Significant Others (Team Coco)

Vladimir Nabokov is best known for writing the highly controversial yet critically revered novel, Lolita. But the book might never have made it onto the shelves were it not for the other Nabokov—Vladimir's enigmatic and elusive wife, Véra.

Starring: D’Arcy Carden as Véra Nabokov and Dan Bucatinsky as Vladimir Nabokov

Source list:

Véra by Stacy Schiff

Letters to Véra by Vladimir Nabokov, Ed: Olga Voronina and Brian Boyd

Vladimir Nabokov, The Russian Years by Brian Boyd

Vladimir Nabokov, The American Years by Brian Boyd

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Lectures on Literature by Vladimir Nabokov, Ed: Fredson Bowers

Friedrich Nietzsche spent the final years of his life incapacitated by illness while his sister bent his works to her use as a social-climbing fascist.

Starring Laura Ramoso as Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and Flula Borg as Friedrich Nietzsche.

Also featuring Matt Gourley, Jessica Chaffin, and Anja Albertson.

Source List:

Nietzsche’s Sister and the Will to Power by Carol Diethe, First Illinois Paperback, ©2007, ©2003 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

I Am Dynamite!, by Sue Prideaux, ©2018, Tim Duggan Books, an imprint of The Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York

In Emergency, Break Glass: What Nietzsche Can Teach Us About Joyful Living in a Tech-Saturated World, ©2022 by Nate Anderson, WW Norton & Co

The Making of Frederich Nietzsche: The Quest For Identity 1844-1869

By Daniel Blue , ©2016, University Printing House, Cambridge CB2, 8BS United Kingdom

The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols And Other Writings

by Frederich Nietzsche, Edited by Aaron Ridley and Judith Norman

Cambridge University Press, ©2005

Haaretz, Was Nietzsche Hitler’s Spiritual Godfather?

Big Think, How the Nazis Hijacked Nietzsche, and How it Can Happen to Anybody

The Guardian, Far Right, Misogynist, Humorless? Why Nietzsche is Misunderstood

The Nietzsche Channel, Nietzsche’s Writings as a Student

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Friedrich Nietzsche

The New York Times, Rocken Journal, No Superman, Perhaps, but the Titan of his Town

https://www.philosophizethis.org/

Cambridge University Press, Friedrich Nietzsche

Philosophize This!

London Review of Books, It Wasn’t Him, It Was Her

Britannica, Return from Exile of Richard Wagner

Ted and Woody are back together to bring you a brand new podcast from Team Coco! It’s called “Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (Sometimes)" and it’s out right now! They’re talking to guests like Conan O’Brien, Will Arnett, Jane Fonda, Billy Eichner, Kristen Bell, and so many more. Head over to “Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (Sometimes)" to subscribe and listen now!

Author and comedian W. Kamau Bell joins Liza to discuss the legacies of Maya Angelou and James Baldwin, and the importance of affinity groups.

World-renowned psychotherapist Esther Perel joins Liza to discuss the dynamic between Leo and Sophia Tolstoy and whether the issues Sophia faced were a product of the times she lived in.

This bonus episode is a discussion of Episode 1 of Significant Others, "Countess Sophia Tolstoy." Listen to it here. 
 

Creator and host of the podcast Philosophize This!, Stephen West, on how long-dead philosophers can still offer guidance in a modern world.

Significant Others is bringing you another bonus episode! This time Liza is joined by Mo Rocca, the host of the popular podcast Mobituaries, to discuss how people are remembered through their obituaries. Mo and Liza dive into memorable obituaries, what makes a powerful obit, and who maybe didn’t get their proper due. 

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at significantpod@gmail.com!

Founder and host of the podcast Making Gay History, Eric Marcus, on Rustin’s heir and the stewardship of his legacy.

Lover and muse to multiple artists, Gala notoriously spit on people she didn’t like—or worse. Her marriage to the renowned artist Salvador Dalí was as surreal as his paintings, which he signed with both of their names even though she never held a brush.

