Shocking! Lurid! Tawdry! A History of American Scandals

The glamour goddess saw her reputation get a good tawdry tarnishing when her 14-year-old daughter killed her abusive 32-year-old lover with a single stab.

How did Lana Turner end up watching a man die in her pink bedroom? How did her daughter, Cheryl Crane, end up trying to protect her mother? And did Johnny Stompanato know that he was buying his own murder weapon when he helped Lana pick out that set of carving knives a week prior?

Mark digs deep into one of Hollywood's most shocking scandals, one that can best be summed up by the phrase "bruises caused by diamonds."

Peggy Eaton was just trying to be a good housewife, but the women of D.C. were not going to let her do it in peace! During the Andrew Jackson administration, not much else was going on, so one wife deemed unfit could take down a whole cabinet! (Maybe you've heard of Peggy because you're a big fan of the Joan Crawford picture The Gorgeous Hussy?) And we learn the fastest way to lose a tip as far as Mark is concerned.

Before Geraldo was throwing punches and chairs at neo Nazis on his daytime talk show, he was a respected journalist and noted Horny Man. And his 1991 memoir Exposing Myself dedicated possibly more time to the latter. Join Kasey as Mark leads her down a wild hedonistic path from Al Capone's vault to a Bette Midler interview with Barbara Walters to a shocking third-act twist when Rivera pens a new afterward for the paperback edition, addressing the uproar he caused by including so many stories about sex on the job.

Ol' Monkey Businessman and presidential hopeful Gary Hart teaches us what a sheltered childhood will do to you. It will all come out one day. Another rising star in politics burns out before our very eyes when this philandering presidential candidate gets caught with photo evidence of his monkey business. Join us as we discuss the dos' and mostly don’ts of 1980s politics, the upkeep of yachts, the casual arrogance of straight white men, and what Donna Rice is like.

The Hype was never meant to be a biography of a movie star. But when Christina Crawford's memoir of a childhood spent battling her controlling mother, Joan Crawford, was published as Mommie Dearest in 1978, the reaction was decidedly not that. From having to defend her account of her childhood to friends of her adopted mother (not to mention interviewers and fans) to the stroke that people whispered was actually a nervous breakdown precipitated by the disastrous film adaptation, this is the story how the legend of Joan Crawford almost ruined Christina's life... a second time.

How unoriginal. Joseph McCarthy might have been the laziest person who ruined over 600 lives. Playing off of already established fears of Cold War America, he quickly brought himself into the Senate spotlight of the Senate and rode McCarthyism until hubris and some horny underlings got the best of him.

Valerie Harper struck a blow for performers everywhere with her much-publicized court battle over her abrupt firing from the NBC sitcom Valerie. She’s remembered as a hero now, but at the time she was in a terrifying position just a few years after Farrah Fawcett and Suzanne Somers saw their careers implode. This is what happened, and how we ended up watching Sandy Duncan in The Hogan Family reruns.

California congressman Gary Condit was never a suspect, but 11 weeks of saying nothing to the police after your mistress goes missing is not cool any way you slice it. This is the non-true crime look at the disappearance of Chandra Levy and how, in a post Bill and Monica world, the personal lives of politicians could be their undoing. Or not!

Dr. Doolittle apparently had some magic d, too—because Rex Harrison cut a memorably wide swathe through the leading ladies of stage and film. Today we look at three of them who met tragic ends involving Professor Higgins himself: Carole Landis, Kay Kendall, and Rachel Roberts. And Mark gushes over the fabulous Lili Palmer, who held it together remarkably well. Until she didn’t.

Woodrow Wilson was attempting to create the League of Nations in 1919 when he suffered a massive stroke. His wife, Edith, saw no need to slow down the business of the presidency. So she locked the doors and just kept on keeping on.