One year ago - this week - the first two episodes of "Hollywood Obsessed" were released. At the time, I had no idea what I was doing, I hadn’t listened to many podcasts, I had trouble choosing a name for it, and I wasn’t sure what the content would be. Luckily, I got a lot of support and feedback from my mother and my closest friends. Eventually, everything came together and Voilà, Hollywood Obsessed was born!
But even as everything came together, I wasn’t sure A) that anyone would care or even listen to it B) if I could get enough interesting people to interview for the podcast, and C) if this whole thing would even last past three or four months. But I followed my instincts and here we are 1 year, 26 guests, and 52 episodes later and the podcast is still going strong! Thanks to everyone who helped me get started as well as all of my loyal listeners/subscribers who keep coming back for more and write the nicest reviews on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and the several other platforms about my guests, interviews, and the podcast!
To celebrate the first anniversary of "Hollywood Obsessed", I’ve selected some fun quotes from the first 14 guests / 28 episodes from this past year for you to enjoy!
AMY HILL / Actress - Episodes 1 & 2
Veteran TV star discusses the success of the “Magnum P.I.” revival
“Hawaii is the other character in the show and they make good use of it. I know we’re a procedural so there’s always something they’re trying to solve every episode, but inside of that the warmth of the chemistry between all of us is really strong and I feel that outside of that we really do like each other and appreciate each other and respect each other. “
BENNETT YELLIN / Screenwriter - Episodes 3 & 4
Celebrated screenwriter discusses what it was like writing the classic comedy film “Dumb and Dumber”
As a writer…writing comedy…the intent is to make people laugh out loud. You are operating with an incredible arrogance, that what YOU think is funny someone else is going to think is just as funny.
That’s a tough skill because sometimes you’re hired by people who have a different sense of humor than you do and so you’ve got to have to sort of learn to adjust your comedy productivity machine”
KEITH COOGAN / Actor - Episodes 5 & 6
Former child actor from "Adventures in Babysitting" talks about what he would say if a parent came up to him to asked his advice about whether to encourage their child to get in the industry or not like him and his child actor star grandfather Jackie Coogan from Charlie Chaplin's "The Kid"
“If this kid is already doing it, he’s performing up there….. she’s in the school play, she’s doing it, she’s rocking it… she puts on shows for her cousins. That’s the kid that you want to encourage inoculate, protect, educate… if this is the career they wanna do, it’s rough. you gotta work on it. You gotta study, you gotta continue to work, standing on the mark. The work isn’t standing on the stage. The work is staying after and doing the cards and doing the networking and keeping the career going. You got to keep building bridges. It’s so easy to nuke a bridge in this town. Be nice because you meet the same people going up as you do coming down. There’s not a lot of jerks in this industry. There’s a reason for that, because nobody likes to work with a jerk.”
LARA GABRIELLE / Author - Episodes 7 & 8
Author of the biography "Marion Davies: Captain of Her Soul" discusses the comparisons between the character of Susan Alexander in Orson Wells’ classic film “Citizen Kane” and real life movie star Marion Davies
“The character of Susan Alexander unfortunately has been perceived by many people to be Marion Davies because many people think that Kane is supposed to be Hearst.
Certainly, there are a lot of very distinct similarities between Kane and Hearst, and probably we could say that the arch of the Kane character is Hearst, but there were a lot of other influences of different people in history, who went into the characterization of Kane and a lot of different people who went into the characterization of Susan Alexander they weren’t supposed to be one person.
Orson Wells himself said later, you know, that we really regretted that people perceived this to be Marion Davies because Susan Alexander isn’t at all like Marion. “
JOHN JAMES / Actor - Episodes 9 & 10
1980's TV hunk answers how he got the part of Jeff Colby on "Dynasty"
John: “It was my first screen test. I screen tested at Fox, on a set, it was lit, with an actor that they hired that I recognized, he was a character actor, a real actor who played Blake. And we did a scene in the library. Full make up on, the camera, Panavision and a Director. It was like an old-school screen test.”
Tony: "Was this for the part of Jeff?"
