn't tell you anything about the film's plot
Speaker 2: because these people were just sitting in the chairs high
Speaker 2: as a kite. Well, you know, you finally passed away
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy six. He was eighty years old. But
Speaker 2: get this gag, and I saved this for the end.
Speaker 2: Throughout his long illustrious career, he had a very dark,
Speaker 2: deep secret and you'll never believe it. And this is
Speaker 2: why his story is one of my favorite episodes in
Speaker 2: Mysteries Scandals. Ready, no one ever taught Busby Berkeley how
Speaker 2: to dance. The guy had two left feet, couldn't dance
Speaker 2: to save his life. And what's most insane to me
Speaker 2: but not so surprising about Hollywood in the thirties. His
Speaker 2: acquittal in the third trial was due probably to the
Speaker 2: powerful legal defense that Warner Brothers and that their studio
Speaker 2: attorneys were able to give him. There was a guy
Speaker 2: named Jerry Geisler, very high priced lawyer that protected studios interest.
Speaker 2: He was in a bunch of our episodes. Everybody called Geisler.
Speaker 2: The name Geisler was in a lot of our episodes.
Speaker 2: He was known as the He was like the Johnny
Speaker 2: Cochrane or Robert Shapiro of his day.
Speaker 1: I mean the accident in which he's driving and kills
Speaker 1: three people driving.
Speaker 2: On the wrong side of the road, and witnesses said
Speaker 2: they smelled alcohol on his breath at the scene, and
Speaker 2: yet his defense focused on.
Speaker 1: The car's mechanical failure.
Speaker 2: You love lawyers, I mean, you love him when you
Speaker 2: need him.
Speaker 1: It's a very simple strategy. They said. There was a blowout.
Speaker 1: The car had a blowout front.
Speaker 2: Left tire caused Buzby to lose control of his car,
Speaker 2: and I think, for a minute, if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 2: Warner Brothers was threatening to sue good Year, the tire company.
Speaker 2: This is getting eerie because this morning I had to
Speaker 2: order a front left tire on my car because it
Speaker 2: keeps gutting low on air.
Speaker 1: There's a slow leak. You know, that's too close for comfort. Anyhow,
Speaker 1: I don't speed anymore, but it's kind of weird.
Speaker 2: But yeah, they were threatening to sue good your tires
Speaker 2: for having faulty tires on his car. It's amazing how
Speaker 2: many awful scandals Hollywood's most powerful.
Speaker 1: People, fixers, studio heads, and their powerful defense attorneys were
Speaker 1: able to snuff out because of shit like this. And
Speaker 1: I'll tell you as I wrapped the shop up. When
Speaker 1: I was doing the Buzzby Berkeley episode, we obviously had
Speaker 1: me do several stand ups on Pacific.
Speaker 2: Coast Highway, which wasn't always easy guys, because you know,
Speaker 2: cause of flying by and we're off the road. But
Speaker 2: still people would honk if they see the camera crew
Speaker 2: set up. They start to rubber neck traffic developed, but
Speaker 2: the honking would ruin a shot. I could be five
Speaker 2: sentences into a stand up.
Speaker 1: Ah, oh fuck a helicopter overhead because there's crime stop.
Speaker 1: We can't fail. It was endless, and for a while
Speaker 1: a long time I didn't have a teleprompter.
Speaker 2: I'll have to memorize, you know, two or three paragraphs
Speaker 2: in a row, six seven times a night. It wasn't
Speaker 2: easy until I said I'll pay for them my own salary.
Speaker 2: They finally got one from me, and they paid. But
Speaker 2: when they got that, the show's flew without them.
Speaker 1: It was difficult. Not digging ditches difficult, but pain me
Speaker 1: AS's difficult. But I'm on the same highway he's at.
Speaker 1: Back then, I was driving a nineteen seventy six triple
Speaker 1: Tan Cadillact Eldorado convertible. Oh I love this car.
Speaker 2: I post love the famous Bitch podcast of Cess Page
Speaker 2: the other day.
Speaker 1: Love that car.
Speaker 2: And Okay, once we wrap a certain area, the crew
Speaker 2: gets together and they go to down I'm gonna go
Speaker 2: to Holloway Boulevard and shoot the ending and the beginning.
Speaker 1: That kind of shit. Everything shot out of water.
Speaker 2: So while the crew was putting things back on the truck,
Speaker 2: all the cameras, the generators, blah blah, blah. I would
Speaker 2: usually go out with the producer to my teleprompted guy
Speaker 2: who was my best friend, Tony Finetti, and we grab
Speaker 2: a drink someplace. He had an hour to kill, maybe
Speaker 2: ninety minutes to kill, and we stopped at some place
Speaker 2: on PCH. I believe it was Gladstone's, the famous place
Speaker 2: on PCH. No, it was Moonshadows where mel Gibson had
Speaker 2: his whole situation where he flipped out and called the
Speaker 2: cop female cop sugar Tis.
Speaker 1: It was Moonshadows. We down probably had two or three
Speaker 1: drinks right there. Now I'm back in the car driving
Speaker 1: to Hollywood, easy, easily a fifteen mile drive.
Speaker 2: But the PCH is notorious for car accidents. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's scary cars whipped by. And now I'm feeling not drunk,
Speaker 2: but I'm inebriating and I'm driving on the same highway
Speaker 2: in a big car.
Speaker 1: And it's not only me. Now I got three other
Speaker 1: people when they're with me, and I'm going, what the
Speaker 1: fuck am I doing? You're already doing so many of
Speaker 1: the things that these people you talk about did in
Speaker 1: their lives, doing the same things they did. They killed them.
Speaker 1: It's wrong with me? Did I have a death wish.
Speaker 2: Or was I just tasting to see if the horseshoe
Speaker 2: that's up my ass was still working well? Wether you
Speaker 2: like it or not, Here we are, twenty five years later,
Speaker 2: and even though I found myself on my back and
Speaker 2: at the same rock bottom of Busby, Berkeley and many
Speaker 2: others found themselves.
Speaker 1: At still standing, still breathing, and Buzzby would be happy.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm still dancing. I'm aj Ben.
Speaker 2: So that was your Famous A Bitch for October eleventh,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Talk to you guys next week for another free show.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, go to patreon dot com slash Famous
Speaker 1: a Bitch and get with the daily Unfiltered show. You'll
Speaker 1: love it. Don't forget politics.
Speaker 2: A Bitch is there as well every Sunday, as well
Speaker 2: as everything is a bitch and relationships.
Speaker 1: Is a bitch. Now, I'm gonna be a bitch and leave.
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you guys next week.