While Jennifer is on a parent student weekend, am replaying one of our more popular episodes... over 4500 folks have seen it - it is second part of an interview with Robert Towne, the screenwriter, on the flipside (my old boss) and a discussion of Napoleon and a visit with Charles Grodin and Luana Anders. Here's the original liner notes from a year ago in August of 2024...

First; Jennifer's got another one of her Uncorked events in Manhattan Beach - tickets are available, for sixty bucks one gets a glass of wine, two hours with her and others who all get spoken to. The events are fun and easy to attend. UncorkedWineShops.com https://uncorkedwineshops.com/medium-monday-tickets/

For ticket info: JenniferShaffer.com

This is a continuation of our conversation with Robert Towne, my old boss who left the stage last week. Jennifer mentions how she was walking on the beach the other day and Robert (and his dog Hira) appeared walking next to her... Jennifer did a number of sessions with Robert and so she's used to communicating with him.

In this episode, I'm continuing with my list of questions to ask him about - people that we spoke with before, people offstage and if he has messages for people onstage.

In this case, Robert was doing a rewrite or polish for a script about Napoleon (I don't know if it was his own, or it was for someone else, like Ridley Scott as Robert wrote "Days of Thunder" for his brother Tony.

Comes to mind - when his brother Tony passed, we were doing this research, and Robert asked me about his passing, so we did a session asking Tony what happened. It's in the book BACKSTAGE PASS TO THE FLIPSIDE.

Either way - I want to point something out. We accessed Napoleon and his friend Betsy Balcombe in a previous session - it might be in print instead of in the podcast list - that would be in BACKSTAGE PASS TO THE FLIPSIDE 1, 2 or 3 - and in that instance, she identified herself as Napoleon's friend, and when asked whether he died of natural causes or was "poisoned" we heard her say it was poison. (or not from natural causes).

In this episode, I ask Robert if he's had a chance to ask Napoleon about the accuracy of that, and the answer is the word "wife."

For those paying attention, that could be the wife of Napoleon (who was having an affair back in Paris, had two children with that fellow and married him) that could be the wife of Balcombe, but his family left St. Helena before Napoleon died, it could be "Fanny" the wife of one of his lieutenants he made a pass at, and nearly jumped off a ship at the thought of being stuck on St. Helena with him - or it could have been any number of wives on the island, as apparently, he'd have flings with quite a few.

Wild and crazy guy.

But in reading the A. Robert's autobiography of him, it's clear that he died of stomach cancer. The doctors did an autopsy, it's the same disease his father died of - and it's clear to me that is what he died of. "It was a miracle he didn't die from it earlier."

In terms of this kind of research, asking questions and getting answers, because I've been doing this for 8 years weekly, I have to allow that it's possible I was asking the wrong question, it's possible that Napoleon was trying to steer the conversation to another topic (like "It was my wife Josephine that caused me to have agita which turned into stomach cancer") or it could be that the word "wife" meant something else altogether.

It's important to note this - because I'm asking leading questions and I could be leading the medium into an area where they are trying to answer my questions based on what they're getting from the flipside. (I've seen people do this, and likely I have done it before as well.)

Jennifer says what she hears, senses, or visualizes. Why he answered "wife" is subject to more questions - because I could revisit the conversation and point out that it was cancer that took his life, so what's he pointing to a wife or his wife, or someone else's wife?

Either way - this is one of those things that make people say "well it's all subject to conjecture" so therefore it's pointless to ask questions.

But clearly Robert was able to express who Rudy the Rank was, and Charles Grodin is able to express his opinions about the movie we were watching.

Either way - we do this work to encourage people to explore on their own - to ask questions, to gauge the answers, to ask more questions and see what one can learn. If one doesn't want to they don't have to - but clearly if one does want to communicate, they can.

Just research the answers (as I've done here.)

Hope this helps.

This is an unusual version of the podcast. An old friend passed, someone I've known for 40 years, someone who was friends with our moderator Luana Anders on the Flipside, and by his own estimate was friends with 80% of our class on the flipside.

Henry Jaglom was a Hollywood icon, known by everyone, knew everyone, used to hold the most attended New Year's Eve parties where I got to meet the cast of the Sopranos, met Ang Lee, Oscar winning actors, directors - Peter Bogdanovich, would run into my friend Carl Weathers and Sally Kellerman and her husband Jonathan Krane.

It was always fun - and Orson was a born raconteur.

He also didn't believe in the afterlife at all. He was adamant about it - and if the topic came up, would squint at me, wrinkle his brow, shake his head - just the way Luana's pal BJ Merholz does when the topic comes up.

