After five years of grading obituaries from The New York Times, Famous & Gravy finally has a conversation with with someone who actually writes obituaries from The New York Times. Sam Roberts is on the show to share his experiences as a NYT obit writer and to talk about his new book Are They Dead Yet?

Roberts has written roughly 1,500 obituaries over his career. He and Michael dig into what actually goes into that first sentence of an obituary: accuracy, notability, economy of language, and the pressure of a deadline that can show up with almost no warning. Roberts tells the story of writing an obituary for Jesus of Nazareth, a piece he expected to get torn apart and got almost no pushback on, and explains why Alfred Nobel spent the rest of his life trying to outrun the one obituary that got published about him too early. Along the way, Michael runs Famous & Gravy's own grading criteria past a professional to see if the show's been fair.

Famous & Gravy is a celebrity biography podcast that asks what a celebrity's life story shows us about ourselves. This week, we ask the person who writes the first draft of it.

LINKS:

Are They Dead Yet? The Art of the Obit by Sam Roberts

Sam Roberts's imagined obituary for Jesus of Nazareth

Life Lessons from Dead Celebrities (Substack)

Dead or Alive quiz game

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Val Kilmer walked off his first professional set at age 13. It was a hamburger commercial, he thought the burgers looked terrible, and he refused to sell them. He never got paid, and it turned out to be a preview of the rest of his career.

Kilmer once said he heard he'd gotten cast in Batman moments after walking out of a bat cave in Africa. He also claimed he rode a horse home faster than should have been physically possible the day his father died. Those stories come from a devout Christian Science faith that later shaped how he handled his own throat cancer diagnosis, including an initial refusal of treatment his children eventually talked him out of. The disease took his speaking voice, and by the time the 2021 documentary Val came out, his son Jack was narrating some of his father's own words. The film traced a career that ran from Jim Morrison and Iceman in Top Gun to Doc Holliday in Tombstone, alongside a reputation on set that made him one of the more polarizing actors of his generation.

Famous & Gravy is a celebrity biography podcast that asks, "What does this celebrity's life story show us about ourselves?"

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like Episode 50 "Golden Rose" (Betty White) and Episode 51 "Goofball Stud" (Bill Paxton).

LINKS:

Val Kilmer NYT Obituary

I'm Your Huckleberry, Val Kilmer's memoir

Collider article on why Val Kilmer quit Batman

Val Kilmer talks with Larry King, previews Top Gun 2

Famous & Gravy quiz: hello@famousandgravy.com

Website: famousandgravy.com

Dead or Alive quiz game

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Matthew Perry died in 2023 at fifty-four, and despite his very public battle with addiction, the first line of his obituary made no mention of his disease. Michael Osborne and Alice Orr argue that Matthew Perry is a case study in fame and addiction, working through his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, where he admits he has no memory of filming three entire seasons of Friends. They get into his broken engagement to Julia Roberts, the sponsor turned business partner, and the question of what it takes to cultivate a quality of self-love when the disease of addiction is always working against you.

Famous & Gravy is a celebrity biography podcast that asks, "What can a celebrity life story show us about ourselves?"

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like:

• Episode 119, Hungry Ghost (Anthony Bourdain)
• Episode 108, Gonzo Troubadour (Hunter S. Thompson)

LINKS

Alice Florence Orr, Managing Editor of Podcast Review

NYT obituary, Matthew Perry

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Matthew Perry's memoir

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip trailer, the canceled Aaron Sorkin pilot

Matthew Perry puts Peter Hitchens to shame about addiction

Best moments from the Friends 2021 reunion

Interview with Tom Power about his memoir

Your Favorite Podcast Host is (Probably) in Recovery, Osborne article published in Podcast Review

Famous & Gravy quiz: hello@famousandgravy.com

Website: famousandgravy.com

Dead or Alive quiz game

Famous & Gravy on Facebook, LinkedIn, Threads

Famous & Gravy official website

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.