April 20, 2022 • 27 mins
Welcoming Dana Schwartz to The Pod Club! In this week’s episode, Jo Piazza is joined by the bestselling author and host of number one charting podcast, Noble Blood. When Dana randomly tweeted that she wanted to host a podcast about historical royals doing bad things, she didn’t expect iHeart to come banging down her door. A few shows and a couple years later, she’s here on The Pod Club talking about her extremely successful career. Dana’s most recent show, Haileywood, about the time Bruce Willis took over the town of Hailey, Idaho, let her apply that knack for historical gossip to the world of modern day celebrities. Listen to this week’s episode to hear her and Jo weigh in on the topic and to hear the absolutely adorable story of how Dana met the love of her life through a podcast.
Dana’s Shows:
Shows Mentioned:
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey, Mom, I am in dressing room. Oh you're in
the coals dressing room. What are you getting? I'm just spring.
That's nice. That's nice. No, that's good. Um. I wanted
to tell you that I found a podcast for you
to listen to, and I think it might be the
perfect podcast for you to listen to. What It's called
(00:32):
Noble Blood and it's a history podcast about all of
these crazy stories about old royals from history. I would
love that. I know you would. I know it's all
like ill fated love affairs and bad decisions and family
drama and murders and murdered and that sounds exactly I'm
(00:58):
my alley it does. So do you want me to
download it for you when you come over on Saturday?
That would be great. It's a podcast, podcast podcast. Hello,
and welcome back to the pod Club. Today we are
talking to the one and only Dana Schwartz. I'd actually
(01:21):
like to introduce her now as number one New York
Times bestselling author Dana Schwartz, because she is Her new
book Academy has just been sitting on top of the
New York Times bestseller list for weeks now. But if
you're a history buff, you might already be a fan
of Dana's show Noble Blood. It's gossip for old royals. Yeah,
(01:42):
she tells the juiciest and most silesia stories of all
time about historical royal figures. It's real good and I'm
going to get my mom to listen to it. Dana
is also a journalist and an author, and she's got
a lot of other stories to share, but one of
my favorites is how she actually found love in our
own life through a podcast. We talked about it all
(02:03):
We cut Deep. I hope you enjoy. Hi, Welcome to
the Pod Club, Dana. Thank you so much for having me.
I'm thrilled to be here. I want to be kind
of creepy sometimes with guests and be like thanks for
joining the club, and they're like, I didn't join any club, Like,
(02:25):
oh no, yeah, you're in the club. You're in the club.
You're in the pod Club. I'm so psyched to have
you on today, because today we are going to talk
about podcasts about celebrities. Not celebrity podcasts, mind you, Not
not the podcast that every single celebrity thinks that they
deserve to have these days, but podcasts that are about
(02:46):
the celebrity. Yes, I think it's a very important distinction.
I don't listen to any podcasts hosted by celebrities. They
have enough. They have enough listeners, right like all the
all the other podcasts, like my podcasts and your Menne podcasts,
we need and deserve listeners. Frankly, Duk Shepherd doesn't need anymore,
(03:06):
even though I do like his show a little. I'm like,
come on, celebrities, you have enough. You're rich and famous.
Do you really need to come into the podcast world?
I know exactly. It's like you have all the bow
talks already and the personal chefs, Like, just let me
sit in my closet and record on my little, little,
sad microphone. Right It's the one thing I can do
(03:27):
as someone who's not as hot as a as a
famous person. It's an audio medium. It was made for me.
I know, I know same, And that's why our cameras
aren't on right now and we're not even looking at
each other. So, Dana, I want to hear a little
bit about how you started doing this weird thing called podcasting,
because this is not what you always did. You did
not go to college and think I want to be
(03:48):
a podcaster. So how did you know? And for like
a long time, I feel like, for like a good
like five years, I was one of those like people
is like I don't have a podcast and that's a
thing about me. And now I have all the podcasts.
You really do have all the podcasts. I'll jump in
here and and just just to to your horn for
a second. You are the creator and host of the
(04:10):
number one charting podcast Noble Blood from Our Heart Radio,
which tells stories of royals like not just not the
royals today, but like other royals in his historical royals,
weird stories from history that maybe people don't know, like
murderers and love affairs and scandals, which I love. I
(04:30):
can't get enough. I mean, it's like royals meets true crime.
It's great. Tell me a little bit about where the
idea for Noble Blood came from. Well, I feel like
my entire life, I've just been fascinated by history and
especially history, like not celebrity culture is the wrong word,
but like history of the powerful people doing bad things
(04:54):
throughout history, like scandals, like the same way I like,
I feel like I can't help but want to know
who's on the cover of people magazine. I'm like, I'm
interested in the scandals of historical royals, and like, I've
taken a lot of history classes throughout my life, and
I read a lot of nonfiction and it was just
like a hobby of mine, but not one that I
ever thought would be a career. You know, how do
you make a career out of that? How do you
(05:15):
make a career out of you know? I love hearing
about all of the dirty stuff that long dead people did.
I mean I do, and that's it. It's like I
was like, I don't want to be a historian. That's
not the field that interests me. I'm interested in like
telling stories as like being a writer, being you know,
working in TV, working in books. Uh. And so I
(05:36):
just sort of had this hobby my whole life. And
then I made friends with Aaron Manky, who's the amazing
podcast producer and host of Lore and like a bunch
of other podcasts, and I I tweeted out one day, Okay,
how do I make a podcast that's just me talking
about wild scandals in royal you know, noble history? And
Aaron Mankey followed me on Twitter was like, hmm, send
(05:59):
me a proposed usual and I was like, oh my god,
and I wrote a proposal immediately and sent it to him,
and we worked on it and send it to the
team at my Heart and the rest is history. And
now I write fifteen page history papers for my main job.
