THE DON Season 2

THE DON is a docu-drama on the life of the producer of TOP GUN, Don Simpson, which uses narration, clips, and fictional re-enactments via “lost tapes'' to take you behind the scenes into Hollywood’s decade of decadence, the 1980s. Before the era of MeToo, there was Don Simpson the poster boy of toxic masculinity, whose outlandish behavior was not only tolerated but encouraged by the film industry who profited greatly off Don’s movies. Don Simpson was, like the character he named after himself in his movie TOP GUN, a maverick. His signature style of filmmaking created one hit after another— AMERICAN GIGOLO, FLASHDANCE, BEVERLY HILLS COP, TOP GUN- they all came from the mind of Don Simpson. Don loved the movies so much that he created a mythological persona known as “The Don” to match his signature movies— loud, ballsy, cheesy— his movies were full of homo-erotic testoterone-driven race car drivers and navy fighter pilots and stripper/welders who wanted to be ballerinas— these were the movies from Don’s absurd fantasy world— this was the world that Don actually lived in— there was no separation between life and art. And that movie persona that he created— “The Don”— grew more and more outrageous and more extreme— until ultimately… it killed him.

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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 sauce. 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, gonzo, manic, intimidating,
and yet it was all calculated to create a persona,
the persona of the Dawn, and the Don would grow

(00:41):
in epic proportions. Don's story was a classic reinvention and myth.
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 two of The Dawn takes you
behind the scenes of Don's hit movies, his epic fall
from grace that led to his shocking death, and the
unsavory characters that may have been complicit. Listen to The

(01:46):
Dawn beginning on MA on the I Heart radio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.