Starring Laura Ramoso as Gala Dalí and José  Arroyo as Salvador Dalí

Also featuring Stephen K. Amos, Nigel Daly, Neve O’Brien, and Tavis Doucette

Source List:

MUSE: Uncovering the Hidden Figures Behind Art History’s Masterpieces by Ruth Millington, ©2022, Pegasus Books, Ltd.

The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women & the Artists They Inspired by Francine Prose, ©2002, Harper Collins E-books

The Secret Life of Salvador Dali by Salvador Dali, Trans. By Haakom M. Chevalier, ©1993, Dover Publications

Biography.com, The Surreal Romance of Salvador and Gala Dalí

The Paris Review, When Your Muse is Also a Demonic Dominatrix

The Art Story, Gala Dalí: Russian-Spanish Art Patron and Muse

Wikipedia, Gala Dalí

Fahrenheit Magazine, Anna María and Salvador Dalí, Different Paths for the Same Blood

The Dalí Org, Gala Dalí

Poetry Foundation, Paul Éluard

The Art Story, Salvador Dalí

Briannica, Salvador Dalí

El País, Dalí and Lorca’s Games of Seduction

Gazette du Bon Ton, The Surreal Life of Salvador Dalí

Art Hive, Love Story in Pictures: Salvador Dalí and Gala

Time, Salvador Dalí 

The New York Times, Gala Dalí’s Life Wasn’t Quite Surreal, but It Was Pretty Strange

Yang Gallery, Dalí & Gala: The Love Story

In this month’s bonus episode, Liza is joined by Elizabeth Winkler, author of the new book Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies to discuss this question of Shakespeare’s authorship. Elizabeth and Liza dive into the compelling evidence that Shakespeare could have in fact been a woman and explore why even the thought of questioning his authorship is so taboo.

Elizabeth's original article for The Atlantic can be found here.

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at significantpod@gmail.com!

Without the profound connection between these two artists, would the world ever have gotten I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings?

 Starring: Christina Elmore as Maya Angelou and Larry Powell as James Baldwin. Also starring Angelica Chéri as Lorraine Hansberry.

Source List:

James Baldwin: A Biography, By David Adams Leeming

The Three Mothers, by Anna Malaika Tubbs

Notes of a Native Son, by James Baldwin

At 80, Maya Angelou Reflects on a ‘Glorious’ Life, NPR, 2008

The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou, Compilation copyright 2004 by Random House, Inc.

Conversations With a Native Son

James Baldwin Biographical Timeline, American Masters, PBS

Maya Angelou, World History Project

James Baldwin’s Sexuality: Complex and Influential, NBC News

“James Baldwin on Langston Hughes”,  The Langston Hughes Review, James Baldwin and Clayton Riley 

“Talking Back to Maya Angelou”, by Hilton Als, The New Yorker

“Songbird”, by Hilton Als, The New Yorker

“A Brother’s Love”, by Maya Angelou

“James Baldwin Denounced Richard Wright’s ‘Native Son’ as a ‘Protest Novel,’ Was he Right?” by Ayana Mathis and Pankaj Mishra, The New York Times

“After a 30 Year Absence, the Controversial ‘Porgy and Bess’ is Returning to the Met Opera”, by Brigit Katz, Smithsonian Magazine

“Published More Than 50 Years Ago, ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ Launched a Revolution”, by Veronica Chambers, Smithsonian Magazine

“On the Horizon: On Catfish Row”, by James Baldwin

“James Baldwin: Great Writers of the 20th Century” 

“An Introduction to James Baldwin”, National Museum of African American History & Culture

“‘The Blacks,’ Landmark Off-Broadway Show, Gets 42nd Anniversary Staging, Jan 31”, by Robert Simonson, Playbill

 “Do the White Thing”, by Brian Logan

“James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket”, American Masters, PBS

“James Baldwin, The Art of Fiction”, by Jordan Elgrably

“The American Dream and the American Negro”, by James Baldwin

“The History That James Baldwin Wanted America to See”, by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.

