Today on the Rarified Heir Podcast we are talking to Anne Serling, daughter of the great writer and as we learn, practical joker and pop culture figure Rod Serling. Of course we talk to Anne about beloved anthology shows her father created like The Twilight Zone as well as The Night Gallery but we also talk to Anne about her father's humanity, his years growing up in upstate New York, his religious beliefs and traditions, his career in radio, the films he wrote and much more.

But we also hear from Anne about why she wrote a book about her father, As I Knew Him: My Dad Rod Serling but also what it was like being the daughter of entertainment industry legend,…at home. We learned that Rod was a lover of animals and their home was filled with dogs, parakeets and even some very unconventional animals. We learn her father splurged only on two things which we will get to, his favorite restaurants in Los Angeles, the music her father sang to and even some of the inside jokes they shared together.

This episode is literally years in the making and we couldn't have been more thankful to Anne for taking the time to sit down with us to talk about someone we all know and love as a creator of two massively influential television shows but also about the humanity, humor and kindness of her father as only she would know. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story. Or is it?

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast. Today, we are doing something different but not totally unprecedented. Last year in 2024, we presented a bonus episode, recorded live at the Texas Theater in Dallas, Texas with Ernie Kovacs award winner, Gerald Casale from Devo at VideoFest. This year, we'd like to present this year's VideoFest's Ernie Kovacs Award recipient, comedian Fred Armisen. This is just one of the ways we keep the legacy of both Ernie and Edie Adams going and frankly, it's really a major impetus for this podcast itself. How better to keep someone's legacy alive than via the children of those who knew them best, their children?

Recorded on November 23, in the very same theater where Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, exactly 62 years prior, this episode exists only because of one person and we wanted to thank Dev Shapiro of Selig News for his recording. You see, we recorded this directly from the sound board for ideal sound quality but when we got the digital files, they were corrupted and unusable. Thankfully, it was Dev to the rescue and while Dev was not recording directly from the sound board, I think we can all forgive the minor audio issues because well, he saved our bacon by just being there. Preservation is key and we thank Dev for making that happen. And thank you to yours truly for some of the audio fidelity we goosed up for this episode too.

Big thanks to VideoFest's Founder Bart Weiss, the VideoFest team including Kelly Kitchens (who is also a Patreon supporter), Reid Robinson, Elijah Cruz Barron, Janeth Farnsworth, Jessica Spawn, Andy Streitfeld and Mark Wickersham as well as Barak Epstein of the Texas Theatre and Erin Barros of Concord Hospitality. More big thanks to Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams archivist Ben Model for the tip to bring up the Ernie in Kovacsland book on stage prior to the interview as well.

And now, here's Fred Armisen. Take a listen. Everyone has a story.

Today on the Rarified Heir Podcast we are talking to guest Tamar Springer about her composer/songwriter father Philip Springer. Now, unless you are in music publishing or a collector of film soundtracks or possibly a musical academic, the name Philip Springer might not seem like a name you would know. A ha, but if I told you he was the composer & co-writer of the hit Eartha Kitt, Christmas song "Santa Baby" then would you know? Or perhaps you'd know some of his other work which has been sung by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Ella Fitzgerald, from Dusty Springfield to Elvis Presley. In all, Philip Springer has composed more than 500 songs and he's still writing songs today at age 99.

Our conversation with Tamar centers around a documentary she made about her father that is Academy Award eligible and has screened at film festivals around the country. Her film about her father, More Than Santa Baby is Tamar's film about her father's career that spans performing classical music, writing some of the earliest electronic music, scoring film and television shows, writing for songwriters at the famed Brill Building and much much more.

What's more, there is a familiar connection between Tamar and host Josh Mills family that even he didn't realize when they started the conversation. It's more than incredible, it's downright cosmic. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a has a story. But not like this. Not like the one guest Tamar Springer tells on this episode. She really lived up to her name!

Today on another encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to Ed Eckstine, son of smooth as silk singer & bandleader Billy Eckstine. Our chat with Ed was funny, educational, occasionally jaw dropping and always engaging. Now, before we even started our chat with Ed, upon his agreeing to be a part of the podcast, we got a list of topics from Ed that he thought we might want to discuss. Effectively, he sent us a cheat sheet that they didn't get to on his appearance on the Questlove Supreme podcast prior to our chat. Who were we to say no? There were like 60 totally engaging topics Ed had written out and we get to some of them here.

Jazz fans and pop fans will know Billy Eckstine for his deep baritone voice that singers of the era loved and the ladies swooned for. Sinatra was a fan and a friend. As was Ella and a host of others. Dapper, good looking, classy, entrepreneurial and courageous, we discuss with Ed all of those qualities his father had that made him a star. It also made him a target as you will hear, surrounding an article in Life Magazine that exposed America's racists past that frankly, doesn't seem too far removed from where we are today.

