Episodes

  • Trailer: Classic Playboy Interviews

    Trailer: Classic Playboy Interviews

     Season 1: Icons & Iconoclasts
    Jan 19 2023
    For generations of fans, the Playboy Interview was revered as the gold standard in American journalism. To read it in its totality is to glimpse a record of everyone who mattered in the history of the 20th and 21st centuries; kicking off a remarkable run of public inquisition that has featured just about every cultural titan of the past half century. Those figures include Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Fidel Castro, Jimmy Hoffa, Frank Sinatra, Steve Jobs, Orson Welles, Marlon Brando, Truman Capote, Ayn Rand, Jean Paul Sartre, Salvador Dali, and countless others. It is a stunning list of heavyweight names that will never again be replicated. Now for the first time Audible listeners can hear those conversations as they happened. In the spirit of Frost/Nixon, interviews from the magazine have been rerecorded with key talent portraying some of the most iconic figures of the 20th century. Each episode offers a unique look into not just the individual portrayed but the time and place of the interview itself. In playing Betty Friedan, Rosanna Arquette showcases The Feminine Mystique author and mother of the modern women’s movement, in a famously confrontational interview from Playboy’s 40th Anniversary Issue which took aim at the magazine for its leering objectification of women. Friedan is portrayed as a wounded hero, seemingly out of place as a new generation of feminists assail her politics on the eve of the 1992 Women’s March. Muhammad Ali, portrayed by Taye Diggs is shown in 1964, as a fledgling Heavyweight Champion, just months after defeating Sonny Liston. He is still searching for his voice underneath all the bombast. It’s a remarkable portrait of a larger-than-life figure shown with the utmost humanity. Michael Shannon plays the brilliant, anguished playwright, Tennessee Williams who famously sat for Playboy’s 1973 Interview. He delivers a treatise on the symbiosis between good and evil while opening his life to inquisition; discussing his sex life, drug use and deteriorating health. Paranoid, funny and alternatingly hostile and charming, Williams famously quipped, “If I got rid of all my demons, I’d lose my angels.” Salvador Dali is shown to be a manic dervish of creativity teetering on the edge of madness. Actor Gael Garcia Bernal brings out the humor and childlike sweetness from the potentially deranged surrealist that few seldom see. We learn of his obsession with the rhinoceros as well as his bitter feud with fellow Spaniard Pablo Picasso who he decries for the “anarchic ugliness of his paintings.” Frank Sinatra’s famous February 1963 interview, voiced by Kevin Corrigan, is notable for how “Un-Sinatra” it sounds as he attempts to expound on the nature of religion, nuclear disarmament and philosophy in hopes of shaking off his ring-a-ding, Rat Pack image and impressing John F. Kennedy who had barred the crooner from the White House at the behest of his brother Bobby. The result is a Sinatra, while sounding statesmanlike, insecure and vulnerable as he longs for establishment acceptance. Maya Hawke plays the legendary Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown. The 1963 interview is prescient in its portrayal of abortion, female sexuality and liberation years before the women’s movement truly kicked off. Mae West, inhabited by the incomparable Natasha Lyonne, is revealed as a triumphant figure who hides behind her lascivious image. At age 78, West had returned with a vengeance as a camp hero of Gore Vidal’s provocative Myra Breckenridge, only to break the last Hollywood taboo: showing that an older woman could not only get top billing but could also be seen as a sex object. “I’m the greatest thing since Valentino,” she quips in the interview. Each interview serves as both a window into history and a parallel of our own times as we witness how much has changed and how much has stayed the same. They are truly remarkable though for the candidness in which the subjects conduct themselves. And is a reminder of the pr controlled universe that inhibits free expression in today’s paranoid world.
    Show more Show less
    1 min
    Try for $0.00
  • Episode 1: Betty Friedan

    Episode 1: Betty Friedan

     Season 1: Icons & Iconoclasts
    Jan 19 2023
    The Feminine Mystique author and mother of the modern women’s movement talks about the future of feminism, her famous feuds, and what she really thinks of Playboy. Starring Rosanna Arquette as Friedan. This famous no-holds barred interview from the magazine’s 40th anniversary issue features Friedan famously taking aim at Playboy for its leering objectification and fellow feminists like Susan Faludi for their growing extremism.
    Show more Show less
    53 mins
    Try for $0.00
  • Episode 2: Muhammad Ali