“Lost and ... Found?: James Baldwin’s Script and Spike Lee’s ‘Malcolm X.’” by D. Quentin Miller, African American Review

Virginia Woolf’s father, Sir Leslie Stephen, wanted nothing more than to be a genius—but he created one instead.

Starring: Jameela Jamil as Virginia Woolf and Luke Millington-Drake as Sir Leslie Stephen.

Source List:

“Virginia Woolf and Leslie Stephen: History and Literary Revolution,” by Katherine C. Hill

To The Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf

A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf

A Writer’s Diary, by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf, by Hermione Lee

The Common Reader, by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf, Quentin Bell

“A House of One’s Own,” by Janet Malcolm

“A Beautiful Mind - Laura Makepeace Stephen and the Earlswood Asylum Medical Archives,” by Dr. Madeleine Oakley

Bloomsbury Group

“Virginia Woolf and Leslie Stephen,” by Louise A. DeSalvo

Rob Roy, by Sir Walter Scott

Bonus Episode: Laurie Sandell on Ruth Madoff

In this month’s bonus episode, Liza is joined by Laurie Sandell, author of Truth and Consequences: Life Inside the Madoff Family, to discuss Ruth Madoff and her role in the Madoff scandal. Laurie and Liza dive into who Ruth Madoff was as a person, her relationship with Bernie, and if she has any regrets.

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at significantpod@gmail.com!

In this month’s bonus episode, Liza is joined by Benjamin Binstock, art historian and author of Vermeer’s Family Secrets: Genius, Discovery, and the Unknown Apprentice, to discuss the historical examination of Vermeer’s works and the possibility that perhaps there was another hand at play. 

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at significantpod@gmail.com!

Significant Others is back with another bonus episode! Liza is joined by historian Heather Cox Richardson, host of the podcast Now & Then, and author of one of the most successful Substacks of all time, Letters From An American. Heather and Liza dive into presidential marriages and ask, who was the best love match? Which overlooked first ladies deserve some more credit? And which presidential relationships were doomed from the start?

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then, we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at significantpod@gmail.com!

In this month’s bonus episode, Liza is joined by Liza Mundy, journalist and author of the book, The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA, to discuss the profound influence women have had at the CIA from it’s creation in 1947 to present day in the post-9/11 world. Liza Mundy shares how women fought to become operatives, facilitated their husband’s spy careers, and tracked down Osama Bin Laden. 

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at significantpod@gmail.com!

Mary Lincoln is the First Lady everyone loves to hate. But without her, would Abe Lincoln even have been president in the first place? Theirs is a love story that contains many tragedies—and a key to how America became the country it is today. 
Starring: Rita Wilson as Mary Lincoln and Timothy Olyphant as Abraham Lincoln. Also featuring Matt Gourley and Mike Sweeney.
 

Source List:

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Miller Center, The University of Virginia, www.millercenter.org

The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage, by Daniel Mark Epstein

Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography, by Jean H. Baker

“Lincoln’s Looks Never Hindered His Approach to Life or Politics,” by Susan Bell, USC News

“Mary Todd Lincoln, Patient at Bellevue Place, Batavia.” by Rodney A. Ross., Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society

“Acts of Remembrance: Mary Todd Lincoln and Her Husband’s Memory.” by Jennifer L. Bach, Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association

“New Mary Lincoln Letter Discovered.” by Jason Emerson, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society

Did Duke Ellington really used to say: “He does all the work and I take all the bows?” One thing’s for sure—neither man would have had the career he did without the other.

Starring Fat Tony as Billy Strayhorn and Open Mike Eagle as Duke Ellington

Also featuring: Sasheer Zamata, Sam Sanders, JaRon Ferguson, Miles Gross, Chris Hayes, and Tavis Doucette

Source List:

Lush Life by David Hajdu, ©1996, North Point Press, 18 West 18 Street, NY NY 10011

Something to Live For: The Music of Billy Strayhorn, by Walter van de Leur, ©2002, Oxford University Press

Beyond Category; The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington by John Edward Hasse, ©1993, Da Capo Press

