The Backstory with Patty Steele

How does a book start out as a complete failure only to suddenly be celebrated as one of the great American novels, decades later? And what was its heartbreaking inspiration? This is the story of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic The Great Gatsby , published 100 years ago this month. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nothing makes us melt like a great story about a kid and a dog. Lassie was a megastar in the 1950s, watching over her 7-year-old boy Timmy...but was her act lifted from the first canine movie star back in 1905? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of America’s most prolific female serial killers was Aileen Wuornos. She admitted to killing at least seven men before she was executed in 2002. Her life was depicted in the 2003 movie Monster . But how did the little girl, tormented by schoolmates as "the cigarette pig," become a monster? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s long-time property in Palm Beach, gets a lot of press these days. But it’s an architectural marvel. The thing is, its past is way more glittering than its present. It was built in the roaring 1920s by a young woman who was, for most of her life, the richest woman in America. This is about where her money came from and how she spent it. See omnystudio.com/l...

The murder of movie star Lana Turner’s mobster boyfriend by her 14-year-old daughter was the biggest story in Hollywood in the late 1950s. But did young Cheryl really wield the knife? Or did she take the hit for her mother? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two of the most famous inventors of the late 19th and early 20th century were Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. They were great friends and shared a strong belief in the afterlife. That connection led Ford to obtain a test tube from Edison’s son…allegedly containing Edison’s dying breath. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hard to imagine loving a politician so much that a third of the entire U.S. populace shows up to watch his funeral train go by and millions file past his open coffin. But sadly, Abe Lincoln was decomposing before their eyes. His two-week journey home was on a train meant to be the 1860s version of Air Force One, and his only trip on it was after his death.  See omnystudio.com/listener for pri...

44 years ago this month, the song Superfreak was released by funk legend Rick James. But success didn’t sit well with him .. eventually leading to prison and an early death. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

April 15th will be the 160th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He was noted for having a personality that was a unique combination of strength and determination, softened by incredible sensitivity to the pain of others. So, he was aware of the passions that influenced Americans on both sides during the Civil War. Did that knowledge and sensitivity allow him to predict the events...

Robert Downey Jr. has had an amazing career—huge movies as a young actor and even bigger ones in his 40s and 50s. But in between, he spent serious time in prison on drug charges. How did he find sobriety? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The 113th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic is just weeks away, but the disaster still resonates. Two of the 710 survivors were tiny little boys, traveling with their father under an assumed name...after he kidnapped them from his ex-wife. They were the only children to survive without a parent or guardian that night. The older son, just 4 at the time, lived until 2001 when he was 92. He s...

The Boston Marathon is next month, but women weren’t officially allowed to run in it until 1972. Officials said it would shock a woman’s body to run more than one and a half miles at a time! In 1966 one woman began to change all that by sneaking into the race wearing her brother’s shorts and a new pair of men’s running shoes since they didn’t make them for women until...

What’s the real story behind the love affair and long delayed marriage between King Charles and Queen Camilla? Their love affair predated his marriage to Princess Diana by almost 20 years. But British rules about virginity caused one of the biggest scandals in history. This is how it all came down. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is so much fascination and mystery in the history of feudal Japan. The true story of the only black samurai in Japanese history will be brought to life in the coming week with the release of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. But who was he, how did he become a samurai and what happened to him? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Boleyn sisters were red-hot English socialites in the early 1500s. Their rise and fall, one as the mistress of King Henry the Eighth and one as his queen, was shocking even by the standards of the time. Why did a bishop call one of them the “most infamous whore of all”? How did they catch the king? And how did they lose him, along with one of their heads?  See omnystudio.com/l...

The destruction of Pompeii in 79 AD by the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius was complete. But the people who lived there left behind personal stories. Graffiti was their social media. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Imagine a world with no internet. Head back 30 years or so and you’ll see how the world wide web changed everything about how we communicate, learn, bank, socialize, and entertain ourselves. And we have one kind of geeky guy to thank. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kate Chase was the 20-year-old queen bee of Washington society at the onset of the Civil War. She had the ear of Abe Lincoln and the hatred of his jealous wife Mary Todd Lincoln. Kate married rich but then fell for another powerful man…until they were caught. And that changed everything.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s hard to imagine how a couple of 21-year-old kids could think up a scheme to snatch the son of one of the most famous entertainers in the world, much less carry it out. This is the crazy story of the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

George Washington’s 293rd birthday is this weekend, and his death in 1799 was a shock to the brand-new United States of America. Everybody loved him and a lot of people wanted a piece of him…literally. That led to the plot to steal George Washington’s head. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How does a guy go from running with gangs on the Lower East Side to reinventing the mafia to going to prison as a convicted felon…to finally working with the U.S. government to protect NYC’s waterfront during World War II? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Emotional attachment is thousands of years old, but it actually started off with apes! For humans, Valentine’s Day started off as a blood-soaked pagan fertility festival loaded with alcohol, nudity, and blood! On the flip side, the romance element is a pretty recent invention. You can thank the Victorians for that. Plus, find out who sent the first Valentine! See omnystudio.com/listener for...

It’s called the most famous love story of all time: William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. But was it a true story or did it come completely from Shakespeare’s brilliant creative mind? Maybe neither. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Wisconsin countryside in autumn during the 1950s sounds idyllic. But it was the scene of a horrifying series of murders and body-snatching cases. Ed Gein, in “The Butcher of Plainfield,” was the loner who inspired movies like Psycho and Silence of the Lambs. So…what’s his story? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who wrote the best-selling book in the U.S. in the 1800s? Why was she attacked from both sides for her story? And finally, how did she come to write the same exact book, word for word, 40 years later? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.