    Episode 2: Muhammad Ali

     Season 1: Icons & Iconoclasts
    Jan 19 2023
    One of Playboy’s all-time great interviews is taken from Playboy’s October 1964 issue and features a young Muhammad Ali who just eight months earlier defeated Sonny Liston to become the Heavyweight Champion of the World. The interview features a defiant Ali sounding off on the tenets of his adopted, Muslim religion, racism in America and his favorite topic, himself. Starring Taye Diggs who channels Ali masterfully as a would-be icon finding his voice for the first time.
    Show more Show less
    52 mins
    Try for $0.00
  • Episode 3: Tennessee Williams

    Episode 3: Tennessee Williams

     Season 1: Icons & Iconoclasts
    Jan 19 2023
    When the brilliant, anguished playwright famously sat for Playboy’s 1973 Interview, he turned the format upside down; delivering a treatise on the symbiosis between good and evil while opening his life to inquisition; discussing his sex life, drug use and deteriorating health. Paranoid, funny and alternatingly hostile and charming, Williams famously quipped, “If I got rid of all my demons, I’d lose my angels.” Actor Michael Shannon takes on the challenge of distilling the legendary playwright whose Pulitzer Prize winning work includes Streetcar Named Desire, Orpheus Descending, Night of the Iguana, and Glass Menagerie.
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 3 mins
    Try for $0.00
  • Episode 4: Salvador Dali

    Episode 4: Salvador Dali

     Season 1: Icons & Iconoclasts
    Jan 19 2023
    The flamboyantly eccentric grand vizier of surrealism delivers a non-stop oratory on all things Dali. From the phallic symbolism of the rhinoceros to questions of the Spanish painter’s sanity, this classic interview from Playboy’s July 1964 issue features Dali taking aim at Pablo Picasso and discussing why he doesn’t need to take LSD to achieve his artistic vision. Gael Garcia Bernal disappears into the role of Dali and delivers a mesmerizing take on one the 20th century’s most brilliant minds.
    Show more Show less
    55 mins
    Try for $0.00
  • Episode 5: Frank Sinatra

    Episode 5: Frank Sinatra

     Season 1: Icons & Iconoclasts
    Jan 19 2023
    The Chairman of the Board’s 1963 Interview features Ol’ Blue Eyes in an expansive mood; discussing ideology, nuclear disarmament, cultural soft power, and a host of topics that showcase the crooner as stateman. But it’s Sinatra’s take on religion that raised eyebrows at the time, “There are things about organized religion which I resent…I'm for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers, or a bottle of Jack Daniel's. But to me religion is a deeply personal thing in which man and God go it alone together.” Actor Kevin Corrigan offers a poignant and sensitive take on the oft bombastic singer who refers to himself in the interview as “an 18-Karat Manic Depressive”.
    Show more Show less
    27 mins
    Try for $0.00
  • Episode 6: Helen Gurley Brown

    Episode 6: Helen Gurley Brown

     Season 1: Icons & Iconoclasts
    Jan 19 2023

    A fascinating interview from Playboy’s 1963 issue with the longtime editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine and author of the hugely influential “Sex and the Single Girl”. Maya Hawke portrays the author and editor in a prescient interview that challenges accepted notions of abortion, promiscuity and sexual gratification and a host of topics that so called “good girls” were not supposed to discuss.
    Show more Show less
    41 mins
    Try for $0.00
  • Episode 7: Mae West

    Episode 7: Mae West

     Season 1: Icons & Iconoclasts
    Jan 19 2023
    Mae West, inhabited by the incomparable Natasha Lyonne, is revealed as a triumphant figure who hides behind her lascivious image. At age 78, West had returned with a vengeance as a camp hero of Gore Vidal’s provocative Myra Breckenridge, only to break the last Hollywood taboo: showing that an older woman could not only get top billing but could also be seen as a sex object. “I’m the greatest thing since Valentino,” she quips in the interview. Celebrating her curvaceous body, she heaps scorn upon the sharper curves of her co-star, Raquel Welch, to whom she refers simply as "the other woman".
    Show more Show less
    47 mins
    Try for $0.00
adbl_web_global_use_to_activate_webcro805_stickypopup