The growth of podcasting the past few years has been more than just download numbers, but also the level of talent that is attracted to the audio format. That is again on display as critically acclaimed bestselling author Shawn Levy has signed on to create a new podcast franchise with C13 Originals, the documentary studio division of the podcast studio Cadence13. Glitter and Might will document the power and influence originating from Hollywood.
The first season of the documentary podcast will tell the story of Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman, former President Ronald Reagan, and labor lawyer Sidney Korshak, who came together in the 1940s to become some of the most powerful men in the entertainment business and American politics decades later.
Atop the film world for forty years, Wasserman is credited with creating the modern talent agency that liberated actors from film studios and invented the made-for-TV movie. He also helped steer Reagan from the B-movie pool at Warner Bros. to the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild and then into politics. While Korshak, a lawyer for labor unions, gangsters, and casinos, quietly aided Wasserman's plans for decades.
“The most remarkable part of Ronald Reagan's political career is that it was largely fostered by forces that had nothing to do with what we normally think of as 'politics’,” said Levy. “As wielded by men like Lew Wasserman and Sidney Korshak, power could seep into any place where there was a vacuum and something to be gained by filling it, whether that was the movie industry, the casino business, the upper echelons of organized labor, or even the White House.”
Levy has been writing about Hollywood and power for decades, with books such as “The Castle on Sunset: Life, Death, Love, Art and Scandal at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont” and “Rat Pack Confidential” among those he has published. Levy’s next book, a history of the women pioneers of standup comedy, will be published by Doubleday in 2022.
“Having Shawn Levy guide us through this story with his incredible knowledge and access to this critical time in the history of Hollywood’s evolution is beyond exciting,” said Chris Corcoran, Chief Content Officer at Cadence13 and Executive Producer of C13Originals.
Glitter and Might is slated to debut this fall.