Oh my god, I can't believe that's how it happened.
That's that you just you sent a tweet and then
Aaron monkeys like great, like the fairy godmother coming down.
(06:22):
He really was the fairy godmother of this podcast. That's
the best. Also, that's going to encourage so many weirdos
to tweet at Aaron Minkey right now. Oh yeah, I'm
sure he's gonna love that. That's absolutely what you should do. Yeah, no, everyone,
everyone tweet him right now. Do you have a favorite
episode of Noble Blood? Oh gosh, I don't I have.
(06:42):
They're all like my favorite children. I feel like every
time I write an episode, I'm like, oh my god,
this is the one, and then as soon as I
start researching a new episode, I'm like, oh my god,
this is the one. I feel like, maybe this week
my favorite one. It was sort of a different episode,
but I talked about how currently there's a lawsuit going
on which the guy who like is the current present
(07:02):
day descendant of the Kaiser in Germany. And basically there's
this big question in Germany as to whether or not
he's entitled to keep the things that were like claimed
from his family, and the question is whether or not
the Kaiser helped the Nazis, And if they proved that
the Kaiser helped the Nazis, then he's not entitled to
any of that, like old wealth and property. And so
(07:24):
it's like a massive lawsuit. It's like a fascinating issue
that blends, you know, present day scandal and historical stories,
and that's the sort of thing that really, you know,
makes me want to keep doing this podcast. For gay
Org Friedrich, I imagine it's not just a matter of money,
(07:45):
although it does seem like quite a bit of money,
but of family, honor and shame. Whatever pride he might
take in being able to trace his lineage back past
Queen Victoria is permanently overshadowed by those photos of his
great grandfather proudly wearing a swatsticka But those photos, embarrassing
(08:08):
as they are, can't tell a full story, and so
millions of euros are at stake in a legal battle
in which historians have been enlisted on both sides to
answer a seemingly simple question, did Crown Prince will Holm
significantly help the Nazis? What's the most scandalous scandal that
(08:32):
you guys have had on Noble Blood? Oh? And well,
now it feels like I'm just going straight back to Germany.
But in the late eighteen hundreds, the sister of the
Kaiser invited all of these nobles to come to like
a winter cabin ice skating party, and it became an orgy.
And then weeks later anonymous letters started being sent to
(08:55):
the people who attended, accusing them of the things they did.
Oh my, so I want every episode of Noble Blood
to be optioned for a TV series. Has that happened yet? No?
But I mean that's fascinating, right, Like, isn't that wild
that that happened? That sounds like an episode of Gossip Girl.
These stories are you couldn't make them up. If I
made them up as fiction, they'd be like it's too much.
(09:19):
And there's all these murders that have happened, murder mysteries,
people going crazy. Someone at I think one to ask
me like, oh, do you think you might ever run
out of episodes, and it's like, no, there's literally an
impossible number of fascinating stories. It will go on forever
and ever. When I think of historical royals, they were
kind of like the primo janitors that they were kind
(09:42):
of like the early celebrities in a way, or maybe
even the only celebrities in a town in a country.
They were the bold faced names. And that leads me
from noble Blood into what we're going to talk about today,
which is podcasts not by celebrit palties but about celebrities.
And you have a relatively new podcast that happens to
(10:06):
be a little bit about a particular celebrity I do.
It's called Haleywood, and it's another one of those stories
where you're like, oh, my god, did this actually happened?
Is this? This is a truth stranger than fiction. Bruce
Willis in the late nineties, when he was sort of
at the height of his power post die Hard, wanted
(10:28):
to get out of the Hollywood bubble, and he moved
to this tiny town called Haley, Idaho. But he didn't
just like live there. He then slowly began developing and
revitalizing this town and just sort of making it in
his image, and this like truly strange saga, all about
like ego and money and power and you know the
(10:51):
privileges of celebrity and where they get you. In the
there was no bigger star than Bruce Willis and nowhere
for him to go where he wasn't treated like Hollywood royalty.
But almost by accident, Willis found his escape a tiny
(11:16):
town called Haley, Idaho. But pretty quickly the people of
Haley started feeling suspicious. We kept hearing a corporation named
Ixnay was making offers to buy some properties right on
main Street, and we couldn't find out who was the
(11:38):
force behind Ickknay. It turns out Bruce Willis didn't just
want to live in Haley. He wanted to transform it,
to remake the town in his own image. And that's
when Haley became something else entirely. What I love about
(12:00):
the story is that I've never heard it before. I
was a celebrity gossip columnist, a shameless, shameless entertainment reporter
for so many years, and yet I know nothing about Haley.
How did you find this story? I found this story
because of the team at I heart. So noble blood
is an I Heart Radio podcast and one of the
producers is an amazing guy named Jason English. And this
(12:23):
is sort of one of those wild stories about like
how everything comes together. My first job, when I was
in college and then graduated from college, I was a
freelance writer for Mental Floss magazine, and then eventually I
was a part time writer at Mental Floss. And so
when I was there, my boss was Jason English, who
(12:45):
then later went on to become like a head honcho
at I Heart Radio. And it was like one of
those serendipity things that years later we reconnected and he
was the one who then brought my attention to Haleywood.
And like you, I had literally ever heard of the story. No, never,
but I basically just didn't know about the story or
(13:06):
like the celebrity scandal that happened in the nineties, And
the more I learned about it, the more I was like,
oh my god, this is so just fascinating in like
a gossip tabloid way, but also in the way of
like it's so relevant today the way celebrities, when and
how celebrities get involved in politics, and how they make
their money and senses of entitlement, what celebrities owe us
(13:29):
and we owe them Like those are I think fundamental questions,
especially now in the twenty one century, as like social
media lowers that wall between celebrities and normals, those questions
become ever more prevalent totally. And I wrote a book
about how celebrities make their money, like not through movies
and the singing songs, but through the branding themselves, you know,
(13:53):
partnering with Planet Hollywood, selling their tweets ten years ago
and now the world is still the same, but there's
just so much more money involved. Oh, I mean Planet Hollywood.
