63: Pal Joey, Part 1 - The Beauty of Lorenz Hart
SUDDENLY: a Frank Sinatra podcast
For part one of our Pal Joey deep dive, we look at the life of gay lyricist Lorenz Hart. We explore Hart's writings, philosophy, and history as a closeted artist living a painfully contradictory double life. We also discuss the benefits of irredeemable characters in art, setting the stage for a closer look at how the 1940 musical Pal Joey—and the 1957 Sinatra-starring film adaptation—came to be. Sources: The Art of Burning Bridges: A Life of John O’Hara by Geoffrey O’Brien Lorenz Hart: A Poet on Broadway by Frederick Nolan A Song in the Dark: The Birth of the Musical Film...
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BONUS: Beautiful or Tragic - The Untold Saga of 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert'
SUDDENLY: a Frank Sinatra podcast
An emotional deep dive into the untold history of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, a terrible, racist and transphobic film. Rabia looks at the lives of the three drag queens and one trans woman that it was based on (Cindy Pastel, Strykermeyer, Lady Bump and Carlotta) and the erratic behavour/Shakespearean motivations of troubled writer/director Stephan Elliott. Deep research uncovers a complex story with no clear heroes or villains - a tale as beautiful as it is tragic. This is a bonus episode that originally appeared on Totally Trans. Source notes for...
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62: I've Got You Under My Skin, Part 3 - Reality
SUDDENLY: a Frank Sinatra podcast
The third and final part of our series about "I've Got You Under My Skin" and the AIDS crisis, in which we watch the Red Hot + Blue TV special from 1990 featuring the Neneh Cherry version of the song. We look at AIDS messaging of the time, learning from its bravery and mistakes, and also confront its inadequacy to deal with the current Long COVID crisis and the need to move on in the present. Source list will be added later. Watch , the original Michael Aldrich tape. email: suddenlypod at gmail dot com website: suddenlypod.gay donate: ko-fi.com/suddenlypod
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61: I've Got You Under My Skin, Part 2 - Angel
SUDDENLY: a Frank Sinatra podcast
The second part of our series about "I've Got You Under My Skin" and the AIDS crisis, in which we watch the first two hours of a VHS tape recorded by Michael Aldrich from his Dope Tapes archive. email: suddenlypod at gmail dot com website: suddenlypod.gay donate: ko-fi.com/suddenlypod
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60: I've Got You Under My Skin, Part 1 - Mentality
SUDDENLY: a Frank Sinatra podcast
The first in a trilogy of episodes about "I've Got You Under My Skin" and the AIDS crisis. contact: suddenlypod at gmail dot com website: suddenlypod.gay donate: ko-fi.com/suddenlypod
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59: Meet Me in Las Vegas (with Garrett Cash)
SUDDENLY: a Frank Sinatra podcast
This week, special guest Garrett Cash attempts to set a world record for the most preparation ever undertaken to appear as a guest on a single episode of a podcast. Meet Me in Las Vegas is a boring MGM film from 1956 set at the Sands casino in which Sinatra appears in a cameo as "Man at Slot Machine" for only a few seconds. You won't believe how far Garrett went to put this in its full context, spending over a year on the deepest dive yet undertaken for this show. Be prepared to learn a LOT about Las Vegas. We're thrilled to present not just a special episode of the show but also potentially a...
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58: Too Many Husbands!
SUDDENLY: a Frank Sinatra podcast
It’s a simple idea with a long history: Woman is told her husband has perished at sea, so she remarries, then the original husband turns up alive and hijinks ensue! An old-timey excuse to show a throuple and a natural premise for comedy, this concept stayed resonant for many years and was remade a number of times – including as a classic screwball 1940 film, that was later itself in 1947 adapted into a hilarious and chaotic radio production starring Lucille Ball as the wife with Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra as the husbands. This week, we hear that radio production in full, and go on a deep...
