Introducing: THE DON

The podcast series THE DON chronicles the wild anecdotes and escapes of Hollywood’s last great showman, Don Simpson, the producer who made such 80s classics as AMERICAN GIGOLO, FLASHDANCE, BEVERLY HILLS COP and TOP GUN. Don created a mythological persona known as “The Don” where in order to convince Hollywood to make his high-octane movies he had to live a high-octane lifestyle. But the lifestyle became all-consuming. His industry colleagues said that Don was so passionate about the movies that he was willing to die for them. And sadly, that’s what happened. “The Don” tells the epic, gonzo tale of one man’s obsession with his dream of making movies and how that dream led to his tragic downfall.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What you're about to hear is a tragic tale, a
story as epic as Citizen Kane, or more aptly, Citizen Cocaine.
You know, the Good Fellows scene with the helicopters and
stirring the PASTA. Saus Don Simpson, the mega film producer
of Flashdance, Beverly Hills, Cop and Top Gun, lived that

(00:20):
sort of chaos on a daily basis. It was a
life centered around one thing. Speed Don was nuts, gonza, manic, intimidating,
and yet it was all calculated to create a persona,
the persona of the Dawn, and the Dawn would grow

(00:41):
in epic proportions. Don's story was a classic reinvention and myths.
What Gatsby's excess was to the twenties, the Dons was
to the eighties, and it could only have happened at
a certain time and place in history. Once upon a
time in Hollywood, the nineteen eighties lifestyles of the rich

(01:01):
and reckless. Back in the nineteen eighties, Don's behavior wasn't
just tolerated, it was encouraged. The film industry gave Dawn
a long leash for his high class call girls. His
alliance with the Vatican connected Italian mob, the private eye
that cleaned up his car crashes and illicit firearm schemes,
the doctor feel goods on retainer, the expense accounts for

(01:23):
exotic cars and private jets and ski party orgies, and aspen.
Don's black market ties were an open secret inside Hollywood,
and it was Don's black market connections that led to
his tragic death. Season one of The Dawn takes you
inside the nefarious circumstances surrounding Don's death, in which the

(01:43):
l A Corner proclaimed Don's body to be the most
toxic corpse in the history of California autopsy. Listen to
The Dawn beginning May eleven on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream your podcasts.