That was like where Bruce Willis first kind of realized
he could leverage his celebrity for money in terms of development.
It's like a fascinating microcosm of like the things to
(14:17):
come with, like Kylie Jenner's lip glass kits and Jessica
Alba's soap. I didn't even know Jessica Alba had soap. Oh,
Jessica Alba is a soap billionaire. All right, I'm gonna
I need I'm gonna google that. Can you tell me
(15:05):
what other podcasts about celebrities you think are really good
right now? I think genuinely my favorite podcast, like the
one that I listened to pretty much every day. Is
a podcast called blank Check, hosted by Griffin Newman and
David Sims And David is a film critic for The Atlantic,
and Griffin is an actor, and they go through the
(15:28):
filmographies of directors who you know, have blank checks, basically
like if they've made enough money, then Hollywood basically is like,
all right, do whatever you want. And sometimes it works
out and sometimes it doesn't. But I think their podcast
is specifically interesting because it traces the power of celebrity
in terms of filmmakers, you know, filmmakers who are brands
(15:51):
onto themselves, Like there's a difference between a trailer when
it's like from the creators of X, that's like from
the mind of west Ander in like that means something
very specific, And so I think they put that in
a very interesting context by doing these deep dives. And
then of course as they're discussing these movies, they go
into celebrity careers and arcs of of actor careers and
(16:17):
different choices actors make. They're just too smart, funny people
who have interesting context and nuance to that. I like
it when smart funny people make smart, funny things. It
makes me happy. I have never heard of blank check.
Actually this I love it when someone tells me something. Now,
I'm very very to them. They're amazing. What episodes should
(16:38):
I listen to? First? It's less about episodes and more
about these mini series arcs of like who the actual
directors are that they're talking about. It's a really long
mini series. But they did like Tim Burton a while ago,
and I just find him so fascinating and the way
he sort of became a parody of himself. But this
(16:59):
is starting in the Golden Air, because this guy hits
the ground running and kind of takes Hollywood by storm
in a way that I would argue as a little unprecedented.
And he is that weird phenomena where like he's this
weird bully a base of all his cultural influences, growing
up a lot of weird, pulpy, trashy stuff, and he
made these things very mainstream even though people didn't have
(17:21):
the reference base for the stuff that he grew up on. Yeah, okay,
which I think is like a weird phenomenon. Sure, And
you compare him within the realm of directors like this
to like someone like Edgar Wright, where it took like
five movies for one of his films to be successful. Yes,
this was like a big cult surprise success in terms
of our blank check arc. You are correct, Yes, he
(17:44):
like got a blank check fast. What is your favorite podcast?
I'd love to ask people this question. If someone came
up to you and said I'd like to try a podcast,
I'd like to dabble in them. What podcast would you recommend?
They start with? I'm biased, so forgive my bias, but
I really think one of the best podcasts is one
(18:05):
called All Fantasy Everything, which is hosted and created by
my fiance Ian Carmel. Oh and really yeah, we um
we actually met because of this podcast. He invited me
on to be a guest. All right, so back up,
tell me tell me the name of the podcast again.
The podcast is called All Fantasy Everything. Okay, And so,
(18:25):
because you know I love a love story and now
I'm going to have to have you on my podcast, committed,
Sorry coming on, And so he reaches out to you.
How did he know who you were? Author and writer
of many books and funny personal social a writer about town.
I think he just sort of knew me. And the
thing about All Fantasy Everything is it's a podcast. Where
he and his guests fantasy draft like you would for
(18:46):
a sports team, but for non sports things like random
things like you know, super movies or like whatever. They're
just drafting and discussing these things. Explain that to me
a little bit. So if I were going to draft
for soup, like what would happen? You'd be like I
first pick split p oh that that, you know, just
(19:07):
a random example. You just draft things. You just draft things,
you can draft, just draft anything you want. Yeah, now
I'm wondering what I would draft if you have draft
show whatever you want, just something that you get feel competitive.
But see, I'm not a sports person, so like, I
don't really know what happens in a draft. This is
fun and then what happens? You just talk about the
draft picks? Yeah, okay, so Ian, how's you come on
(19:29):
the show? And then how did you fall in love
and get engaged? We just sort of hit it off
on the podcast. We like chatted and had like good rapport,
and then we just sort of kept in touch. We
kept texting and then talked on the phone and then
started dating. It's kind of like a weird all American
love story. It's a weird all American Audio love Story.
(19:53):
All right, well, let's play a quick clip. Can I
play the clip of you on All Fantasies? Yeah? Sure,
I've been on a few times now it yeah, play
the first but I wouldn't know, But I want to
play the moment where you two, like your first initial spark.
Do my intro again? I I interrupted your intro. You're
you're doing really good for me. Thank you. Dani Schwartz
is here as well at Dana Schwartz with three z's
(20:15):
on Twitter at Dani Schwartz with three zs on Instagram
as well. Thank you for having me. This is truly
a pleasure. I feel like now. Most of my reading,
we were talking about this a little bit before we
started recording, is just very long historical biographies because I'm
researching for Noble Blood, and just historians are wild people,
just because most of them like aren't good, aren't great writers.
(20:38):
So they'll spend like four pages on like cousins and
like tiny trade regulations, and then in the footnote dropped
something totally bananas where I'm like, focus on that they're
like and this person, you know, murdered three people in
cold blood and got away with it. King Henry Wolf
(20:58):
Wolf King Henry, and they're larger King Henry ate that wolf.
