Today on the Rarified Heir Podcast, we have a first! Our guest today is a sibling of a prior guest from just a few weeks back. Our guest today is Karen Crane, the sister of Robert Crane and the daughter of Hogan’s Heroes star actor Bob Crane. While you may have thought we hit all the high notes on being the child of Bob Crane in our prior episode, well, guess again. Karen has her own, very unique story to tell. Born a decade after brother Robert, Karen spoke to us about her story from her own perspective including the details of her parents’ divorce, her father’s ‘wandering eye’ as she puts it, as well as his obsession with photography and cameras that ultimately led to his murder in 1978 when she was just 17 years old.

We also spoke to Karen about what it was like dealing with her father’s second family and the difficulties that entailed both while he was living and well after his death. What’s more, Karen spoke to us about a book she is writing on her own life. She’s one chapter away from finishing her autobiography, some ten years in the making. What once was a nice story about family life and the best things about being Bob Crane’s daughter has gone to a much darker place. What started out as one thing became entirely something else once she started to examine her own emotions and the events surrounding her father’s murder.

Along the way we did manage to squeak in some light moments including what kind of car her dad drove, his favorite ice cream and the one thing that she and her father did together that made her feel closest to him. We also learned quite a bit about things in her life that were difficult fifty years ago and are still difficult to this day. Karen held very little back in this episode and we appreciated her honesty and trust in sharing some truly difficult moments so we could share them with all of you. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story. However, none are like this one you are about to hear. Take a listen.

Today on another episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to Phil Crosby Jr., son of actor/singer Phil Crosby and grandson of Der Bingle himself, Bing Crosby. And if that isn’t enough, he’s the nephew of Gary Crosby, the stepson of Jack Klugman, the grandson of 1920’s and 30s film star Dixie Lee and we haven’t even told you all of his familial connections. Gee, ya think he was born into this?

Phil spoke to us about his family but also his career as an in demand singer of jazz and songs from the Great American Songbook. As you will soon hear, we learn how he went from a blues, prog band 11:11 playing at spots like the much beloved The Palamino Club to in Los Angeles to a jazz club in Borneo, We get into it. Not one to pull punches, Phil also spoke to us about the troubled family history that has made the rounds over the years. He’s quite open about it in fact and is fine talking about some of the claims his uncle Gary Crosby made in his tell-all book years ago. We also hear the flip side of that as he later found peace at the end of his life when he got sober.

Along the way we hear about how his mother, actress Peggy Crosby Klugman, dated Dean Martin, how a trip to McDonald’s turned Dino’s car into a sardine can, how he and his father were estranged for much of his life until the birth of his first child, why he never met Bing, the two Christmas songs he’s currently working on with another guest of the podcast and much more. This is the Rarified heir Podcast and everyone has a story. Take a listen.

Today on part two the Rarified Heir Podcast, we continue our conversation with Sharyn Felder, daughter of the late, great songwriter Doc Pomus and trust us, this episode is as jam packed and fun-filled as part one from last week. Last week we spoke to Sharyn on the release day of a new box set of her father’s music, You Can’t Hip a Square: The Doc Pomus Songwriting Demos on Omnivore Recordings, a six-CD set of lost, archival tracks. We continue that conversation today and learn that there just may be more tracks in her father’s archive that have never been released co-written by a very famous musician from New Orleans.

We also hear more about her father’s second career as a card player when the royalty money dried up in the 1970s and the characters who inhabited that word – the mobsters, the octogenarians, the hypochondriacs, the gun-toting security and more. We also learned why the games stopped (take a guess) and how Doc began the second phase of his songwriting career, years after his career started.

Sharyn’s colorful stories on this episode include two very popular music business folks who absolutely hated each other, Doc Pomus’ connection to a massive film in the 1970s that launched a comedy duo and became part of pop culture icons, how a bathhouse singer gained massive fame via Doc’s help but never acknowledged it publicly and much more. Part two is every bit as good as part one as you will hear right now on this episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast. Everyone has a story.