Music is my Mistress by Duke Ellington, ©1973, Da Capo Press

JUST JAZZ No. 3, Ed. Sinclair Traill and The Hon. Gerald Lascelles, ©1959, Four Square Books, Landsborough Publications Ltd, 173 New Bond Street, London, W.1

JUST JAZZ No. 4, Ed. Sinclair Traill and The Hon. Gerald Lascelles, ©1960, Pub. Souvenir Press Ltd, London, WC1 and Canada, The Ryerson Press, Toronto, Printed GB by Clarke, Doble & Brendon, Ltd, Oakfield Press

JazzProfiles, Billy Strayhorn - The Bill Coss Interview

National Jazz Archive, Duke Ellington

CBC News, Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington’s ‘right arm’, to be paid tribute to at Capilano University concert 

The New Yorker, The Hot Bach - I

The New Yorker, The Hot Bach II

YouTube, Duke Ellington Interview by Jack Cullen 1962

Colburn, Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington’s Collaboration

CNN anchor Jake Tapper joins Liza in another special bonus episode to discuss how a 2-party system can look a little bit like a long-term marriage… that neither partner actually signed up for. How has this relationship evolved over the years and in what ways do the parties rely on each other? Liza and Jake discuss all this and more. 

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then, we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at significantpod@gmail.com!

Benedict Arnold is famous for betraying his country–but it was his wife who made the treason possible.

Starring: Susan Yeagley as Peggy Shippen and Andy Richter as Benedict Arnold. Also featuring: Luke Millington-Drake, Jim O’Heir, Matt Gourley, and Roman Mars.

Show notes:

John Andre sketch of Peggy Shippen

Source List:

American Battlefield Trust, Peggy Shippen, 10 Facts: Benedict Arnold and Peggy Shippen, Benedict Arnold

History.com, Benedict Arnold

New York Historical Society, Life Story: Margaret “Peggy” Shippen Arnold

National Endowment for the Humanities, Love and the Revolution

Massachusetts Historical Society, Letters from John Adams to Abigail Adams

NPS.gov, Benedict Arnold

History.com, Why Benedict Arnold Tried to Capture Quebec

The George Washington Presidential Library, Joseph Reed

Medium.com, The Highest-paid Spy in the American Revolution

Brobeck, Stephen. “Revolutionary Change in Colonial Philadelphia: The Brief Life of the Proprietary Gentry.” The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 3, 1976, pp. 410–34. JSTOR

Benedict Arnold, Patriot and Traitor by Willard Sterne Randall, ©1990 by Willard Sterne Randall, 2001 Dorset Press

Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married, Nancy Rubin Stuart, ©2013 by Nancy Rubin Stuart, Beacon Press

In this month’s bonus episode, we celebrate Mother’s Day! Liza is joined by bestselling author Anna Malaika Tubbs to discuss her book, The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation. Anna and Liza dive into the lives of these incredible mothers who have historically been ignored, and they acknowledge their roles in raising and shaping sons who forever changed the course of our nation.  

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at significantpod@gmail.com! 

The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs

The Life of Louise Norton Little by Deborah Jones

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

Amelia Earhart’s husband George Putnam didn’t invent ghostwriting, but he relied on it heavily to produce his best-sellers. What kind of job is ghostwriting today?

The architect of the March on Washington and co-author of Dr. King’s memoir was a mentor to the great civil rights martyr. But he was nearly hidden from history—largely by choice.

Starring: J. Holtham as Bayard Rustin and Anthony Obi as Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Also featuring: Miles Grose, Matt Gourley, and Jesse Thorn.

Source List:

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Bayard Rustin, To Bayard Rustin, Glenn E. Smiley, From Bayard Rustin, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Address at NAACP Mass Rally for Civil Rights

Facing History & Ourselves, Brother Outsider: Remembering Gay Civil Rights Leader Bayard Rustin

Lambda Legal, 67 Years Later, Bayard Rustin’s California Arrest and Jail Time Have Been Pardoned

Jewish News Syndicate, Bayard Rustin (1912-1987)

Bill of Rights Institute, Bayard Rustin, Nonviolence vs. Jim Crow, 1942

PBS.org., Who Designed the March on Washington?