It was amazing and no one talks about it. We
have a video of it. We have the zoom. Oh
my gosh, I love that so much. I wish that
I had a video of the first time I saw
my husband and I was like, God, what kind of
guy wears hiking sandals? Al Right, next question, what is
(21:18):
your classic podcast? The podcast that you could just listen
to anytime, anywhere with anyone. It's like a classic podcast.
WTF with Mark Marin? Totally okay to be a classic
podcast because Mark Marin is also an audio god. People
think he's like the father of podcasts. He does long
form interviews with really interesting people, and especially when it's
(21:42):
someone that I'm already interested in it. Sometimes people also
who maybe are a little more press shay, who aren't
like the type of people who are doing like big
you know, late night tours, and so it's a lot
of fun to hear those people like open up and
and talk about their lives. Yeah. I also think that
Mark Maron, and I'm gonna this is really controversial what
(22:03):
I'm about to say. I think he's one of the
best interviewers out there of celebrities, bold faced names, and
you know who's gonna strike me down for that, Terry
Gross And I don't care. I don't care. I love
Terry Gross. It's such a different podcast. I really do
love WTF because it's also very obvious, like he does
(22:24):
the research and he only invites on people that he
is genuinely interested in, where it's like sometimes you get
the sense that it's like people just going through the motions, totally, totally,
that he is genuinely interested and curious about everyone that
he's talking to. He's so present, he's so in the moment.
I would actually like to see Mark Marin interview Terry Gross.
(22:45):
Oh yeah, what would happen the universe? It's like dividing
by zero. It's like when the streams collide and Ghostbusters.
Mark Maron already did interview Terry Gross. It's already an
episode and it's like a master class. Highly recommend. Oh
I love that. I love that. Of course he interviewed
(23:07):
Terry Gross. Maybe in our episode you could interject with that,
be like, hey, Joe, wait a second, and then we
can play that clip. I'm a little nervous, but I've prepared,
I've written things on a piece of paper. I don't
know how you prepare. I could ask you that maybe
I will, But this is how I prepare. I panic
(23:28):
for for a while, and then I scramble, and then
I typed some things up, and then I handwrite things
that are hard to read. So I can, you know,
challenge myself on that level during the interview, being self defeating.
It was always a good part of preparation is being
self defeating. Yes, self sabotage, yes, key, right, So you
do that. I sometimes do that. How often I try
(23:49):
not to do that. I do that more in life
than I do in radio. And I find that, like,
how do you get up here? Did you take the train?
Did you try car? You drove a car. There's a car.
You have a car. You took a car. This is
not the hard part, Terry. But I have sessed. I
have sessed about like, say there's traffic, say we're leaving
(24:11):
too late. You know, I just kind of go through
everything that can possibly go wrong. You do that, that's
your way of preparing. That is my way of preparing,
to pretend like it was. I think I was really
brought up thinking that there's some really positive value in
um negative thinking. So you're Jewish, Yes, oh there's I
(24:38):
like scrolling right now, there's just so much Mark Marin.
I mean that's also the thing. It's like, when you've
achieved a certain level of success, you get access to
people like George Clooney. It's like you get access to
these amazing, interesting people, which is kind of a privilege.
Do you have a favorite Mark Marin episode? You know,
(24:58):
I don't. I feel like I just through interesting people.
Like when I like, I'm not like a habitual Mark
Marin listener, I just go more specifically, like when it's
an interview I really like. I I'm just when I
don't have anything else to listen to, and look, I've
got a podcast about podcasts. I have a long podcast queue.
But when I'm like, oh, like, what's what's out there?
(25:21):
I just go to Mark Marin and I kind of scroll. Yeah,
it's perfect. You're like, oh, here's someone, this is great,
and like, you know, week to week it's so different,
Like one episode it's Jane Goodall and the next it's
Alan Ruck, who you might know from Succession, But I
will always think of as Cameron from Ferris's day off.
It's always Cameron. He's always Cameron. I just showed my
(25:42):
kids Ferris Speeler's day off there. Maybe a little too
young for that, but Cameron was their favorite. Cameron is
the best. I grew up in Highland Park, which is
like where a lot of Ferrispeeler was filmed, and I've
driven past that that glass house many times, obsessed with
that glass house. Um. Great, your recommendations are so good.
(26:02):
Are you going to bully your way onto Mark Marin?
I wish I could. I am not famous enough and
I don't think he's amenable to bullying. But one day
that's a real goal. It's a real goal. One of
the things that we do on the Pod Club is
we try to get our people on other podcasts. I'm
not famous enough for Mark. He had George Clooney last week.
(26:23):
So George, George Clooney and Dana Schwartz. Yeah one day,
all right, I'm on it. It's on my list. Dana
doing it well. Thank you for joining the pod Club,
Thank you so much. But then also being a member,
a card carrying Pod Club member, Oh I'm part of
the club. Oh yeah, you're in it, You're in and
so and so is your fiance great, Yeah, he'll be
(26:44):
so happy. And that is it for today's pod Club.
I love all of the members of the pod Club.
I'm so happy that you have joined us. Make sure
that you listen to Dana's shows, Noble Blood and Haileywood.
They're all available to Binge right now. You should also
check out the other show she recommended, Blank Check, All
(27:06):
Fantasy Everything and w t Off with Mark Marin, who
we haven't had on the Pod Club yet, and I
think that it is well past time that we call
and bug him to come on the show. Let's it
for this week. Happy listening everyone. I hope we gave
you some new things to tickle your ears with that
sounds a little creepy. See you next week. The pod
(27:28):
Club is hosted by me Joe Pianza. Our executive producers
are Me Again and Emily Marinoff. Our producers are Mary
Do and Darby Masters. Our associate producer is Lauren Philip.
