THE DON

The Belle de Jour of Beverly Hills

Pierce is upset that John Gregory Dunne had penned Don’s obituary. We learn that Pierce and Don had a falling out and that Pierce knew little of Don’s dark days before his death. A tip from Robert Evans leads Pierce to Don’s madame- Madame Cora. Pierce learns that Don and the madame were close friends dating back to when they were both first starting out in Hollywood. Cora believes it’s no coincidence that the LAPD is staked outside her house just days after Don’s death.  Learn more about your ad-choices at <a href="https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com">https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com</a>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.

THE DON is a docu-drama on the life of the producer of TOP GUN, Don Simpson, which uses narration, clips, and fictional re-enactments via “lost tapes'' to take you behind the scenes into Hollywood’s decade of decadence, the 1980s. Before the era of MeToo, there was Don Simpson the poster boy of toxic masculinity, whose outlandish behavior was not only tolerated but encouraged by the film industry who profited greatly off Don’s movies. Don Simpson was, like the character he named after himself in his movie TOP GUN, a maverick. His signature style of filmmaking created one hit after another— AMERICAN GIGOLO, FLASHDANCE, BEVERLY HILLS COP, TOP GUN- they all came from the mind of Don Simpson. Don loved the movies so much that he created a mythological persona known as “The Don” to match his signature movies— loud, ballsy, cheesy— his movies were full of homo-erotic testoterone-driven race car drivers and navy fighter pilots and stripper/welders who wanted to be ballerinas— these were the movies from Don’s absurd fantasy world— this was the world that Don actually lived in— there was no separation between life and art. And that movie persona that he created— “The Don”— grew more and more outrageous and more extreme— until ultimately… it killed him.