Famous and Gravy: Dead celebrity biographies

Matthew Perry died in 2023 at fifty-four, and despite his very public battle with addiction, the first line of his obituary made no mention of his disease. Michael Osborne and Alice Orr argue that Matthew Perry is a case study in fame and addiction, working through his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, where he admits he has no memory of filming three entire seasons of Friends. They get into his broken engagement to Julia Roberts, the sponsor turned business partner, and the question of what it takes to cultivate a quality of self-love when the disease of addiction is always working against you.
Famous & Gravy is a celebrity biography podcast that asks, "What can a celebrity life story show us about ourselves?"
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like:
Episode 119, Hungry Ghost (Anthony Bourdain)
Episode 108, Gonzo Troubadour (Hunter S. Thompson)
LINKS
Alice Florence Orr, Managing Editor of Podcast Review
NYT obituary, Matthew Perry
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Matthew Perry's memoir
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip trailer, the canceled Aaron Sorkin pilot
Matthew Perry puts Peter Hitchens to shame about addiction
Best moments from the Friends 2021 reunion
Interview with Tom Power about his memoir
Your Favorite Podcast Host is (Probably) in Recovery, Osborne article published in Podcast Review
Famous & Gravy quiz: hello@famousandgravy.com
Website: famousandgravy.com
Dead or Alive quiz game
Famous & Gravy on Facebook, LinkedIn, Threads
Famous & Gravy official website
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Marco Polo spent 24 years crossing the Mongol Empire and came home with stories so wild that his own neighbors called him a liar. In this episode, Michael sits down with Denis Belliveau, who in the 1990s spent two years retracing Marco Polo's actual route: from Venice through Afghanistan during the warlord period, into a newly opened Iran, and across the Silk Road into China, without ever boarding a plane. Denis made a documentary from the experience, which was nominated for Emmys. He now shares his story with students to inspire them about travel, geography, and culture. His website is In the Footsteps of History:
https://inthefootsteps.org/
This is one of our occasional off-format conversations, built around a single interview rather than the show's normal segments. Even though it's been 700 years, we still want to know what can a life story, shows us about ourselves?
Denis talks about getting held at gunpoint near the ancient site of Balkh, being among the first American civilians allowed into Iran since 1979, and the strange coincidences that kept opening doors along the way. He also gets into who Marco Polo actually was: a natural storyteller who charmed Kublai Khan as a teenager, and a man whose curiosity outran the prejudices of his own century.
Thanks to Rachel Huss for telling us about Denis. Read her article here!

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David Lynch died in 2025 at seventy-eight, and his own obituary somehow never mentioned Twin Peaks or Mulholland Drive. Michael Osborne and longtime Famous & Gravy editor Jacob Weiss spend this episode on the gap between David Lynch the public weirdo, the mind behind Blue Velvet and Eraserhead, and David Lynch the strikingly normal man underneath: a lifelong devotee of transcendental meditation who loved coffee, cigarettes, and burgers more than he loved being understood. The strangest thread they pull on: a filmmaker whose work returned again and again to smoke and fire died as the Los Angeles wildfires burned around him, at the same age David Lynch always seemed to defy.
Famous & Gravy is a celebrity biography podcast that asks, "Would you want that life?"
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like:
Episode 82, Rebel Rebel (David Bowie)
Episode 75 Love and OJ Jokes (Norm MacDonald)
LINKS
NYT obituary, David Lynch
"David Lynch Keeps His Head," David Foster Wallace's 1996 profile referenced in this episode
KCRW's David Lynch daily weather forecast archive
Naomi Watts, Laura Dern & Patricia Arquette Tell David Lynch Stories
Documentary on the midnight movie circuit and Eraserhead's cult run
Famous & Gravy quiz: hello@famousandgravy.com
Website: famousandgravy.com
Dead or Alive quiz game
Famous & Gravy on Facebook, LinkedIn, Threads
Famous & Gravy official website
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Whitney Houston. Gospel choir prodigy raised by soul royalty, Super Bowl anthem reinventor, the rare voice the drag community refuses to parody, reluctant face of pop music's "crossover" wars, three-octave talent behind the best-selling soundtrack in history.
She grew up singing in the choir at New Hope Baptist Church, trained by a mother, Cissy Houston, who'd once backed up Aretha Franklin, with Dionne Warwick as a cousin and soul music running through the family before Whitney Houston ever picked up a microphone professionally. In 1991, her team made one quiet change, shifting The Star-Spangled Banner from a stiff 3/4 waltz into 4/4, and turned the national anthem into a charting Super Bowl hit. The Bodyguard soundtrack still outsells Saturday Night Fever, Titanic, and Purple Rain. And when Diane Sawyer asked her, on camera, to name her biggest devil, Whitney didn't say cocaine. She said: "me."
Host Michael Osborne and guest John Watts wrestle with the narrative of her addiction and an abusive marriage, and how we understand her talent. They dig into the night she was booed at the 1989 Soul Train Awards and met Bobby Brown hours later, her close bond with Robyn Crawford kept just out of public view, and the squeaky-clean "princess" image Clive Davis built that never matched the goofball she actually was at home.
Famous & Gravy is a celebrity biography podcast. Every episode asks: Would you want that life?
If you enjoyed this episode you may also like Episode 74 "The Masterclass Act" (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Episode 101 "Soul Queen" (Aretha Franklin).
LINKS
New York Times obituary for Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston's 1991 Super Bowl National Anthem performance
Whitney Houston's 2002 interview with Diane Sawyer
Whitney Houston's 2009 interview with Oprah Winfrey
Dead or Alive — the Famous & Gravy quiz game
Famous & Gravy on Instagram, Facebook, Threads
famousandgravy.com
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Vanna White has been on Wheel of Fortune and American television for more than 40 years. Her brother Chip White has spent a lot of that time figuring out what it means to live in her shadow.
Chip hosts Relatively Famous, a podcast about the relatives of famous people. He came up to Austin to talk with Michael about Vanna: her surprising business savvy, the misconceptions people carry about her, a Guinness World Record, and how she met her late fiancé at Chippendales. The conversation also goes into recovery, unconditional love, parenting, and the best advice Chip ever got from his sister.
This is an Extra Gravy episode — one of Famous & Gravy's off-format conversations where Michael follows his curiosity outside the usual structure. No quiz, no obituary, no category...just a little extra gravy.
Famous & Gravy is a celebrity biography podcast with a twist of self-reflection. The central question every episode asks: would you want that life?
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