Our theme and additional music was composed by Aaron Kaufman.
Aaron Kaufman is also our consulting producer and special thanks
(27:50):
to Nikki Tour. It was just a wonderful human being
who I like to think at the end of episodes,
Hey, Mom, I am in dressing room. Oh you're in
the coals dressing room. What are you getting? I'm just spring.
That's nice. That's nice. No, that's good. Um. I wanted
to tell you that I found a podcast for you
to listen to, and I think it might be the
perfect podcast for you to listen to. What It's called
(00:32):
Noble Blood and it's a history podcast about all of
these crazy stories about old royals from history. I would
love that. I know you would. I know it's all
like ill fated love affairs and bad decisions and family
drama and murders and murdered and that sounds exactly I'm
(00:58):
my alley it does. So do you want me to
download it for you when you come over on Saturday?
That would be great. It's a podcast, podcast podcast. Hello,
and welcome back to the pod Club. Today we are
talking to the one and only Dana Schwartz. I'd actually
(01:21):
like to introduce her now as number one New York
Times bestselling author Dana Schwartz, because she is Her new
book Academy has just been sitting on top of the
New York Times bestseller list for weeks now. But if
you're a history buff, you might already be a fan
of Dana's show Noble Blood. It's gossip for old royals. Yeah,
(01:42):
she tells the juiciest and most silesia stories of all
time about historical royal figures. It's real good and I'm
going to get my mom to listen to it. Dana
is also a journalist and an author, and she's got
a lot of other stories to share, but one of
my favorites is how she actually found love in our
own life through a podcast. We talked about it all
(02:03):
We cut Deep. I hope you enjoy. Hi, Welcome to
the Pod Club, Dana. Thank you so much for having me.
I'm thrilled to be here. I want to be kind
of creepy sometimes with guests and be like thanks for
joining the club, and they're like, I didn't join any club, Like,
(02:25):
oh no, yeah, you're in the club. You're in the club.
You're in the pod Club. I'm so psyched to have
you on today, because today we are going to talk
about podcasts about celebrities. Not celebrity podcasts, mind you, Not
not the podcast that every single celebrity thinks that they
deserve to have these days, but podcasts that are about
(02:46):
the celebrity. Yes, I think it's a very important distinction.
I don't listen to any podcasts hosted by celebrities. They
have enough. They have enough listeners, right like all the
all the other podcasts, like my podcasts and your Menne podcasts,
we need and deserve listeners. Frankly, Duk Shepherd doesn't need anymore,
(03:06):
even though I do like his show a little. I'm like,
come on, celebrities, you have enough. You're rich and famous.
Do you really need to come into the podcast world?
I know exactly. It's like you have all the bow
talks already and the personal chefs, Like, just let me
sit in my closet and record on my little, little,
sad microphone. Right It's the one thing I can do
(03:27):
as someone who's not as hot as a as a
famous person. It's an audio medium. It was made for me.
I know, I know same, And that's why our cameras
aren't on right now and we're not even looking at
each other. So, Dana, I want to hear a little
bit about how you started doing this weird thing called podcasting,
because this is not what you always did. You did
not go to college and think I want to be
(03:48):
a podcaster. So how did you know? And for like
a long time, I feel like, for like a good
like five years, I was one of those like people
is like I don't have a podcast and that's a
thing about me. And now I have all the podcasts.
You really do have all the podcasts. I'll jump in
here and and just just to to your horn for
a second. You are the creator and host of the
(04:10):
number one charting podcast Noble Blood from Our Heart Radio,
which tells stories of royals like not just not the
royals today, but like other royals in his historical royals,
weird stories from history that maybe people don't know, like
murderers and love affairs and scandals, which I love. I
(04:30):
can't get enough. I mean, it's like royals meets true crime.
It's great. Tell me a little bit about where the
idea for Noble Blood came from. Well, I feel like
my entire life, I've just been fascinated by history and
especially history, like not celebrity culture is the wrong word,
but like history of the powerful people doing bad things
(04:54):
throughout history, like scandals, like the same way I like,
I feel like I can't help but want to know
who's on the cover of people magazine. I'm like, I'm
interested in the scandals of historical royals, and like, I've
taken a lot of history classes throughout my life, and
I read a lot of nonfiction and it was just
like a hobby of mine, but not one that I
ever thought would be a career. You know, how do
you make a career out of that? How do you
(05:15):
make a career out of you know? I love hearing
about all of the dirty stuff that long dead people did.
I mean I do, and that's it. It's like I
was like, I don't want to be a historian. That's
not the field that interests me. I'm interested in like
telling stories as like being a writer, being you know,
working in TV, working in books. Uh. And so I
(05:36):
just sort of had this hobby my whole life. And
then I made friends with Aaron Manky, who's the amazing
podcast producer and host of Lore and like a bunch
of other podcasts, and I I tweeted out one day, Okay,
how do I make a podcast that's just me talking
about wild scandals in royal you know, noble history? And
Aaron Mankey followed me on Twitter was like, hmm, send
(05:59):
me a proposed usual and I was like, oh my god,
and I wrote a proposal immediately and sent it to him,
and we worked on it and send it to the
team at my Heart and the rest is history. And
now I write fifteen page history papers for my main job.
Oh my god, I can't believe that's how it happened.
That's that you just you sent a tweet and then
Aaron monkeys like great, like the fairy godmother coming down.
