The Backstory with Patty Steele

The Wild West as Hollywood Tells the Story, Was Nothing but Gun Battles and Saloon Girls. But the True Story Is Way More Complex and Fascinating, Although It’s Got Its Share of Gun Battles! Overall, It Was a 30-Year Period That in Many Ways Defines Who We Are in America. But Then . . . How Did Barbed Wire Play a Huge Role in Ending the Wild West?

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Her family is murdered while on the adventure of a lifetime and the 11 year old survivor is lost at sea for days. As it turns out, the murderer is someone they all trusted with their dreams . . and their lives.

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Gianni Versace was one of the world’s hottest designers. In 1997 he had a net worth of almost a billion dollars and some of the most exquisite mansions in the world. He had it all. And that was the problem. His success and possible connection to sex for hire circles, led spree killer Andrew Cunanan . . right to Versace’s front door one beautiful summer morning.

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Bruce Ismay ran the White Star Line but managed to save himself from the sinking of the Titanic by hopping into a lifeboat. Was he a coward . . or simply canceled by vicious press? His granddaughter said the greatest tragedy of Ismay's life . . was surviving.

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Reincarnation is one of those topics that you either believe is a real possibility or you think is nuts. But there are stories with no other easy explanation. They come from both everyday folks, especially little children, as well as some big-name “A” list celebrities.

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If women in the 1800s wanted to take a swim . . they were pulled into the surf in a cabana on wheels, wearing 30 pounds of wet wool. So how did we get to the bikini, much less the thong?

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What happens when you’re born into tremendous wealth and social standing, but all you want is a bohemian life filled with creativity and freedom? In 1910 the life of a socialite was pre determined before birth. One young woman felt trapped and simply disappeared. But what really happened to Dorothy Arnold?

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We’ve been intrigued in the past few weeks with the ancient traditions surrounding the choice for a new pope to lead the Roman Catholic Church. But that transition hasn’t always been smooth. This is another look at one of the darkest moments in Church history. It was the Cadaver Trial of a dead pope, which took place 1100 years ago.

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Jessica Savitch had a dramatic rise... and an even more dramatic fall in the network news business of the 1970s and ’80s. It’s a shocker! But her tragic story oddly inspired Will Ferrell to do the movie Anchorman: The Rise and Fall of Ron Burgundy. Here’s the backstory!

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Few authors have impacted literature and our culture like On the Road author Jack Kerouac. But his short life was filled with pain, depression, addiction, and murder... as well as brilliance. This is a peek at his rise and fall.

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How does a book start out as a complete failure only to suddenly be celebrated as one of the great American novels, decades later? And what was its heartbreaking inspiration? This is the story of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic The Great Gatsby, published 100 years ago this month.

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Nothing makes us melt like a great story about a kid and a dog. Lassie was a megastar in the 1950s, watching over her 7-year-old boy Timmy...but was her act lifted from the first canine movie star back in 1905?

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One of America’s most prolific female serial killers was Aileen Wuornos. She admitted to killing at least seven men before she was executed in 2002. Her life was depicted in the 2003 movie Monster. But how did the little girl, tormented by schoolmates as "the cigarette pig," become a monster?

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Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s long-time property in Palm Beach, gets a lot of press these days. But it’s an architectural marvel. The thing is, its past is way more glittering than its present. It was built in the roaring 1920s by a young woman who was, for most of her life, the richest woman in America. This is about where her money came from and how she spent it.

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The murder of movie star Lana Turner’s mobster boyfriend by her 14-year-old daughter was the biggest story in Hollywood in the late 1950s. But did young Cheryl really wield the knife? Or did she take the hit for her mother?

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Two of the most famous inventors of the late 19th and early 20th century were Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. They were great friends and shared a strong belief in the afterlife. That connection led Ford to obtain a test tube from Edison’s son…allegedly containing Edison’s dying breath.

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Hard to imagine loving a politician so much that a third of the entire U.S. populace shows up to watch his funeral train go by and millions file past his open coffin. But sadly, Abe Lincoln was decomposing before their eyes. His two-week journey home was on a train meant to be the 1860s version of Air Force One, and his only trip on it was after his death. 

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