John: “No, it was for Steven. So that Friday later in the week my agent called and said “I’ve got good news, and bad news.” I said “well, give me the bad news” he said “You didn’t get the part of Steven” I said, “oh gosh what’s the good news?” “Well you got Jeff Colby” I said, “who?” And I went back through the script. I read the script I didn’t remember who was Jeff Colby. And then i saw these two little scenes with Fallon. I was like OK….I don’t know who he is, where he’s from, what he is other than he’s got an uncle Cecil …played my Lloyd Bochner. We did the show and that’s how it started.”
BARRY PEARL / Actor - Episodes 11 & 12
"Grease" star tells me what it was like for him and his fellow cast-members working with director Randal Kleiser on the beloved 1970's movie musical
“He was great. This was his first big thing, so he too was very open to suggestion, especially from those of us that had done the stage play before. In fact, there were portions of the screenplay, which we felt didn’t land properly, and Randal gave us permission to lift things from the play, that we felt worked or we would improvise. He would give us that latitude. All that Three Stooges stuff that we do….(Randal would say)”make something up guys."
In fact he was a huge Three Stooges fan as well and while we were still rehearsing, he came to me and said, “Hey listen, I’ve gotten Columbia to send us over a couple of Three Stooges shorts so you three guys can get the flavor of it.” Well, I didn’t need the flavor…but for Michael and Kelly who weren’t familiar, it helped.”
DEE WALLACE / Actress - Episodes 13 & 14
Beloved film actress responds to the question what it was like the first time she watched “E.T. The Extraterrestrial” on the big screen
“The first time I saw the film was with a bunch of suits at Universal. Now, let me tell you how that goes. Nobody reacts nobody says anything because they don’t know how their boss feels. So I came home and i said to Christopher my husband “I think my career is over” because there had been no reaction there were no words said. He looked at me and said “come on we’re going to the movies.” And he took me down to the Pacific Dome…Cinerama Dome.
There were lines around the block. He said, “you’re going to see this with an audience”. And we went in, and people were cheering and crying and standing up, and I mean grown men were dissolved in tears and he looked at me and said “ what do you think now sweetheart?” he was so wise. But it’s a whole other different experience when you see it with people who want to love it.”
CAROLE ITA WHITE / Actress - Episodes 15 & 16
Veteran TV star explains why her character "Big Rosie" stopped appearing on the classic sitcom "Laverne & Shirley"
Carole: “When they signed me up to do Rosie, they signed me up for seven years.”
Tony: “What? “
Carole: “A seven year contract”
Tony: “Wow!”
Carole: “The first year I made 1500 bucks a show. To me, it was a huge amount of money. The second year I was supposed to get $2500 a show. Again, a fortune to me back in those days, and then they decided not to have me back and they dropped my contract.
I say it was because I was too damn funny and there were only 23 minutes of airtime and I’d come in and I’d get big applause, I’d get big laughs”
BRYAN BATT / Actor - Episodes 17 & 18
"Mad Men" co-star remembers making his Broadway debut
Bryan: “My first show, Starlight Express. And I did handstands and cartwheels and coffee, grinders and acrobatics on rollerskates and yeah that’s why I had both needs replaced."
Tony: “I can’t believe you didn’t kill yourself doing that.”
Bryan: “I did tear the cartilage in my knee, one night during my number. It was an idle wrap number I was Rocky, Rocky one, two, three and four… (laughs) yeah yeah…I just wanted to be on Broadway so badly. I would’ve done anything. And I kind of did. But I loved every second of it. I loved every last bloody minute of it. And when I say bloody, I mean bloody.” (Laughs)
KAREN LYNN GORNEY / Actress - Episodes 19 & 20
Veteran New York-based actress tells me what was it like filming “Saturday Night Fever” on the streets of Brooklyn
“Well, at first, all of his (John Travolta’s) fans were there and it was scary because they would shake the trailer. They didn’t know which trailer he was in so they would shake everything. That was very very scary. That was my first experience of having a mob scene of fans like that. Oh my god! It was scary, really.
Then it was a long drive there, it was a long drive back. It took forever. Taking a subway would have been a lot faster but we had cars. But it was good because you got to read your lines and practice your dialect and all that stuff.
In a weird way it was a lot more mellow in Brooklyn than it is in Manhattan so I enjoyed that about it. But they shouldn’t have been able to get that close to the trailer. That’s for sure."
