Kenya, 1985. The set of Out of Africa. Sydney Pollock called action. Merryill Streep stood across from Robert Redford. The scene called for a kiss. A moment of passion between two characters who’d been circling each other for weeks of filming. But Merryill didn’t move. She stood there frozen. “I can’t,” she said quietly. The…
On March 29th, 1972, Elvis Presley walked into RCA Studio C in Hollywood, California, and recorded a song in a single session that would go on to be covered by more than 300 artists across 50 years. He did not write it. He had received it through one of his bodyguards, who had been handed…
October 1974, a Tuesday afternoon in Greenwich Village, New York, a street musician named Tommy Greco sat on a milk crate outside a coffee shop playing Strangers in the Night on a battered guitar, his case open for spare change. Maybe 15 people walked past without looking. Then a man in sunglasses and a cloth…
February 1956. The Blue Note Jazz Club, West 3rd Street, New York City. Billy Holiday was 40 minutes into her set when the club manager appeared at the side of the stage and held up two fingers. The signal that everyone in the room understood, and nobody was supposed to discuss. She was not to…
I said I [singing] love you, would I be speaking out of turn? >> For 47 years, Priscilla Presley kept her mouth shut. She sat through thousands of interviews, smiled through endless documentaries, and watched as the world turned her ex-husband into a myth made of rhinestones…
When Elvis invited 19-year-old Jenny Martinez on stage during his Las Vegas show, everyone expected the usual fans screaming. Instead, what she whispered in his ear stopped the entire concert. It was August 12th, 1976 at the International Hotel in Las Vegas. Elvis was in the middle of his second show of the night, and…
A marriage poisoned by secrets, a lesbian love affair, and a first lady dogged by controversy. Right to the bitter end, Elellanar Roosevelt transformed the White House into a den of scandal. In the fall of 1918, Elellanar Roosevelt was unpacking one of her husband’s suitcases when she came across a bundle of letters. Curious,…
Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. >> In the moments following JFK’s assassination, his wife Jackie began repeating something over and over again. Two haunting sentences that will never be forgotten. For less than 3 years in the early 1960s, many Americans looked to…
On June 5th, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down after delivering a triumphant speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. While the official story claimed the assassination was politically driven, some say the truth is much darker. This is [music] the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their…
January 24th, 1961. 12:30 a.m. The skies above North Carolina. A B-52 Stratofortress bomber is flying through the night. The aircraft is carrying two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs. Each bomb is approximately 260 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The plane is on a routine airborne alert mission during the Cold…
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