All I can say is Harry Dean Stanton was the King of Skeptics - and when we spoke to him on a number of occasions (and he proved beyond a shadow of doubt he still existed by giving me private health messages to friends of his at his memorial - who were flabbergasted to hear what Harry had to tell them as only he could have known those intimate details from the Afterlife..

Harry told us to tell people to "believe in the possibility of an afterlife so they don't waste another minute of their lives arguing about it like I did."

As noted in the podcast, Jennifer was able to squeeze me in today when I told her a friend had passed, without telling her anything about it, and his friends had already reached out to me to ask some questions.

So sincere best wishes to his family, to his kids, to his exwives, to all those who loved him and think this is an unusual way to pay our respects.

Yes, I know that Orson Welles was upset that he caught Henry secretly taping him - I heard it from Orson's secretary at a party at Henry's house. She whispered to me that Orson felt so betrayed, "He never left his home again."

I didn't have to tell Jennifer who I was asking about - she could see them. And to be clear - Jennifer is not a movie fan, she spends much of her day on criminal cases helping out various law enforcement agencies pro bono - I've interviewed some of those agents or detectives.

She is interpreting what she gets - like when I asked her on BJ Merholz behalf - "who introduced him to Henry?" I thought it might be their mutual pal Jack Nicholson - but Jennifer got that it was a woman - and wasn't Luana (even though that makes sense) but really couldn't pin down who it was. Why? Who cares?

She was aware of Bert Schneider without knowing who he was (or how his first name is spelled) and how he "left the planet too early." (How could she know?) Or that Dennis was Dennis Hopper, or that Orson was Orson Welles - she knew nothing, zero, zippo about Henry Jaglom and most people who knew Henry didn't know that much about him anyways.

Finally it wasn't until I was listening to the podcast when I realize why Carl Weathers and Sally Kellerman were teasing him about "being in our class." I realized that they were referring to the fact that he was adamant about life going on - and I suspect those who knew this about Henry will continue to believe that is the case - but in doing this work with Jennifer EVERY WEEK for the past ten years, I can report we've had many skeptics, curmudgeons show up to talk to us about how surprised, gob smacked, shocked they were to realize that life goes on.

Life goes on.

Get over it.

Thanks for tuning in.

This is another milestone. We only had a half hour, so I began by asking a specific question. The video that I posted, that Jennifer had not seen - was of footage of Saipan in 1944. I asked Amelia if this footage featured the Electra? She said it did but the "wrong date." (She says year, but Jennifer later said that meant date to her).

The video was 3/4's correct.

Because the footage shows three planes in a hangar on Saipan - two Japanese Zeros and another plane covered by camouflage. Amelia confirms that this was her Electra - which they found "the next day." And is part of the book SHE WAS NEVER LOST: THE AMELIA EARHART SAGA. Read it to give this comment context.

Then we invited Robert Redford to speak to us. It happens sometimes where I feel like "someone is bugging me" and two days ago that happened. So I asked him all the questions that I could muster about his family and friends.

I know the family asked for privacy and apologies for asking him for messages for them - but we've been doing this weekly for ten years now. I've learned that even if a person doesn't believe that we're speaking to their loved one, eventually they come to realize it's accurate.

Jennifer revealed she did a reading with Jean Smart, the Emmy winner of "Hacks" - and while not revealing anything they talked about, described the process of their getting together. And then throughout the podcast, she had other things come to mind - working on Robert's daughter's fiancee's case in Colorado - something she hadn't thought about in ten years, but came to her the night before he passed.

Jennifer has been working with members of Kobe's family (they've allowed her to say that) - and other folks. The point isn't about celebrity - it's about the fact that Jennifer has the ability to just say whatever comes to mind.

I asked Robert how it was he was aware of our class, and Kobe showed Jennifer that it was his introduction that made him show up.

We've interviewed a number of his pals, Sidney Pollack's daughter wrote to me that everything we reported was accurate about her, about him turning his chair around and packing his cigarettes while he answered questions. Sidney confirmed a latter he'd written to my pal Phillip Noyce before he passed. We've been doing this for awhile.

So I dove into the interview. He had messages for his pals, I asked for them by first names, but anyone could figure out who he's referring to.

So Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand, Dustin Hoffman, Bob Woodward, Meryl Streep, Rod Lurie - he has a comment for all of you. It doesn't matter if one believes it's him speaking to them or not - eventually we'll realize the process.

Jennifer can be reaches at JenniferShaffer.com, I can be reached at RichardMartini.com

He gives some sage advice about politics, and lowering the political temperature.