(06:22):
He really was the fairy godmother of this podcast. That's
the best. Also, that's going to encourage so many weirdos
to tweet at Aaron Minkey right now. Oh yeah, I'm
sure he's gonna love that. That's absolutely what you should do. Yeah, no, everyone,
everyone tweet him right now. Do you have a favorite
episode of Noble Blood? Oh gosh, I don't I have.
(06:42):
They're all like my favorite children. I feel like every
time I write an episode, I'm like, oh my god,
this is the one, and then as soon as I
start researching a new episode, I'm like, oh my god,
this is the one. I feel like, maybe this week
my favorite one. It was sort of a different episode,
but I talked about how currently there's a lawsuit going
on which the guy who like is the current present
(07:02):
day descendant of the Kaiser in Germany. And basically there's
this big question in Germany as to whether or not
he's entitled to keep the things that were like claimed
from his family, and the question is whether or not
the Kaiser helped the Nazis, And if they proved that
the Kaiser helped the Nazis, then he's not entitled to
any of that, like old wealth and property. And so
(07:24):
it's like a massive lawsuit. It's like a fascinating issue
that blends, you know, present day scandal and historical stories,
and that's the sort of thing that really, you know,
makes me want to keep doing this podcast. For gay
Org Friedrich, I imagine it's not just a matter of money,
(07:45):
although it does seem like quite a bit of money,
but of family, honor and shame. Whatever pride he might
take in being able to trace his lineage back past
Queen Victoria is permanently overshadowed by those photos of his
great grandfather proudly wearing a swatsticka But those photos, embarrassing
(08:08):
as they are, can't tell a full story, and so
millions of euros are at stake in a legal battle
in which historians have been enlisted on both sides to
answer a seemingly simple question, did Crown Prince will Holm
significantly help the Nazis? What's the most scandalous scandal that
(08:32):
you guys have had on Noble Blood? Oh? And well,
now it feels like I'm just going straight back to Germany.
But in the late eighteen hundreds, the sister of the
Kaiser invited all of these nobles to come to like
a winter cabin ice skating party, and it became an orgy.
And then weeks later anonymous letters started being sent to
(08:55):
the people who attended, accusing them of the things they did.
Oh my, so I want every episode of Noble Blood
to be optioned for a TV series. Has that happened yet? No?
But I mean that's fascinating, right, Like, isn't that wild
that that happened? That sounds like an episode of Gossip Girl.
These stories are you couldn't make them up. If I
made them up as fiction, they'd be like it's too much.
(09:19):
And there's all these murders that have happened, murder mysteries,
people going crazy. Someone at I think one to ask
me like, oh, do you think you might ever run
out of episodes, and it's like, no, there's literally an
impossible number of fascinating stories. It will go on forever
and ever. When I think of historical royals, they were
kind of like the primo janitors that they were kind
(09:42):
of like the early celebrities in a way, or maybe
even the only celebrities in a town in a country.
They were the bold faced names. And that leads me
from noble Blood into what we're going to talk about today,
which is podcasts not by celebrit palties but about celebrities.
And you have a relatively new podcast that happens to
(10:06):
be a little bit about a particular celebrity I do.
It's called Haleywood, and it's another one of those stories
where you're like, oh, my god, did this actually happened?
Is this? This is a truth stranger than fiction. Bruce
Willis in the late nineties, when he was sort of
at the height of his power post die Hard, wanted
(10:28):
to get out of the Hollywood bubble, and he moved
to this tiny town called Haley, Idaho. But he didn't
just like live there. He then slowly began developing and
revitalizing this town and just sort of making it in
his image, and this like truly strange saga, all about
like ego and money and power and you know the
(10:51):
privileges of celebrity and where they get you. In the
there was no bigger star than Bruce Willis and nowhere
for him to go where he wasn't treated like Hollywood royalty.
But almost by accident, Willis found his escape a tiny
(11:16):
town called Haley, Idaho. But pretty quickly the people of
Haley started feeling suspicious. We kept hearing a corporation named
Ixnay was making offers to buy some properties right on
main Street, and we couldn't find out who was the
(11:38):
force behind Ickknay. It turns out Bruce Willis didn't just
want to live in Haley. He wanted to transform it,
to remake the town in his own image. And that's
when Haley became something else entirely. What I love about
(12:00):
the story is that I've never heard it before. I
was a celebrity gossip columnist, a shameless, shameless entertainment reporter
for so many years, and yet I know nothing about Haley.
How did you find this story? I found this story
because of the team at I heart. So noble blood
is an I Heart Radio podcast and one of the
producers is an amazing guy named Jason English. And this
(12:23):
is sort of one of those wild stories about like
how everything comes together. My first job, when I was
in college and then graduated from college, I was a
freelance writer for Mental Floss magazine, and then eventually I
was a part time writer at Mental Floss. And so
when I was there, my boss was Jason English, who
(12:45):
then later went on to become like a head honcho
at I Heart Radio. And it was like one of
those serendipity things that years later we reconnected and he
was the one who then brought my attention to Haleywood.
And like you, I had literally ever heard of the story. No, never,
but I basically just didn't know about the story or
(13:06):
like the celebrity scandal that happened in the nineties, And
the more I learned about it, the more I was like,
oh my god, this is so just fascinating in like
a gossip tabloid way, but also in the way of
like it's so relevant today the way celebrities, when and
how celebrities get involved in politics, and how they make
their money and senses of entitlement, what celebrities owe us
(13:29):
and we owe them Like those are I think fundamental questions,
especially now in the twenty one century, as like social
media lowers that wall between celebrities and normals, those questions
become ever more prevalent totally. And I wrote a book
about how celebrities make their money, like not through movies
and the singing songs, but through the branding themselves, you know,
(13:53):
partnering with Planet Hollywood, selling their tweets ten years ago
and now the world is still the same, but there's
just so much more money involved. Oh, I mean Planet Hollywood.