The Weekly Challenger, The FBI Plot to Bring Down the Gay Man Behind the March on Washington

Making Gay History, Bayard Rustin

Washington Blade, Looking Back: 50 Years of the Blade

The Washington Post, Bayard Rustin, Organizer of the March on Washington, Was Crucial to the Movement, In ‘I Must Resist,’ Bayard Rustin Lived a Life with No Apologies 

Montgomery Advertiser, 21, 22, 23, & 24 February 1956

Cross Country Solidarity, The Montgomery Bus Boycott: The Full Story

LA Times, Glenn Smiley; Advised King on Nonviolence

The Guardian, When Martin Luther King Gave Up His Guns

Why a Gay, Black Civil Rights Hero Opposed Affirmative Action

Malcolm X and Bayard Rustin Debate on WBAI

CivilRights.org, Bayard Rustin and the Presidential Medal of Freedom: A Perfect Fit

Yale Law School, Bayard Rustin Centennial

Researchgate.net, Arrest Record for Bayard Rustin

Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

Beacon Broadside, Roy Wilkins’s Reluctant Tribute to W.E.B. Du Bois

Legal Defense Fund, Brown v. Board of Education

Greensboro.com, Thurmond, FBI Had Close Ties, Records Show

The New York Times, Negro Rally Aide Rebuts Senator

I Must Resist, Bayard Rustin’s Life In Letters, Ed. Michael Long, City Lights Books, ©2012

Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin by John D’Emilio, Free Press/Simon & Schuster, ©2003

ALABAMA V. KING, By Dan Abrams and Fred Grey with David Fisher, Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd., ©2022 

Martin Luther King, Jr., Homosexuality, and the Early Gay Rights Movement By Michael Long, First published by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, a division of St. Martin’s Press, ©2012

Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David J Garrow, ©1986, Edition published 2015 by Open Road Media

In this month’s bonus episode, Liza is joined by Dr. Emily Wilson, the first woman to translate Homer’s The Odyssey into English. Liza and Dr. Wilson explore the vital but often underrecognized role of a literary translator, why she set out to translate The Odyssey and The Iliad, and the attention she pays to characters who historically have been dismissed in these works.

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at significantpod@gmail.com!

Journalist and biographer Mark Harris joins Liza to discuss the legacy of Elia Kazan and whether or not there is such a thing as a happy ending in Hollywood.

Playwright Dipika Guha joins Liza to give insight into the complicated relationship between her home country of India and Gandhi's legacy in this time of call-out culture.

The one who does the work is not always the one who gets the glory. Also… what is an orchestrator, anyway? 

Find Fernando’s work on his Instagram here

What is a fan to do with unsavory intel on their idol? Is it possible to separate the art from the artist? Should we even try?

Claire’s book, Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma is out now.

The man who made Amelia Earhart famous may also have gotten her killed. But their marriage was completely on her terms.

Starring John C. McGinley as George Palmer Putnam and Christa Miller as Amelia Earhart.

Also featuring Conan O’Brien, Neve O’Brien, Tavis Doucette, Maddie Ogden, and Miles Grose.

Source List

Amelia Earhart, A Biography by Doris L. Rich, ©1989, 2010 by the Smithsonian Institution

The Sound of Wings by Mary S. Lovell, St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY, 10010 ©1989 

Letters From Amelia by Jean L. Backus, Beacon Press, ©1982 

Soaring Wings by George Palmer Putnam, Manor Books Inc., ©1939, ©1967 by Margaret H. Lewis, Published by arrangement with Harocourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc. 

