Podcast Highlights

Looking for stories about ambitious women who climbed to the top in Hollywood?

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RKO thought Lucille Ball was only good enough for ‘B’ pictures–then she bought the studio

Joan Crawford showed Depression-era women how to survive by their wits

Sheilah Graham was the gossip columnist who sobered up F. Scott Fitzgerald enough to write his last novel

Lynn Bari started out as an MGM showgirl at 13. She came of age when Hollywood was a woman’s town

June Havoc endured a monstrous stage mother in vaudeville and then horrors in the dance marathon racket before she went to Hollywood

June’s sister Gypsy Rose Lee survived by turning burlesque into a highbrow art form even though censors prevented her name from appearing in the credits

Susan Hayward lost an Oscar to scandal but ignored bad publicity as Queen of 20th Century Fox

Two studios shared Mae Clarke’s contract, worked her relentlessly, until she was under care of shady doctors who nearly let her die in a psychiatric ward

Carole Landis had a famous figure but was really born for screwball comedy

Ann Todd had a smoking hot affair with James Mason while they made a picture where she played the genius

Geraldine Fitzgerald earned an Oscar nomination for her first Hollywood picture yet had Jack Warner insist she wasn’t in Ingrid Bergman’s league.

Yvonne De Carlo paid her dues in burlesque then leveraged ballet training into top-billing

After Esther Williams scolded Louis B Mayer, she gained the first lucrative endorsement deal for an MGM star