TV Confidential with Ed Robertson

TVC 703.5: Ed welcomes back award-winning producer, director, and author Joseph Wallenstein (Knots Landing, Hotel, Seventh Heaven, Flynn vs. Miranda, Nothing Dies for Film), longtime director of physical production for the USC School of Cinematic Arts (where he helped oversee more than 15,000 student film projects without a single injury), and now host of the new podcast Whatcha Know Joe? Topics this segment include how Joe first became involved with USC. Whatcha Know Joe? is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you find podcasts.

TVC 703.6: Award-winning producer, director, and author Joseph Wallenstein talks to Ed about how Knots Landing producer Michael Filerman helped him become a director. Joe's podcast, Whatcha Know Joe?, is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you find podcasts.

We'll be back with a brand new edition of TV Confidential later this week. In the meantime, please enjoy this clip from August 2012 in which Tony, Donna, and Ed remember the life and career of Groucho Marx and the broadcast history of You Bet Your Life.

TVC 702.1: From August 2018: Chuck Harter joins Ed for Part 1 of a three-part look at Shindig, Hullabaloo, Where the Action Is and other national and syndicated pop music TV shows of the mid to late 1960s—a genre that not only showcased such popular groups as The Kinks, The Righteous Brothers, Herman's Hermits, Darlene Love, Paul Revere and The Raiders, and Ike and Tina Turner, but which broke ground insofar as many of these shows were produced specifically for young viewers.

TVC 702.2: From August 2018: Chuck Harter and Ed continue their look at national, syndicated, and (in a few cases) locally produced pop music TV shows of the mid to late 1960s. Topics this segment include the back story of Hullabaloo, NBC's answer to Shindig, which premiered in January 1965.

TVC 702.3: From August 2018: Chuck Harter and Ed discuss the on-air history of Where the Action Is (ABC, 1965-1967), a weekday afternoon music series, created by Dick Clark, that featured such artists as James Brown, Herman's Hermits, and Paul Revere and The Raiders.

TVC 702.4: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with Joseph Dougherty, author of Comfort and Joi, and Alexis Hunter, author of Joi Lansing: A Body to Die For, about the life and career of singer/actress Joi Lansing. Topics this segment include how Joi's third husband, producer Stan Todd, not only helped Joi launch her nightclub singing career, but stepped up for both Joi and Alexis, particularly during Joi's battle with breast cancer. Comfort and Joi is available from Tucker DS Press, while Joi Lansing: A Body to Die For is available from Bear Manor Media.

TVC 702.5: Ed welcomes Joseph Atkins, author of Harry Dean Stanton: Hollywood's Zen Rebel, a deep dive into the life and times of the angular-faced character actor who not only became a leading man in the 1980s (most notably, with Paris, Texas and Repo Man), but was also an accomplished singer and musician. Joe's book includes interviews with such Harry Dean Stanton contemporaries as Nehemiah Persoff, L.Q. Jones, Dabney Coleman, Dennis Quaid, directors Alex Cox and Wim Wenders, as well as many members of Stanton's family. Harry Dean Stanton: Hollywood's Zen Rebel is available through University Press of Kentucky as well as Amazon.com. Topics this segment include how Stanton was arguably more authentic in his expression of The Method than any other actor; how he came to Hollywood in the 1960s hoping to leave his mark as a movie actor, but was pragmatic enough to recognize that television offered a lot of opportunities to find work; and how Stanton became frustrated near the end of the 1960s when contemporaries like Jack Nicholson and Warren Oates began finding leading roles, while he did not.

TVC 702.6: Joseph Atkins, author of Harry Dean Stanton: Hollywood's Zen Rebel, talks to Ed how director Monte Hellman cast Stanton frequently in his movies, yet never saw him as a lead; how Stanton and Alex Cox, director of Repo Man, did not always see eye to eye during the early production of that movie; and how the soundtrack of Repo Man kept the film in the public eye. Harry Dean Stanton: Hollywood's Zen Rebel is available through University Press of Kentucky as well as Amazon.com.

TVC 700.1: Emmy Award-winning writer, director, and producer Joseph Dougherty and author and artist Alexis Hunter join Ed for the first of a special two-part look at the life and career of Joi Lansing, the legendary Blonde Bombshell best known for her pin-up photos, her frequent work in movies and television throughout the '50s and '60s, and her successful nightclub singing act. Joe's latest book, Comfort and Joi, is a part-biography, part-filmography, and part-appreciation of Joi Lansing that makes the case that Lansing was not only a much better actress than people gave her credit for, but could make even a seven-second silent bit in which she appears on the far edge of the frame interesting to watch just because she was in it. Alexis is the author of Joi Lansing: A Body to Die For, an intimate memoir of Alexis's four-year relationship with Lansing, a period that coincided with the last four years of Joi's life before she died from breast cancer in August 1972. Joi and Alexis had to keep their relationship secret, partly because of the pressure Joi felt to maintain her public image as the ultimate object of desire for men, and partly because the public at large in 1969 was not as accepting of intimate relationships between two members of the same sex as they are today. Topics this segment include the many karmic coincidences that brought Joe and Alexis together (as well as the many ways in which their books complement each other); how Joi honed her comedic skills while working with Lucille Ball and Bob Cummings; and Joi's experience working with Orson Welles not only in Touch of Evil, but in the award-winning comedy-drama Fountain of Youth.