Wide Margins, a publisher’s autobiography by George Palmer Putnam, ©1942, Harcourt, Brace and Company, NY

EAST TO THE DAWN,The Life of Amelia Earhart by Susan Butler, Da Capo Press, ©1997 

Whistled Like A Bird by Sally Putnam Chapman, Warner Books, Inc., Hachette Book Group

Project Muse, “The Earhart Phenomenon and the “Accident of Sex” 

PBS, “American Experience: Amelia Earhart”

“Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight” by Judith Thurman, The New Yorker, Sept. 7, 2009

National Air and Space Museum, Earhart and George Palmer Putnam

New England Historical Society, Amelia Earhart, Reluctant Bride

Purdue University, Putnam, George Palmer, 1887-1950

CT Insider, Amelia Earhart’s ‘Secret’ Connecticut Wedding: From the Archives

UPI, Husband of Missing Flier Earhart Secluded After Long Vigil

The New York Times, 1932: I’m Not ‘Mrs. Putnam,’ I’m Amelia Earhart

PBS American Experience, Amelia Earhart Program Transcript

Palmer, Amy Phipps Guest Portrait

History.com, Charles Lindbergh Completes the First Solo, Nonstop Transatlantic Flight

Charles Lindbergh House and Museum, New York-to-Paris Flight

Britannica, Charles Lindbergh, American Aviator

NASA.gov, Realizing the Dream of Flight

Medium, Ghostwriters in 2020: The Current Trends and Beyond

The New York Times Archive, Tuesday, June 19th, 1928. Wednesday, June 20th, 1928.

Flight Paths: Purdue University’s Aerospace Pioneers, The Earhart Brand: Amelia Earhart’s Impact on Celebrity Culture

PBS, Navigating the Truth Behind Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan

Ghost Writing and History by Ernest R. May,  ©1953, The American Scholar, Published By: The Phi Beta Kappa Society

Significant Others is back for season 2! Starting February 14th, join Liza Powel O’Brien as she explores more stories of the little-known individuals just beyond the spotlight of history. Would Benedict Arnold have betrayed his country were it not for his wife, Peggy? Who is really to blame for Friedrich Nietzche’s connection to Nazism? Find out when Significant Others returns, February 14th with new episodes every Wednesday and follow-up episodes on Thursdays.

George Orwell has never been accused of being a feminist. And yet his wife Eileen left her mark on his most important works.

Starring Sally Drexler as Eileen Blair and Nigel Daly as George Orwell

Also featuring: Ben Partridge, Luke Millington-Drake, Thom Wickes, Amelia Chappelow, and Colin Anderson.

Source List:

Eileen: The Making of George Orwell by Sylvia Topp, © 2020 

Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder, © 2023

Orwell: The Life by D.J. Taylor, © 2003, Published 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media

Orwell: The New Life by D.J. Taylor, © 2023, Published by Pegasus Books, Ltd

1984 & Coming Up For Air by George Orwell, © 2021 by True Sign

1984 & Animal Farm by George Orwell, © 2022, Sanage Publishing

The Guardian, Looking for Eileen: how George Orwell wrote his wife out of his story

The New York Times, One Biography Questions Orwell’s Image, and Another Brings His First Wife Into Focus

New Humanist, Eric, Eileen and Norah

The American Scholar, Down and Out

The Guardian, Orwell by DJ Taylor Review - A Very English Socialist

The Orwell Foundation, Remembering Eileen: An Interview with George Orwell’s Son, Richard Blair

The New York Times, How ‘Orwellian’ Became an All-Purpose Insult

Online Etymology Dictionary, Orwellian

The Sydney Morning Herald, The Mysterious Absence of George Orwell’s First Wife

The Guardian, Another Piece of the Puzzle

The Orwell Society, Eileen - and Orwell’s Shifting Attitudes on Gender Issues

The New Yorker, Honest, Decent, Wrong

The Article, In Defense of George Orwell

In this bonus episode, Liza is joined by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Eric Roth to discuss the often invisible craft of screenwriting. Eric shares his process of adapting a book to film, the relationship between screenwriter and director, and what it was like working with Martin Scorsese on Killers of the Flower Moon.

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at significantpod@gmail.com!

Significant Others is back with a bonus episode! Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Stacy Schiff returns to discuss her new book The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, which examines the essential (and somewhat forgotten) role of Samuel Adams during the Revolutionary War. Liza and Stacy explore why he has become more known as “the beer guy” than for his contributions to the cause, and ask - was Samuel Adams the Significant Other of the American Revolution? 

