Death of a Film Star

What do you hear at the bottom of the ocean? How does it feel to swim with whales? Or make friends with an octopus? Come and find out. This is Life Under Water.

Wildlife filmmaker and TV personality Hannah Stitfall wants to take you the world below the waves. She’ll be chatting to freedivers, marine biologists, submarine pilots and more, hearing mind-boggling stories about the oceans-deep and its inhabitants. We explore The Lost City. We hang out with your favourite animals. The hypnotic sound design and storytelling will drop you right there.

Oceans: Life Under Water is brought to you by Crowd Network and Greenpeace UK, which is how these stories can be told so beautifully but also responsibly.

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Everyone knows Carrie Fisher. Or at least they think they do. But they make the same mistake the villains in Star Wars do. The ones who see her as a pretty face and an empty head. They’re under-estimating Carrie. But Carrie won’t be taken advantage of, owned. Carrie will have her say…

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Edie Sedgwick’s the original it girl. The first to be famous for fame’s own sake. And an image that will forever live on. Her act doesn’t end when the reels stopped rolling. It can’t. Because that’s what makes her. But it’s what breaks her too…

WARNING: This episode contains references to eating disorders and drug abuse. If you’ve been affected by any of the issues we spoke about in this podcast or are worried about someone you love, please go to crowdnetwork.co.uk/helplines to find a list of people you can go to for help.

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Philip Seymour Hoffman isn’t your usual Hollywood star. Some actors do charisma and charm. They radiate confidence. They lead. And the audience follows. But Philip just doesn’t want to. He wants something more interesting. Because between the matinée idol and the pantomime villain is the everyman. It’s where we watch from. But recovering addict is the role he’s been playing longer than any other…

WARNING: This episode contains references to drug abuse and addiction. If you’ve been affected by any of the issues we spoke about in this podcast or are worried about someone you love, please go to crowdnetwork.co.uk/helplines to find a list of people you can go to for help.

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Of course you know Judy Garland. The voice, the smile. Her biggest film, The Wizard of Oz. How she sings Somewhere Over the Rainbow. But you don’t know her like she is towards the end. How she looks, how she sounds. The people around her, the strangers watching. We’re not in Kansas, anymore…

WARNING: This episode contains references to self-harm, sexual abuse and drug use.

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Speed. That’s how James Dean tries to forget. About the older men. About the dreams where his mother appears and stays, just out of reach. With speed, he blurs the edges. Cuts so close to death that he can almost reach out and touch it. Until one day, one sunny evening, when he cuts it too close, and it’s too late…

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When you think about Corey Haim, you think of all the things he’s been. Shy kid, heart-throb, manipulator, junkie. But a dear friend and a son too. A half-forgotten child star, when everyone should’ve known him. Because, “In Hollywood, we put people on pedestals. And then when we decide that they're not marketable anymore, we walk away from them.” 

WARNING: This episode references drug use and addiction. If you’ve been affected by any of the issues we spoke about in this podcast or are worried about someone you love, please go to crowdnetwork.co.uk/helplines to find a list of people you can go to for help.

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Before John Belushi died, he was always talking about Brando. Maybe he related to his characters. The guy who’s fucking up, but doesn’t mean to. Because Belushi’s story is all about the kid who could have been a contender but ended up broken and beaten and alone.

WARNING: This episode references drug use and addiction, some of it graphic. If you’ve been affected by any of the issues we spoke about in this podcast or are worried about someone you love, please go to crowdnetwork.co.uk/helplines to find a list of people you can go to for help.

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Stallone. It’s not even a real name. Really, it’s a brand. Blue-collar grit. Brawn over brain. An American dream. But what if that isn’t you? What if you don’t have a choice about it? Because this is the story of Sage Stallone, not Sylvester. The story of the son, not the famous father…

If you’ve been affected by any of the issues we spoke about in this podcast or are worried about someone you love, please go to crowdnetwork.co.uk/helplines to find a list of people you can go to for help.

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There are no happy endings with Sharon Tate. No logic. This story is many things: the death of a young woman; the murder of a film star, a wife and a daughter.

But it’s so much more, too. It’s madness come to La La Land. A cult leader gone crazy. It’s bad drugs and messed-up ideas and exploitation and carnage. It’s darkness descending over a town that’s meant to be all sunshine and dreams come true…

WARNING: This episode contains graphic descriptions of murder.

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