That was like where Bruce Willis first kind of realized
he could leverage his celebrity for money in terms of development.
It's like a fascinating microcosm of like the things to
(14:17):
come with, like Kylie Jenner's lip glass kits and Jessica
Alba's soap. I didn't even know Jessica Alba had soap. Oh,
Jessica Alba is a soap billionaire. All right, I'm gonna
I need I'm gonna google that. Can you tell me
(15:05):
what other podcasts about celebrities you think are really good
right now? I think genuinely my favorite podcast, like the
one that I listened to pretty much every day. Is
a podcast called blank Check, hosted by Griffin Newman and
David Sims And David is a film critic for The Atlantic,
and Griffin is an actor, and they go through the
(15:28):
filmographies of directors who you know, have blank checks, basically
like if they've made enough money, then Hollywood basically is like,
all right, do whatever you want. And sometimes it works
out and sometimes it doesn't. But I think their podcast
is specifically interesting because it traces the power of celebrity
in terms of filmmakers, you know, filmmakers who are brands
(15:51):
onto themselves, Like there's a difference between a trailer when
it's like from the creators of X, that's like from
the mind of west Ander in like that means something
very specific, And so I think they put that in
a very interesting context by doing these deep dives. And
then of course as they're discussing these movies, they go
into celebrity careers and arcs of of actor careers and
(16:17):
different choices actors make. They're just too smart, funny people
who have interesting context and nuance to that. I like
it when smart funny people make smart, funny things. It
makes me happy. I have never heard of blank check.
Actually this I love it when someone tells me something. Now,
I'm very very to them. They're amazing. What episodes should
(16:38):
I listen to? First? It's less about episodes and more
about these mini series arcs of like who the actual
directors are that they're talking about. It's a really long
mini series. But they did like Tim Burton a while ago,
and I just find him so fascinating and the way
he sort of became a parody of himself. But this
(16:59):
is starting in the Golden Air, because this guy hits
the ground running and kind of takes Hollywood by storm
in a way that I would argue as a little unprecedented.
And he is that weird phenomena where like he's this
weird bully a base of all his cultural influences, growing
up a lot of weird, pulpy, trashy stuff, and he
made these things very mainstream even though people didn't have
(17:21):
the reference base for the stuff that he grew up on. Yeah, okay,
which I think is like a weird phenomenon. Sure, And
you compare him within the realm of directors like this
to like someone like Edgar Wright, where it took like
five movies for one of his films to be successful. Yes,
this was like a big cult surprise success in terms
of our blank check arc. You are correct, Yes, he
(17:44):
like got a blank check fast. What is your favorite podcast?
I'd love to ask people this question. If someone came
up to you and said I'd like to try a podcast,
I'd like to dabble in them. What podcast would you recommend?
They start with? I'm biased, so forgive my bias, but
I really think one of the best podcasts is one
(18:05):
called All Fantasy Everything, which is hosted and created by
my fiance Ian Carmel. Oh and really yeah, we um
we actually met because of this podcast. He invited me
on to be a guest. All right, so back up,
tell me tell me the name of the podcast again.
The podcast is called All Fantasy Everything. Okay, And so,
(18:25):
because you know I love a love story and now
I'm going to have to have you on my podcast, committed,
Sorry coming on, And so he reaches out to you.
How did he know who you were? Author and writer
of many books and funny personal social a writer about town.
I think he just sort of knew me. And the
thing about All Fantasy Everything is it's a podcast. Where
he and his guests fantasy draft like you would for
(18:46):
a sports team, but for non sports things like random
things like you know, super movies or like whatever. They're
just drafting and discussing these things. Explain that to me
a little bit. So if I were going to draft
for soup, like what would happen? You'd be like I
first pick split p oh that that, you know, just
(19:07):
a random example. You just draft things. You just draft things,
you can draft, just draft anything you want. Yeah, now
I'm wondering what I would draft if you have draft
show whatever you want, just something that you get feel competitive.
But see, I'm not a sports person, so like, I
don't really know what happens in a draft. This is
fun and then what happens? You just talk about the
draft picks? Yeah, okay, so Ian, how's you come on
(19:29):
the show? And then how did you fall in love
and get engaged? We just sort of hit it off
on the podcast. We like chatted and had like good rapport,
and then we just sort of kept in touch. We
kept texting and then talked on the phone and then
started dating. It's kind of like a weird all American
love story. It's a weird all American Audio love Story.
(19:53):
All right, well, let's play a quick clip. Can I
play the clip of you on All Fantasies? Yeah? Sure,
I've been on a few times now it yeah, play
the first but I wouldn't know, But I want to
play the moment where you two, like your first initial spark.
Do my intro again? I I interrupted your intro. You're
you're doing really good for me. Thank you. Dani Schwartz
is here as well at Dana Schwartz with three z's
(20:15):
on Twitter at Dani Schwartz with three zs on Instagram
as well. Thank you for having me. This is truly
a pleasure. I feel like now. Most of my reading,
we were talking about this a little bit before we
started recording, is just very long historical biographies because I'm
researching for Noble Blood, and just historians are wild people,
just because most of them like aren't good, aren't great writers.
(20:38):
So they'll spend like four pages on like cousins and
like tiny trade regulations, and then in the footnote dropped
something totally bananas where I'm like, focus on that they're
like and this person, you know, murdered three people in
cold blood and got away with it. King Henry Wolf
(20:58):
Wolf King Henry, and they're larger King Henry ate that wolf.
It was amazing and no one talks about it. We
have a video of it. We have the zoom. Oh
my gosh, I love that so much. I wish that
I had a video of the first time I saw
my husband and I was like, God, what kind of
guy wears hiking sandals? Al Right, next question, what is
(21:18):
your classic podcast? The podcast that you could just listen
to anytime, anywhere with anyone. It's like a classic podcast.