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then, we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way!

Leo Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. Yet, without his wife, Sophia Tolstoy, would the world have been gifted with such literary classics as War and Peace and Anna Karenina? Starring Megan Mullally as Countess Sophia Tolstoy and Nick Offerman as Leo Tolstoy.

Source List:
Tolstoy, A Biography by A.N. Wilson, 1988 WW Norton & Co
Song Without Words: The Photographs & Diaries of Countess Sophia Tolstoy by Leah Bendavid-Val, National Geographic Society
Leo Tolstoy, Diaries, Faber, Ed. R.F. Christian
Tolstoy, Woman and Death by David Holbrook, Farleigh Dickinson University Press
The Diaries of Sophia Tolstoy, Cathy Porter, Harper Collins

On this month’s bonus episode, Liza is joined by Dr. Mali Heled Kinberg, UCLA faculty lecturer and holder of a doctorate in English Literature from Cambridge University, to discuss the fascinating and unique relationship between literary giant James Joyce and his partner, Nora Barnacle. Liza and Mali explore Nora’s profound influence on her husband and the scandalous letters the two exchanged throughout their relationship.

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at significantpod@gmail.com!

Best-selling author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell joins Liza to discuss the concept of “celebrity doctors” and the destructive dynamic between the famous Dr. Spock and his complicated wife Jane.

Did you know that the novel "Lolita" would not exist if Vladimir Nabokov’s wife hadn’t stopped her husband from burning the manuscript? Or that Gandhi learned his legendary method of passive resistance from his wife? Alongside any famous name, there is often another story to tell—of an intimate relationship that made all the difference. Starting July 20th, join Liza Powel O’Brien as she explores the stories of the little-known individuals just beyond the spotlight of history. Because no one lives in a vacuum—not even geniuses.

A man who looms as large as Karl Marx needed multiple Significant Others (although when it came to wives, he only had one). 

Starring Ted Danson as Karl Marx, Maddie Ogden as Jenny von Westphalen, and Patton Oswalt as Friedrich Engels.

Also featuring Katie Sharer and Matt O’Brien.

Source List:

Love and Captial: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution by Mary Gabriel, ©2011, Hachette Book Group

Engels by Terrell Carver, ©2011, Oxford University Press

Revolutions Podcast, Season 10

Reason.org, Don’t Blame Karl Marx for ‘Cultural Marxism’

The Washington Post, “Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution,” by Mary Gabriel

National Library of Medicine, Friedrich Engels: Businessman and Revolutionary

Britannica, Young Hegelians

CCSNA.org, Duke of Argyll

Marxist.org, Yearning: A Romance, The Holy Family or Critique of Critical Criticism, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Karl Marx 1852

History.com, Paris Commune of 1871

In our final bonus episode before the new season, Liza is joined by psychoanalyst and couples therapist Dr. Susan Flinn to explore the significant others within ourselves and how they impact our relationships. They also discuss this idea of our ideal self, our ideal mate, and how these can set us up for disappointment. 

Season 2 premieres on February 14th! Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at significantpod@gmail.com!

In this month’s bonus episode, Liza is joined by Marc Grossman who was speechwriter, press secretary, and personal aide to Cesar Chavez for 24 years. Marc shares his unique insight into the marriage of Cesar and Helen Chavez, and how Helen was a powerful force in her own right and became the mother of the United Farm Workers’ movement. 

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at significantpod@gmail.com!

Are we, in fact, living in a time of revolution? What it means and what you can do about it, according to one of MIT’s greatest thinkers.

Power and Progress: Our 1,000-Year Struggle Over Technology & Prosperity

Significant Others is back with another bonus episode! Liza is joined by Dana Schwartz, host of the popular podcast Noble Blood, which explores the stories of the world’s most fascinating nobles. Today, Dana takes us on a crash course through the complicated dynamics of royal marriages and answers our burning questions! What set Catherine the Great apart? Did Anne Boleyn play her cards right? And who was the first appointed royal spouse that was male? Turns out that relationships aren't so easy when your nation depends on their success. Who knew?

