Hemingway's Picasso

Carlos Lehder isn’t a celebrity like Escobar, but the truth is that, without Lehder, Escobar would never have become a wildly famous drug kingpin. 

Lehder, the German-Colombian, drug-trafficking genius was responsible for bringing 85% of the cocaine from Colombia into the United States in the 1970’s and 80’s by way of the Bahamian island Norman’s Cay. 

Ron Chepesiuk, journalist and author of Crazy Charlie, discusses Lehder’s rise and fall - and all the craziness in between. 

This is a Somethin' Else production in association with Vespucci. 

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Ernest Hemingway was embraced by many Cubans as Papa, the everyday man who lived in the iconic seaside estate, Finca Vigia.  He wrote some of his most masterful novels in Havana, Cuba - and lived quite the life there, too. 

But Cuba is rarely highlighted or even remembered in Hemingway's biography. Fidel Castro saw the importance of Hemingway as a writer and political tool.  

In this installment, Norberto Fuentes, the legendary Cuban journalist and author in exile, discusses Hemingway’s life and legacy in Cuba. 

This is a Somethin' Else production in association with Vespucci. 

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We speak to Antony Penrose, the son of artists Lee Miller and Roland Penrose. He and his parents spent summers in the South of France with Pablo Picasso, one of the most recognized artists of the 20th century. Picasso was warm with Antony and other children, but the famous artist showed a very different side to adults, especially to his lover Françoise Gilot. 

This is a Somethin' Else production in association with Vespucci. 

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Once Stevie hears about Steve's cancer, he brings his dad to Temecula, California to battle his illness together. Jamie tries to help, but can't figure out her place with her father and brother. Then, she learns an upsetting truth about what was in Steve’s will. 

We speak with art specialists at Sotheby’s and Christies in London who deliberate on the authenticity of the piece and give their expert opinion on whether or not Fred and Betty is a real Picasso. 

This is a Somethin' Else production in association with Vespucci. 

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The consequences of Steve’s actions as a father and drug smuggler have lasting effects on his loved ones. 

Stevie, his son, recounts an altercation he had with his father when he was 18, and how it set his mental health to spiral out of control. 

He spends the next 10 years of his life distancing himself from his father’s Miami and the heavy burden of Fred and Betty. 

Steve’s old girlfriend, Lourdes, comes back into his life 30 years later, during his last and final years. But then, Steve receives a phone call that threatens to put an end to their love story. 

This is a Somethin' Else production in association with Vespucci. 

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Leah attempts to understand how Hemingway could have ended up with a Picasso ceramic by examining the relationship between these two important figures. 

She goes through the work Steve Senior already went through to establish the piece’s provenance, or the history of its ownership. And she makes some discoveries of her own. 

This is a Somethin' Else production in association with Vespucci.

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During the 1-900 number craze of the Nineties, one company provided the vast majority of phone sex. American Telnet was an empire founded by the man who called himself “The Telephone Pimp.” 

He ran the company “like General Motors” and got filthy rich doing it. But for the (mostly) women who answered the calls and delivered fantasies 24-7, it was a different story. 

The powerful stigma against sex work was always lurking just beneath the surface, until it threatened to tear apart the whole company. 

Hosted by Tina Horn (Why Are People Into That?), OPERATOR is an eight-part series about big ambitions, Shakespearean-level corporate backstabbing, men and women at the cutting edge of a technological revolution...and on the front lines of a sexual one.

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