WTF with Mark Marin? Totally okay to be a classic
podcast because Mark Marin is also an audio god. People
think he's like the father of podcasts. He does long
form interviews with really interesting people, and especially when it's
(21:42):
someone that I'm already interested in it. Sometimes people also
who maybe are a little more press shay, who aren't
like the type of people who are doing like big
you know, late night tours, and so it's a lot
of fun to hear those people like open up and
and talk about their lives. Yeah. I also think that
Mark Maron, and I'm gonna this is really controversial what
(22:03):
I'm about to say. I think he's one of the
best interviewers out there of celebrities, bold faced names, and
you know who's gonna strike me down for that, Terry
Gross And I don't care. I don't care. I love
Terry Gross. It's such a different podcast. I really do
love WTF because it's also very obvious, like he does
(22:24):
the research and he only invites on people that he
is genuinely interested in, where it's like sometimes you get
the sense that it's like people just going through the motions, totally, totally,
that he is genuinely interested and curious about everyone that
he's talking to. He's so present, he's so in the moment.
I would actually like to see Mark Marin interview Terry Gross.
(22:45):
Oh yeah, what would happen the universe? It's like dividing
by zero. It's like when the streams collide and Ghostbusters.
Mark Maron already did interview Terry Gross. It's already an
episode and it's like a master class. Highly recommend. Oh
I love that. I love that. Of course he interviewed
(23:07):
Terry Gross. Maybe in our episode you could interject with that,
be like, hey, Joe, wait a second, and then we
can play that clip. I'm a little nervous, but I've prepared,
I've written things on a piece of paper. I don't
know how you prepare. I could ask you that maybe
I will, But this is how I prepare. I panic
(23:28):
for for a while, and then I scramble, and then
I typed some things up, and then I handwrite things
that are hard to read. So I can, you know,
challenge myself on that level during the interview, being self defeating.
It was always a good part of preparation is being
self defeating. Yes, self sabotage, yes, key, right, So you
do that. I sometimes do that. How often I try
(23:49):
not to do that. I do that more in life
than I do in radio. And I find that, like,
how do you get up here? Did you take the train?
Did you try car? You drove a car. There's a car.
You have a car. You took a car. This is
not the hard part, Terry. But I have sessed. I
have sessed about like, say there's traffic, say we're leaving
(24:11):
too late. You know, I just kind of go through
everything that can possibly go wrong. You do that, that's
your way of preparing. That is my way of preparing,
to pretend like it was. I think I was really
brought up thinking that there's some really positive value in
um negative thinking. So you're Jewish, Yes, oh there's I
(24:38):
like scrolling right now, there's just so much Mark Marin.
I mean that's also the thing. It's like, when you've
achieved a certain level of success, you get access to
people like George Clooney. It's like you get access to
these amazing, interesting people, which is kind of a privilege.
Do you have a favorite Mark Marin episode? You know,
(24:58):
I don't. I feel like I just through interesting people.
Like when I like, I'm not like a habitual Mark
Marin listener, I just go more specifically, like when it's
an interview I really like. I I'm just when I
don't have anything else to listen to, and look, I've
got a podcast about podcasts. I have a long podcast queue.
But when I'm like, oh, like, what's what's out there?
(25:21):
I just go to Mark Marin and I kind of scroll. Yeah,
it's perfect. You're like, oh, here's someone, this is great,
and like, you know, week to week it's so different,
Like one episode it's Jane Goodall and the next it's
Alan Ruck, who you might know from Succession, But I
will always think of as Cameron from Ferris's day off.
It's always Cameron. He's always Cameron. I just showed my
(25:42):
kids Ferris Speeler's day off there. Maybe a little too
young for that, but Cameron was their favorite. Cameron is
the best. I grew up in Highland Park, which is
like where a lot of Ferrispeeler was filmed, and I've
driven past that that glass house many times, obsessed with
that glass house. Um. Great, your recommendations are so good.
(26:02):
Are you going to bully your way onto Mark Marin?
I wish I could. I am not famous enough and
I don't think he's amenable to bullying. But one day
that's a real goal. It's a real goal. One of
the things that we do on the Pod Club is
we try to get our people on other podcasts. I'm
not famous enough for Mark. He had George Clooney last week.
(26:23):
So George, George Clooney and Dana Schwartz. Yeah one day,
all right, I'm on it. It's on my list. Dana
doing it well. Thank you for joining the pod Club,
Thank you so much. But then also being a member,
a card carrying Pod Club member, Oh I'm part of
the club. Oh yeah, you're in it, You're in and
so and so is your fiance great, Yeah, he'll be
(26:44):
so happy. And that is it for today's pod Club.
I love all of the members of the pod Club.
I'm so happy that you have joined us. Make sure
that you listen to Dana's shows, Noble Blood and Haileywood.
They're all available to Binge right now. You should also
check out the other show she recommended, Blank Check, All
(27:06):
Fantasy Everything and w t Off with Mark Marin, who
we haven't had on the Pod Club yet, and I
think that it is well past time that we call
and bug him to come on the show. Let's it
for this week. Happy listening everyone. I hope we gave
you some new things to tickle your ears with that
sounds a little creepy. See you next week. The pod
(27:28):
Club is hosted by me Joe Pianza. Our executive producers
are Me Again and Emily Marinoff. Our producers are Mary
Do and Darby Masters. Our associate producer is Lauren Philip.
Our theme and additional music was composed by Aaron Kaufman.
Aaron Kaufman is also our consulting producer and special thanks
(27:50):
to Nikki Tour. It was just a wonderful human being
who I like to think at the end of episodes,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.