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Ramadan Radio: Rocky Fortune's Rocket Racket
SUDDENLY: a Frank Sinatra podcast
We're off for Ramadan and will be back soon. In the meantime, here's a classic episode of Rocky Fortune with a quick intro about some upcoming episodes. website: suddenlypod.gay contact: suddenlypod at gmail dot com donate: ko-fi.com/suddenlypod
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BONUS: "The Elvis Conspiracy" 1992 Channel 7 Adelaide Commercials (with David M. Green)
SUDDENLY: a Frank Sinatra podcast
Not just the 1992 "Is Elvis Alive?" conspiracy theory special The Elvis Conspiracy (a sequel to 1991's The Elvis Files). Not just the specific airing of that special from Channel 7 in Adelaide, South Australia on 26 May 1992. The commercials from that airing. It's as granular as we've ever been, and we're joined by Adelaide's own David M. Green, host of VHS Revue, a show which specialises in commercials from Australian TV found on old VHS tapes. This was originally intended to be a bonus episode for the TCBCast After Dark Patreon-exclusive deep dive into "Is Elvis Alive?"...
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57: Finian's Rainbow
SUDDENLY: a Frank Sinatra podcast
In 1947, a musical premiered in which a conservative US senator is transformed into a woman by a farming commune of "rainbow people" in order to teach him a lesson. Brimming with queer and trans subtext, Finian's Rainbow is a difficult and exhausting watch today but it remains fascinating as an artefact of proto-feminism and postwar LGBTIQA+ history. Sinatra was originally slated to appear in an animated version in the 1950s and even worked on a soundtrack with Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, but the project never eventuated - though he did go on to record "Old Devil Moon" on Songs for...
info_outlineThis week on SUDDENLY, an unbelievable true story. At age 19, Estonian-Australian immigrant Peeter Pedaja had his life changed by a Frank Sinatra film, THE KISSING BANDIT (1948). You will NEVER guess where this is going.
Born in 1931, Pedaja spent his entire Estonian childhood on the run from occupying Germans and Russians, including an exhaustive three-and-a-half year search for his lost family. He migrated to Australia by 18 and began hitch-hiking around the country - once riding a bicycle from Perth to Melbourne in summer, another time walking almost 300km in three days to win a bet.
At age 19, he saw THE KISSING BANDIT and was inspired. Brandishing a toy water pistol, he managed to hijack a motorcycle then hold up a couple in a car before being promptly arrested. “(Sinatra’s character) in the film never meant to do anything bad and I didn’t either”, he told the court. “I’ve been honest all my life and always will be.” He got off with a suspended sentence - and became known in Australia as “The Kissing Bandit in Real Life.”
And his adventures were just beginning.
In 1957, he turned up in Darwin having constructed a boat out of oil drums. Oil drum sea travel had become an obsession. Despite warnings that the craft was unseaworthy, he was absolutely determined to cross the Timor Sea and arrive in Indonesia. As he set off, nobody expected him to even survive the trip...
THE KISSING BANDIT is universally agreed to be the worst ever Sinatra film, so we got podcasting legend Tim Batt from The Worst Idea of All Time to join us for this episode. But it turned out that all this was just beneath the surface - and maybe it had something to do with the Worst Idea after all.
How this incredible story became lost to history is unclear. But you’ll hear all about it, for the first time in almost 50 years, on this week’s SUDDENLY.
Voice acting cast for this episode: Pete Rush as Peeter Pedaja, Lewis Worthington as Gregory Black, Henry Giardina as Capt. Peter Petersen, Spike Vincent as Capt. H.I. Phillips and Sue Marsh as Rosalie Pedaja.
Peeter Pedaja (sometimes spelt Peter Pedaja, alias Stanley Lexton) was born on August 24th, 1931 in Talllinn, Estonia to Rosalie and Johannes Pedaja, and died on October 17th, 1985 in Melbourne, Australia. If you know any more about his amazing life, we would love to hear from you.
UPDATE: Since the recording of this episode, I've since learned I was mispronouncing his surname. It's "pe-DAI-ya." I looked all over the internet for someone pronouncing it and went by what Google Translate told me, but that turned out to be wrong - sorry!
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