Tue, May 5, 2020
Polly Platt -- producer, writer and Oscar-nominated production designer -- lived an epic Hollywood life. And yet, if you know Platt's name today, it's probably because in 1970 her husband and creative collaborator Peter Bogdanovich had an affair with Cybill Shepherd while shooting the film that launched their careers, The Last Picture Show. But Platt was much more than a jilted wife: she was the secret, often invisible-to-the-public weapon behind some of the best films of the 1970s, '80s and '90s. Drawing on Platt's unpublished memoir, as well as ample interviews and archival research, The Invisible Woman will tell Polly Platt's incredible story from her perspective, for the first time.
Tue, May 19, 2020
Excited for the new season? We can hardly wait to share the untold story of Polly Platt, the secret weapon behind some of the most highly acclaimed films of the 1970s, '80s and '90s. This audio journey will feature interviews and intimate details about her trailblazing legacy and heartbreaking private life, including excerpts from her own unpublished memoirs dealing with her creative collaborations and relationship with her second husband, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich.
Tue, May 26, 2020
We'll begin with a look at how Polly Platt's legacy was appraised when she died in 2011. Then we'll go back in time to tell Polly's story from the start, beginning with her Revolutionary Road-esque childhood in Europe and America as the neglected daughter of two alcoholics; to her years studying scenic design in environments in which women weren't welcome; the secret pregnancy that halted her formal education, and the early marriage that took her West and cemented her desire to tell stories through design. Throughout, we'll talk about how Platt's experiences, as the product of an American military family of the 1950s-and the daughter of a mother who had been forced to abandon a career for motherhood--shaped her view of gender roles and relations, and her idea of what it meant to be the wife of a important man.
Wed, Jun 3, 2020
After the death of her first husband and creative partner, Polly moves to New York, where she swiftly meets and falls in love with Peter Bogdanovich. Together Polly and Peter build a life around the obsessive consumption of Hollywood movies, with Polly acting as Peter's Jill-of-all-trades support system as he first ingratiates himself with the previous two generations of Hollywood auteurs as a critic/historian, and then makes his way into making his own films. Together, Polly and Peter write and produce Targets, Bogdanovich's first credited feature, and also collaborate on a documentary about the great director John Ford. By the time Polly gives birth to their first daughter, she believes she and Peter are an indivisible, equal creative partnership - regardless of how credit is distributed in Hollywood.
Tue, Jun 9, 2020
At Polly's urging, Peter decides to direct an adaptation of Larry McMurtry's novel The Last Picture Show. Though credited only as the film's "designer," Polly is involved in every creative decision, including casting - and it's with his pregnant-again wife's enthusiasm that Bogdanovich casts 20-year-old model Cybill Shepherd as the film's femme fatale. Though Polly believed she and Peter were "deliriously happy," Bogdanovich and Shepherd fall in love on the set of the movie, and Polly has to make a decision: to save face and avoid personal humiliation by walking away from the production, or stay and fight for the creative baby that she feels ownership over.
Tue, Jun 16, 2020
In the aftermath of The Last Picture Show - and the collapse of her second marriage - Polly finds an unlikely ally, and a new job, in Orson Welles. Anxious to build on her career momentum (and become the first female film art director accepted into her union), Polly agrees to work on Peter's next two films, What's Up Doc and Paper Moon - two massive hits which make Peter one of the most famous directors of the decade.
Tue, Jun 23, 2020
When Polly begins her own on-set affair, the double standard of what men can get away with in Hollywood versus what was expected for women would push her to a breaking point. With collaborating with her ex-husband no longer an option, Platt starts attempting to rebuild her career, designing classics such as A Star is Born and Bad News Bears, while also navigating predatory men in power in post-sexual revolution Hollywood.
Tue, Jun 30, 2020
In an attempt to save her family, Polly transitions to screenwriting and producing, basing the prostitution drama Pretty Baby, starring a pre-teen Brooke Shields, on her own daughter. Polly finds herself increasingly overcome by alcoholism, while dealing with Shields's own alcoholic mother. Polly's already-difficult relationship with her two daughters is made much more complicated by the murder of Peter's girlfriend, Dorothy Stratten, and Bogdanovich's subsequent emotional collapse.
Tue, Jul 7, 2020
Polly's third marriage falls apart, and she enters more than one destructive affair. During these tumultuous times, Polly establishes a new collaboration with a male writer-director, James L. Brooks, and together the two turn another Larry McMurtry novel into a classic film: Terms of Endearment. Once again, while working on this film about a combative mother-daughter relationship, Polly finds that art and life are intertwined. Polly's own story starts showing up in other people's movies, including Irreconcilable Differences -- starring Ryan O'Neal as a version of Peter Bogdanovich.
Tue, Jul 14, 2020
In the mid-to-late 80s, Polly Platt worked on a number of films that defined and reflected that decade's ideas about female power. With an Oscar nomination under her belt, Polly starts trying in earnest to direct. She ends her career as a production designer with The Witches of Eastwick, a star-studded special-effects extravaganza. Inspired by Polly, Brooks creates the character played by Holly Hunter in Broadcast News, infusing the film with Polly's single-minded professional determination. Riding high on having guided Brooks through two consecutive, blockbuster Oscar nominees, Polly becomes a production executive at Brooks's Gracie Films, where she produces Cameron Crowe's Say Anything.
Tue, Jul 21, 2020
Polly Platt's collaboration with James L. Brooks hits choppy waters with I'll Do Anything, which at one point was a musical with songs by Prince, but became one of the most notoriously misbegotten productions of the 1990s. Polly recaptures her indie roots by shepherding the directorial debut of Wes Anderson.