Today on the Rarified Heir Podcast we are talking to guest Tamar Springer about her composer/songwriter father Philip Springer. Now, unless you are in music publishing or a collector of film soundtracks or possibly a musical academic, the name Philip Springer might not seem like a name you would know. A ha, but if I told you he was the composer & co-writer of the hit Eartha Kitt, Christmas song "Santa Baby" then would you know? Or perhaps you'd know some of his other work which has been sung by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Ella Fitzgerald, from Dusty Springfield to Elvis Presley. In all, Philip Springer has composed more than 500 songs and he's still writing songs today at age 99.

Our conversation with Tamar centers around a documentary she made about her father that is Academy Award eligible and has screened at film festivals around the country. Her film about her father, More Than Santa Baby is Tamar's film about her father's career that spans performing classical music, writing some of the earliest electronic music, scoring film and television shows, writing for songwriters at the famed Brill Building and much much more.

What's more, there is a familiar connection between Tamar and host Josh Mills family that even he didn't realize when they started the conversation. It's more than incredible, it's downright cosmic. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a has a story. But not like this. Not like the one guest Tamar Springer tells on this episode. She really lived up to her name!

Today on another encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to Ed Eckstine, son of smooth as silk singer & bandleader Billy Eckstine. Our chat with Ed was funny, educational, occasionally jaw dropping and always engaging. Now, before we even started our chat with Ed, upon his agreeing to be a part of the podcast, we got a list of topics from Ed that he thought we might want to discuss. Effectively, he sent us a cheat sheet that they didn't get to on his appearance on the Questlove Supreme podcast prior to our chat. Who were we to say no? There were like 60 totally engaging topics Ed had written out and we get to some of them here.

Jazz fans and pop fans will know Billy Eckstine for his deep baritone voice that singers of the era loved and the ladies swooned for. Sinatra was a fan and a friend. As was Ella and a host of others. Dapper, good looking, classy, entrepreneurial and courageous, we discuss with Ed all of those qualities his father had that made him a star. It also made him a target as you will hear, surrounding an article in Life Magazine that exposed America's racists past that frankly, doesn't seem too far removed from where we are today.

We also talk to Ed about his own career as a journalist and music executive who recounts his obsessive love of rock music, his time working for the one and only Q, Quincy Jones and some of the most insane and jaw dropping interviews he conducted with the likes of Issac Hayes. We also get into his years as his father's helper before he went on stage at Jewish and Italian resorts in the 1960s and as Nabil Ayers said in a 2020 New York Times piece, what it "was like to be the first black person to be let in — to be allowed by the predominantly white music industry to helm one of its largest entities,"when he was the president of Mercury Records.

This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story.

Today on another encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast we are talking to Katherine Kramer, daughter of producer/director Stanley Kramer. Our chat with Katherine or Kat was both edifying and easy as we had familial connections and we learned a few things in the process. Such as? Well how about what famous actress was she named after, where in the Western United States did her family move to once they left Hollywood and what films made her father a bankable director while he was still producing.

We also spoke about some of his films, many of them 'message' films such as Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, Judgement at Nuremberg, The Defiant Ones and a small, off-beat comedy called It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World which co-starred Edie Adams, our host's Josh Mills's mother. In all, Stanley Kramer's films garnered 80 Academy Awards and starred everyone from Spencer Tracy to Sidney Pointier, Marlon Brando and so many, many more.

Kat talked to us about her work as well – in terms of both her charity events and her film festivals, her one woman show about Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, her creepy house growing up, The Kennedy Assassination and much more. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story. Kat Kramer's is coming right up!

Today on another encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are speaking to musician Matt Axton about his larger-than-life actor, musician, spokesman and songwriter dad, Hoyt Axton. Now if you grew up in the eighties, you would know Hoyt from Gremlins. If you grew up in the 70s, you'd know him as the songwriter to the smash hit "Joy To The World" made popular by Three Dog Night and in the sixties perhaps the hit show Bonanza. As Matt explains to us, his dad was many things to many people, a shit kicking psychedelic cowboy, a Busch beer pitchman and even Mogwai's dad. Everyone could relate to Hoyt.

We also talk about the fact that Matt is a third generation musician, as his grandmother was known as the Queen of Nashville. Mae Boren Axton, was a well-known songwriter of more than 200 songs including – get this – "Heartbreak Hotel". Now that's some serious lineage. To know that your grandmother introduced Elvis Presley to his manager, Colonel Tom Parker is just a bit of a mind fuck.

Our conversation with Matt was both melancholy and prideful. Matt was fiercely proud of his dad's legacy in country music and in film and television but he also let us know that for reasons you will hear, he has almost nothing of his father's possessions but his own memories. But he's not bitter. In fact, he's got a terrific outlook and draws on his dad's legacy to push him in his own career. Matt loves the one nighters, the travel, the live music and the recording. After all, it's in his blood. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story.

Today on another encore edition of the Rarified Heir Podcast we are talking to Denise Gautier, daughter of actor, painter, artist and raconteur Dick Gautier. Perhaps best known for his role of Hymie in the TV series Get Smart even though he was only on a limited number of episodes, we delve into the wonderful and sometimes difficult world of what it was like to grow up the daughter of a delightful but often too casual father. Ahem.

The idea of looking into connecting with Denise came entirely from our interview with Susannah Mars, daughter of comedian Kenneth Mars. Susannah told us a very funny, if entirely inappropriate story, about meeting up with her dad and his actor friends at lunch and receiving a drawing from Gautier. While that drawing simply would not fly in 2025, it's what made us laugh and frankly, some of us also had dad's like that too. Ahem. Anyway, Denise gives us the lowdown on what it was like being with the very funny, exceedingly talented artist father as well as his unconventional ways.

