Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies

Val Kilmer walked off his first professional set at age 13. It was a hamburger commercial, he thought the burgers looked terrible, and he refused to sell them. He never got paid, and it turned out to be a preview of the rest of his career.
Kilmer once said he heard he'd gotten cast in Batman moments after walking out of a bat cave in Africa. He also claimed he rode a horse home faster than should have been physically possible the day his father died. Those stories come from a devout Christian Science faith that later shaped how he handled his own throat cancer diagnosis, including an initial refusal of treatment his children eventually talked him out of. The disease took his speaking voice, and by the time the 2021 documentary Val came out, his son Jack was narrating some of his father's own words. The film traced a career that ran from Jim Morrison and Iceman in Top Gun to Doc Holliday in Tombstone, alongside a reputation on set that made him one of the more polarizing actors of his generation.
Famous & Gravy is a celebrity biography podcast that asks, "What does this celebrity's life story show us about ourselves?"
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like Episode 50 "Golden Rose" (Betty White) and Episode 51 "Goofball Stud" (Bill Paxton).
LINKS:
Val Kilmer NYT Obituary
I'm Your Huckleberry, Val Kilmer's memoir
Collider article on why Val Kilmer quit Batman
Val Kilmer talks with Larry King, previews Top Gun 2
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Matthew Perry died in 2023 at fifty-four, and despite his very public battle with addiction, the first line of his obituary made no mention of his disease. Michael Osborne and Alice Orr argue that Matthew Perry is a case study in fame and addiction, working through his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, where he admits he has no memory of filming three entire seasons of Friends. They get into his broken engagement to Julia Roberts, the sponsor turned business partner, and the question of what it takes to cultivate a quality of self-love when the disease of addiction is always working against you.
Famous & Gravy is a celebrity biography podcast that asks, "What can a celebrity life story show us about ourselves?"
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like:
Episode 119, Hungry Ghost (Anthony Bourdain)
Episode 108, Gonzo Troubadour (Hunter S. Thompson)
LINKS
Alice Florence Orr, Managing Editor of Podcast Review
NYT obituary, Matthew Perry
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Matthew Perry's memoir
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip trailer, the canceled Aaron Sorkin pilot
Matthew Perry puts Peter Hitchens to shame about addiction
Best moments from the Friends 2021 reunion
Interview with Tom Power about his memoir
Your Favorite Podcast Host is (Probably) in Recovery, Osborne article published in Podcast Review
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Website: famousandgravy.com
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Marco Polo spent 24 years crossing the Mongol Empire and came home with stories so wild that his own neighbors called him a liar. In this episode, Michael sits down with Denis Belliveau, who in the 1990s spent two years retracing Marco Polo's actual route: from Venice through Afghanistan during the warlord period, into a newly opened Iran, and across the Silk Road into China, without ever boarding a plane. Denis made a documentary from the experience, which was nominated for Emmys. He now shares his story with students to inspire them about travel, geography, and culture. His website is In the Footsteps of History:
https://inthefootsteps.org/
This is one of our occasional off-format conversations, built around a single interview rather than the show's normal segments. Even though it's been 700 years, we still want to know what can a life story, shows us about ourselves?
Denis talks about getting held at gunpoint near the ancient site of Balkh, being among the first American civilians allowed into Iran since 1979, and the strange coincidences that kept opening doors along the way. He also gets into who Marco Polo actually was: a natural storyteller who charmed Kublai Khan as a teenager, and a man whose curiosity outran the prejudices of his own century.
Thanks to Rachel Huss for telling us about Denis. Read her article here!

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David Lynch died in 2025 at seventy-eight, and his own obituary somehow never mentioned Twin Peaks or Mulholland Drive. Michael Osborne and longtime Famous & Gravy editor Jacob Weiss spend this episode on the gap between David Lynch the public weirdo, the mind behind Blue Velvet and Eraserhead, and David Lynch the strikingly normal man underneath: a lifelong devotee of transcendental meditation who loved coffee, cigarettes, and burgers more than he loved being understood. The strangest thread they pull on: a filmmaker whose work returned again and again to smoke and fire died as the Los Angeles wildfires burned around him, at the same age David Lynch always seemed to defy.
Famous & Gravy is a celebrity biography podcast that asks, "Would you want that life?"
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like:
Episode 82, Rebel Rebel (David Bowie)
Episode 75 Love and OJ Jokes (Norm MacDonald)
LINKS
NYT obituary, David Lynch
"David Lynch Keeps His Head," David Foster Wallace's 1996 profile referenced in this episode
KCRW's David Lynch daily weather forecast archive
Naomi Watts, Laura Dern & Patricia Arquette Tell David Lynch Stories
Documentary on the midnight movie circuit and Eraserhead's cult run
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Website: famousandgravy.com
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Whitney Houston. Gospel choir prodigy raised by soul royalty, Super Bowl anthem reinventor, the rare voice the drag community refuses to parody, reluctant face of pop music's "crossover" wars, three-octave talent behind the best-selling soundtrack in history.
She grew up singing in the choir at New Hope Baptist Church, trained by a mother, Cissy Houston, who'd once backed up Aretha Franklin, with Dionne Warwick as a cousin and soul music running through the family before Whitney Houston ever picked up a microphone professionally. In 1991, her team made one quiet change, shifting The Star-Spangled Banner from a stiff 3/4 waltz into 4/4, and turned the national anthem into a charting Super Bowl hit. The Bodyguard soundtrack still outsells Saturday Night Fever, Titanic, and Purple Rain. And when Diane Sawyer asked her, on camera, to name her biggest devil, Whitney didn't say cocaine. She said: "me."
Host Michael Osborne and guest John Watts wrestle with the narrative of her addiction and an abusive marriage, and how we understand her talent. They dig into the night she was booed at the 1989 Soul Train Awards and met Bobby Brown hours later, her close bond with Robyn Crawford kept just out of public view, and the squeaky-clean "princess" image Clive Davis built that never matched the goofball she actually was at home.
Famous & Gravy is a celebrity biography podcast. Every episode asks: Would you want that life?
If you enjoyed this episode you may also like Episode 74 "The Masterclass Act" (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Episode 101 "Soul Queen" (Aretha Franklin).
LINKS
New York Times obituary for Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston's 1991 Super Bowl National Anthem performance
Whitney Houston's 2002 interview with Diane Sawyer
Whitney Houston's 2009 interview with Oprah Winfrey
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