Episodes

  • Terms of Endearment (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 7)

    Terms of Endearment (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 7)
    Jul 7 2020
    Polly's third marriage falls apart, and she enters more than one destructive affair. During these tumultuous times, Polly establishes a new collaboration with a male writer-director, James L. Brooks, and together the two turn another Larry McMurtry novel into a classic film: Terms of Endearment. Once again, while working on this film about a combative mother-daughter relationship, Polly finds that art and life are intertwined. Polly's own story starts showing up in other people's movies, including Irreconcilable Differences -- starring Ryan O'Neal as a version of Peter Bogdanovich.

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    54 mins
  • Pretty Baby and a Playmate Murder (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 6)

    Pretty Baby and a Playmate Murder (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 6)
    Jun 30 2020
    In an attempt to save her family, Polly transitions to screenwriting and producing, basing the prostitution drama Pretty Baby, starring a pre-teen Brooke Shields, on her own daughter. Polly finds herself increasingly overcome by alcoholism, while dealing with Shields's own alcoholic mother. Polly's already-difficult relationship with her two daughters is made much more complicated by the murder of Peter's girlfriend, Dorothy Stratten, and Bogdanovich's subsequent emotional collapse.

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    57 mins
  • A Star is Born (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 5)

    A Star is Born (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 5)
    Jun 23 2020
    When Polly begins her own on-set affair, the double standard of what men can get away with in Hollywood versus what was expected for women would push her to a breaking point. With collaborating with her ex-husband no longer an option, Platt starts attempting to rebuild her career, designing classics such as A Star is Born and Bad News Bears, while also navigating predatory men in power in post-sexual revolution Hollywood.

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    56 mins
  • Orson Welles, What’s Up Doc, Paper Moon (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 4)

    Orson Welles, What’s Up Doc, Paper Moon (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 4)
    Jun 16 2020
    In the aftermath of The Last Picture Show — and the collapse of her second marriage — Polly finds an unlikely ally, and a new job, in Orson Welles. Anxious to build on her career momentum (and become the first female film art director accepted into her union), Polly agrees to work on Peter's next two films, What's Up Doc and Paper Moon – two massive hits which make Peter one of the most famous directors of the decade.

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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Last Picture Show Love Triangle (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 3)

    Last Picture Show Love Triangle (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 3)
    Jun 9 2020
    At Polly's urging, Peter decides to direct an adaptation of Larry McMurtry's novel The Last Picture Show. Though credited only as the film's “designer,” Polly is involved in every creative decision, including casting — and it's with his pregnant-again wife's enthusiasm that Bogdanovich casts 20-year-old model Cybill Shepherd as the film's femme fatale. Though Polly believed she and Peter were “deliriously happy,” Bogdanovich and Shepherd fall in love on the set of the movie, and Polly has to make a decision: to save face and avoid personal humiliation by walking away from the production, or stay and fight for the creative baby that she feels ownership over.

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    56 mins
  • Peter Bogdanovich and the Woman Behind the Auteur (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 2)

    Peter Bogdanovich and the Woman Behind the Auteur (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 2)
    Jun 3 2020
    After the death of her first husband and creative partner, Polly moves to New York, where she swiftly meets and falls in love with Peter Bogdanovich. Together Polly and Peter build a life around the obsessive consumption of Hollywood movies, with Polly acting as Peter's Jill-of-all-trades support system as he first ingratiates himself with the previous two generations of Hollywood auteurs as a critic/historian, and then makes his way into making his own films. Together, Polly and Peter write and produce Targets, Bogdanovich's first credited feature, and also collaborate on a documentary about the great director John Ford. By the time Polly gives birth to their first daughter, she believes she and Peter are an indivisible, equal creative partnership — regardless of how credit is distributed in Hollywood.

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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • “It wasn’t sexism, then” (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 1)

    “It wasn’t sexism, then” (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 1)
    May 26 2020
    We'll begin with a look at how Polly Platt's legacy was appraised when she died in 2011. Then we'll go back in time to tell Polly's story from the start, beginning with her Revolutionary Road-esque childhood in Europe and America as the neglected daughter of two alcoholics; to her years studying scenic design in environments in which women weren't welcome; the secret pregnancy that halted her formal education, and the early marriage that took her West and cemented her desire to tell stories through design. Throughout, we'll talk about how Platt's experiences, as the product of an American military family of the 1950s—and the daughter of a mother who had been forced to abandon a career for motherhood––shaped her view of gender roles and relations, and her idea of what it meant to be the wife of a important man.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Sneak Peek: Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 1

    Sneak Peek: Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 1
    May 19 2020
    Excited for the new season? We can hardly wait to share the untold story of Polly Platt, the secret weapon behind some of the most highly acclaimed films of the 1970s, '80s and '90s. This audio journey will feature interviews and intimate details about her trailblazing legacy and heartbreaking private life, including excerpts from her own unpublished memoirs dealing with her creative collaborations and relationship with her second husband, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich. The new season premieres May 26. For now, please enjoy a taste of what's to come in this extended preview of episode 1. Actress Maggie Siff is featured as the voice of Polly Platt.

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    22 mins