Along the way we discuss Dick's connections to Broadway, the beatnik coffee culture of San Francisco in the sixties, the famed Magic Castle, fellow actors and friends Dave Madden, Mel Brooks, his second wife actress Barbara Stuart, his various game show appearances on shows like Tattle Tales and much more. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast. Everyone has a story.

Sam Nelson (Ozzie Nelson, Harriet Nelson) (Part Two)

Today on the Rarified Heir Podcast, we present for you part two of our interview with Sam Nelson, son of Rick Nelson and grandson of Ozzie Nelson and Harriet Nelson. In the 1950s The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was a massive hit television show and ran for 14 years that made both Rick, then known as Ricky and brother David Nelson major, major stars.

But this episode takes a very intense turn from the first episode as we move from one type of a family legacy to quite another. If you recall, in the 1980s Sam was at the center of a very public custody fight between his mother Kristin Nelson and her brother, actor Mark Harmon and his wife actress Pam Dawber. Imagine heading to the supermarket and seeing your own face on the cover of the National Enquirer and People magazine while still in elementary school? And this after the tragic and speculated up death of his father, Ricky Nelson in a plane crash not too long before that. Ooof, this one is doozy.

We do manage to get into a few things outside of the more sensational aspects of Sam's life including the very real ghost stories from his childhood home, his father's favorite flavor of ice cream and the famous beach house his grandparents owned that was part of the Nelson family lore. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story.

Today on the Rarified Heir Podcast, encore edition, we are talking to Sam Nelson, the son of actor/musician Rick Nelson aka Ricky Nelson and actress mother Kristin Nelson). He also has some pretty famous grandparents, an uncle, brothers, a sister and likely more relatives who spent some time in front of the camera and the microphone we discuss as well.

Sam spoke to us about so many things on part one of this interview including, what it's like to run a television archive which is right up host Josh Mills' alley, the challenges in keeping an archive relevant in 2025 and how to best honor your family legacy. We dig into how Sam became the one to control his family legacy via his uncle David who passed it on to him after some time and frankly, a bit of neglect as well. We talk about The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet being the second longest running sitcom on television in its history, the legacy of his father Rick whose good looks and talent almost took him away from the show much to his parents chagrin and how he's bringing it back in the 20s.

There is lots to dig into including a 435 episode DVD box set Sam shepherded to market, how he's looking to expand the brand outside of the small screen as well as the complexity of being the son of one the great entertainers of 1950s well into the 1980s. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story.

Today on another encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to guest Radames Pera on part two of our conversation about growing up a child actor to actress Lisa Pera. Like episode one of our conversation last week, we dig into some really intense and really dark places that have to be heard to be believed. As the young Grasshopper on the 70s TV show Kung Fu to an eventual, genuine teen heartthrob thanks to his role as John Jr. on Little House on the Prairie, we learn on this episode that all that glitters is not gold.

On this episode we get a deep dive into the aforementioned Coogan's Law that was put on the books in 1939 so that child actors were protected by law from parents benefiting financially from their career. Or so we are told. Laws are only good when enforced and Radames lays out the intense, jaw-dropping details of how the law failed him by his very own mother. We also learn of Radames' mother, actress Lisa Pera hoarding disorder in her later years that was so bad, Radames felt the need to document it on YouTube. And while we discuss this in depth, the videos are hard to watch. Moreover, the home in the videos is the one Radamas grew up in. It's a tough watch. This episode has layers upon layers of really difficult emotions that we tackle only through the honesty and genuine candor of our guest. This one is a rough one and one for the ages. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story.

Today on another encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are bringing you part one of our conversation with former child actor Radames Pera, best known for his roles on shows like Kung-Fu and Little House on the Prairie. We had to split this episode into two episodes because there as so much more than we bargained for when we sat down to record this episode. Somehow in addition to covering Radames' career, we got into spin art, the Coogan Law, punk rock, fitting in at school and so much more.

Part of that so much more involved his mother Lisa Pera whose acting career involved TV shows like Get Smart, Perry Mason, Hawaii 5-0 and many, many more. We discuss what it was like being raised in a Hollywood apartment by a young, single mother who was too emotionally mixed up from her own time as one of the many victims of being a Ukrainian – Russian in Nazi Germany during WWII. It's so unreal, it's hard to believe it's not more well known or talked about 70+ years later.

And somehow, this is just the beginning of Radames tale because there is an entirely different story in part two of the podcast as well. What starts as a story about seemingly idyllic roles as John Jr. and a young Caine that found Pera on the cover of teen magazines as a heartthrob for years turns very dark, very fast. It's emotionally honest and brutally so. Take a listen to this episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast. Everyone has a story. But not like this one.

Today on another encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to playwright, author and educator Luke Yankee, son of Oscar-winning actress Eileen Heckart. Luke spoke to us about his biography about his mother, Just Outside the Spotlight, his then upcoming play about his mother and the many, many tales he witnessed growing up the son of his actor/mother who was anything but a wilting flower. Eileen was a pistol and o're to be the subject of one of her pointed barbs!

We also talk about host Josh Mills' mother Edie Adams who Luke had a first person connection to as well as some of Luke's mother's best known films, The Bad Seed, Barefoot in the Park, Butterflies Are Free and more. Along with that comes great tales about Goldie Hawn, George Segal, Soupy Sales, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe and many more.

While all of these amazing stories are told with a fun and mirth, there was one moment that genuinely choked us up in it's beautiful humanity that we just loved hearing. It was a pure and honest moment that gave us a truly well rounded picture of the complex woman that was Eileen Heckert. Broadway, the big screen and even a pivotal role on the small screen on The Mary Tyler Moore Show are all part of this episode with Luke Yankee. Everyone has a story.