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then, we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at significantpod@gmail.com!

Mohandas Gandhi helped India win independence from Britain through nonviolent resistance but little know that he credits the inspiration for his tactics to his wife, Kasturba. So, who was the wife of this renowned saint?

Starring Dipika Guha as Kasturba Gandhi and Samrat Chakrabarti as Mohandas Gandhi.

Source List:

The Woman Beside Gandhi: A Biography of Kasturba, Wife of the Mahatma, by Sita Kapadia

Gandhi on Women, by Madhu Kishwar, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 20, no. 41

Why Mahatma Gandhi Said Kasturba Stood Above Him, Prabhash K Dutta, New Delhi, October 2, 2018

The Truth About Gandhi, The Harvard Crimson

Petty, Bad-Tempered Kasturba - What Gandhi Said While Courting Sarladevi and Esther Faerling, B.M. Bhalla, March 19, 2020

The Story of My Experiments With Truth, by Mohandas Karamchad Gandhi

MAHATMA, In Eight Volumes, by D.G. Tendulkar

Kasturba: A Biography, By B.M. Bhalla

Gandhi Was a Racist Who Forced Young Girls to Sleep in Bed With Him, by Mayukh Sen, December 3, 2015, Vice

Kasturba Gandhi, The Feisty Woman Whose Patience Inspired Gandhi's Call For Satyagraha, by Simrin Sirur, April 11, 2019, The Print

Author Sarah Vowell on the particular struggles women faced in revolutionary America and how Peggy Shippen’s environment influenced her decisions.

Sarah’s books can be found here.

Legendary filmmaker Elia Kazan gave us such cinematic classics as On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire, but he made himself a pariah when he named names to the government. Without his wife, Molly Day Thacher, he might never have made his controversial decision–nor even had a career to begin with.

Starring: Lisa Kudrow as Molly Day Thacher and Paul F. Tompkins as Elia Kazan. Also featuring: Jack McBrayer, Jim Rash, Adam O’Byrne and Larry Powell.

Source List:

A Life, by Elia Kazan

Elia Kazan, by Richard Schickel

Tennessee Williams & Elia Kazan: A Collaboration in the Theatre, by Brenda Murphy

Tennessee Williams, Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, by John Lahr

“A Statement”, by Elia Kazan

“You Must Remember This” Podcast

Parenting expert Julie Lythcott-Haims sits down with Liza to explore what parents should and shouldn’t want for their children; and whether or not Sir Leslie Stephen may have gotten some things right.

Biographer Stacy Schiff joins Liza to discuss the lengths she went to in researching her Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Véra.

A full list of Stacy Schiff’s books can be found here:

https://www.stacyschiff.com/books-and-essays-by-stacy-schiff.html

Liza is joined by her significant other, self-proclaimed Lincoln super-fan Conan O’Brien, to discuss how crucial Mary Lincoln was to her husband's political career.

The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care altered parenting forever and made Dr. Benjamin Spock a household name. But his wife Jane, who not only helped him get the book down on paper but introduced him to the very concepts that were so revolutionary in his work, was ruined by his success.

Source List:

Dr. Spock, An American Life, by Thomas Maier

​​Doctor Spock: Biography of a Conservative Radical, by Lynn Z. Bloom

“Public vs. Private: Dr. Spock, Mr. Hyde,” by Mary Jo Kochakian

“Parents and Dr. Spock”, American Archive of Public Broadcasting

“The Man Who Raised America,” by Susan Bolotin

“The Spocks: Bittersweet. Recognition in a Revised Classic,” by Judy Klemesrud

“Jane C. Spock, 82, Worked on Baby Book,” The New York Times

Christian Nurture, by Horace Bushnell

Horace Bushnell, Britannica 

“The Personal Spock: The Controversial Doctor Recalls His Childhood, Which Was Influenced by a Domineering Mother,” by Elizabeth Mehren

Sandra Newman was given one assignment by the Orwell Estate: Re-write 1984 from the point of view of the character Julia.

Julia: A Retelling of George Orwell’s 1984