We also talk to Ed about his own career as a journalist and music executive who recounts his obsessive love of rock music, his time working for the one and only Q, Quincy Jones and some of the most insane and jaw dropping interviews he conducted with the likes of Issac Hayes. We also get into his years as his father's helper before he went on stage at Jewish and Italian resorts in the 1960s and as Nabil Ayers said in a 2020 New York Times piece, what it "was like to be the first black person to be let in — to be allowed by the predominantly white music industry to helm one of its largest entities,"when he was the president of Mercury Records.

This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story.

Today on another encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast we are talking to Katherine Kramer, daughter of producer/director Stanley Kramer. Our chat with Katherine or Kat was both edifying and easy as we had familial connections and we learned a few things in the process. Such as? Well how about what famous actress was she named after, where in the Western United States did her family move to once they left Hollywood and what films made her father a bankable director while he was still producing.

We also spoke about some of his films, many of them 'message' films such as Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, Judgement at Nuremberg, The Defiant Ones and a small, off-beat comedy called It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World which co-starred Edie Adams, our host's Josh Mills's mother. In all, Stanley Kramer's films garnered 80 Academy Awards and starred everyone from Spencer Tracy to Sidney Pointier, Marlon Brando and so many, many more.

Kat talked to us about her work as well – in terms of both her charity events and her film festivals, her one woman show about Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, her creepy house growing up, The Kennedy Assassination and much more. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story. Kat Kramer's is coming right up!

Today on another encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are speaking to musician Matt Axton about his larger-than-life actor, musician, spokesman and songwriter dad, Hoyt Axton. Now if you grew up in the eighties, you would know Hoyt from Gremlins. If you grew up in the 70s, you'd know him as the songwriter to the smash hit "Joy To The World" made popular by Three Dog Night and in the sixties perhaps the hit show Bonanza. As Matt explains to us, his dad was many things to many people, a shit kicking psychedelic cowboy, a Busch beer pitchman and even Mogwai's dad. Everyone could relate to Hoyt.

We also talk about the fact that Matt is a third generation musician, as his grandmother was known as the Queen of Nashville. Mae Boren Axton, was a well-known songwriter of more than 200 songs including – get this – "Heartbreak Hotel". Now that's some serious lineage. To know that your grandmother introduced Elvis Presley to his manager, Colonel Tom Parker is just a bit of a mind fuck.

Our conversation with Matt was both melancholy and prideful. Matt was fiercely proud of his dad's legacy in country music and in film and television but he also let us know that for reasons you will hear, he has almost nothing of his father's possessions but his own memories. But he's not bitter. In fact, he's got a terrific outlook and draws on his dad's legacy to push him in his own career. Matt loves the one nighters, the travel, the live music and the recording. After all, it's in his blood. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story.

Today on another encore edition of the Rarified Heir Podcast we are talking to Denise Gautier, daughter of actor, painter, artist and raconteur Dick Gautier. Perhaps best known for his role of Hymie in the TV series Get Smart even though he was only on a limited number of episodes, we delve into the wonderful and sometimes difficult world of what it was like to grow up the daughter of a delightful but often too casual father. Ahem.

The idea of looking into connecting with Denise came entirely from our interview with Susannah Mars, daughter of comedian Kenneth Mars. Susannah told us a very funny, if entirely inappropriate story, about meeting up with her dad and his actor friends at lunch and receiving a drawing from Gautier. While that drawing simply would not fly in 2025, it's what made us laugh and frankly, some of us also had dad's like that too. Ahem. Anyway, Denise gives us the lowdown on what it was like being with the very funny, exceedingly talented artist father as well as his unconventional ways.

Along the way we discuss Dick's connections to Broadway, the beatnik coffee culture of San Francisco in the sixties, the famed Magic Castle, fellow actors and friends Dave Madden, Mel Brooks, his second wife actress Barbara Stuart, his various game show appearances on shows like Tattle Tales and much more. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast. Everyone has a story.

Sam Nelson (Ozzie Nelson, Harriet Nelson) (Part Two)

Today on the Rarified Heir Podcast, we present for you part two of our interview with Sam Nelson, son of Rick Nelson and grandson of Ozzie Nelson and Harriet Nelson. In the 1950s The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was a massive hit television show and ran for 14 years that made both Rick, then known as Ricky and brother David Nelson major, major stars.

But this episode takes a very intense turn from the first episode as we move from one type of a family legacy to quite another. If you recall, in the 1980s Sam was at the center of a very public custody fight between his mother Kristin Nelson and her brother, actor Mark Harmon and his wife actress Pam Dawber. Imagine heading to the supermarket and seeing your own face on the cover of the National Enquirer and People magazine while still in elementary school? And this after the tragic and speculated up death of his father, Ricky Nelson in a plane crash not too long before that. Ooof, this one is doozy.

We do manage to get into a few things outside of the more sensational aspects of Sam's life including the very real ghost stories from his childhood home, his father's favorite flavor of ice cream and the famous beach house his grandparents owned that was part of the Nelson family lore. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story.