MICHAEL LEARNED / Actress - Episodes 21 & 22
'Waltons' star discusses show creator/writer Earl Hammer and his family, which the series was based on
“It was his family. Idealized, of course. I use to fight with him for it.. Yeah, I’d say to him, doesn’t your mother ever make a mistake? Didn’t she scold the wrong child? Didn’t she ever, you know, didn’t she ever drop a pot of soup or something? Or the bread didn’t rise or whatever. And I had the struggle with him to try and make him humanize her because it was hard for him, because these were people… His motte was still alive. The Baldwin sisters were still alive. Not the TV Baldwin sisters . But there were real people that he was writing about. So he had a really hard time giving any of these people a flaw. And I use to say to him people don’t love you because you’re perfect. People love you because sometimes because of your weaknesses or your flaws as well as your good qualities. He would always cave eventually. You know, I'm such a pain in the ass. He had to.”
IAN BUCHANAN / Actor - Episodes 23 & 24
The legendary Soap Opera star recalls the night he won his Daytime Emmy Award for the role of Dr James Warwick on "The Bold and the Beautiful"
Academy Award nominated actress recalls what she thought of her “Sunset Blvd “co-stars Gloria Swanson and William Holden when she was cast in the role of ‘Betty Schaefer’
“I had no idea who she (Gloria) was, and I asked my mother, “who in the world is this woman?” She told me.I think that Gloria was the one person that absolutely knew from the beginning that this was a great film and that she would never be forgotten again.
And Bill Holden, who had been...he did. “Golden Boy” and “Our Town.” Wonderful movies and he was regarded highly for doing them.Then he went into the army for three years and he came out and it was kind of like he was half, he played half done roles, not very interesting ones. This role was a real challenge. This was about a desperate man. Who sold his soul for survival? And Billy, at that time, his…his career was drowning. He was not doing anything really interesting. His marriage was faltering. He was beginning to drink much too much, and somewhere he knew this was a chance. For him to have a relationship with a great director and to be to show what he who he was on screen, you know, actors have certain actors have a relationship with the camera that is always been very mysterious to me. But there isn't. There is a transcendence of something from them that is caught on film, and it's hard to pin down. Clark Gable had it…..Cary Grant had it. Who married Lauren Bacall?”
Tony: “Humphrey Bogart.”
Nancy: “Humphrey Bogart, All very different, but they all had something that was just absolutely imprinted on film. It was fascinating to me.”
LORENZO LAMAS / Actor - Episodes 27 & 28
Legendary TV/Film star explains how he and podcast host Tony Miros met. Starting with him finding Tony’s Instagram posts of famous film/tv locations & landmarks around Los Angeles during the pandemic lockdown.
Lorenzo: “Well, it’s…it's funny because when when I started seeing your posts, I was just scrolling, you know, like we all do. Yeah. And I came across your account and I just became kind of a fan seeing all these, all these homes and these locations that have been used for film and television or even like novels. Like, I mean, you had such a wide variety of notable landmarks around Los Angeles. And my fiancee, Kenna, she. She's from Idaho, from Coeur, d’Alene, Idaho. But she lived in Los Angeles for 10 years during the 2000s and was a model for 10 years. And one of her favorite things to do was to go and find historic locations, you know, on her, on her time off. And so I showed her your account, and we both became, kind of, like……obsessed. (LAUGHS)
Because you know we live in in Orange County, in Huntington Beach. So we…we're not up in LA a lot, but we…what we started to do was on our trips up to Los Angeles, we would choose like one or two of your locations and go there and take pictures in front of it.“
Tony: “I know and I would see these pictures and I'm like. Wait a minute, that's really Lorenzo Lamas in front of the place that was in last week. It's the weirdest. It was the weirdest story. And then, you know, we actually, we started chatting on on Insta and then we met. We actually met for lunch. At the Formosa. And had a great time and I was just like I was like I cannot believe that this happened especially during a lockdown when we couldn't even see each other and and then we we become friends after it's it was just a bizarre story so….”
Lorenzo: “It's very original it. Really is. I really, I really enjoyed all of your posts and it it you you did a tremendous service to the industry in that you reminded people how wonderful and unique….these locations were and what they meant to the people that watched the movies and the TV shows surrounding them. So you really provided A tremendous historical service and and I think you told me, if you haven't already done it, that you were going to publish a coffee table book about it.”
Tony: “Yeah, that is the plan.”
To be continued……
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