Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. Tracy, we've talked a little bit about Todd Browning on the show before. Yeah, he's come up in various episodes. Yeah. Yeah, he came up in our two parter on Baila Lagosi because he directed Lugosi in the hit Dracula, as well as other projects. And browning story is really interesting to me, but also very difficult. He definitely played into some very poor practices that were standard for the day, and he has this cult following and was legitimately groundbreaking, but he's also pretty problematic in a lot of ways that don't come up very often. There aren't a tone of Todd Browning biographies. There's kind of one definitive one that's really well research, but he was kind of private, so it's not like he was out giving interviews left and right. We mentioned Dracula. He really directed two of the most famous films of all time, both of which happened to fall in the horror category. So he's been on my list for kind of a Halloween on Ramp episode For a while. He also directed a lot of other films, but a lot of them do fall in that kind of mystical mystery paranormal potentially maccab or Grizzly Space. But his life story has almost as many twists and turns as any of his films plots. So this turned out to be a two parter, and today we are going to jump right in and talk about where it all started, at least what we know of it. Yeah. So, Charles Albert Browning was born on July twelfth, eighty in Louisville, Kentucky. His parents, Charles Leslie Browning and Lydia Jane Fitzgerald Browning, already had two children before Todd was born. They had a son and a daughter, although their daughter, Octavia, died in infancy. His brother, George Avery, was four years old when Todd arrived. Lydia and Charles also took in Lydia's niece Jenny a few years after Todd was born, and they raised her as a sister to Todd and Avery. Yeah, George Avery went by Avery and Charles Albert went by Todd. We don't really know how that landed, but that's how he has always mentioned, and as early as aged seven, Todd was actually putting on his own theatrical productions in a shed behind the house, and these ranged from little singing numbers to underwater puppet shows, which sounds sort of amazing. Those are all according to family accounts, and he charged initially five pins for admission. He eventually did start asking for actual pennies, but his little enterprise became well known enough that it actually got a right up in the Louisville Herald Post, and that right up compared the young Todd Browning to P. T. Barnum and declared him, quote a go getter. It's not clear what Browning's early education was like. He was enrolled in public school, but it seems like he might not have attended all that much or didn't really pay attention when he was there. There aren't any records at all of him attending high school, and as a teenager, Browning lived out of scenario that now is something of a cliche or a punchline. He actually did run away from home to join the circus. We don't know what motivated this, if he felt unhappy with his family, or if he just longed for something different. We will talk additionally about his relationship with his family as we go. But he later told a friend that he did not make a spontaneous decision in doing this. He had planned for a long time to leave home. He had actually started making money without his parents knowledge by tending horses, and he would stash that money away with the intent that when he had enough to leave, he would take off. But according to his story, he accident only dropped the box containing his small fortune down the outhouse hole before he was able to leave, because he had been hiding that box in the ceiling of the outhouse. Not the smartest place to put money, no, but it's so much worse than dropping your phone in the toilet. Right. You're never getting that money back. That's all there was to it. Uh. That story sounds a little fantastic and it maybe. Browning himself gave varying accounts of how he left Louisville throughout his life. Sometimes he said he left there when he was twelve or maybe sixteen. Other times he claims he was older than he actually was and that he had been born in eighteen seventy four. Yeah, those questions about his exact age like persisted throughout his life where reporters would report him as winning age and he'd go, know that that wasn't actually my age then, but like never really explain what this agent. But regardless of what age he was is when he did it, he did indeed leave home, and his parents eventually heard from him once he was working with the Manhattan Fair and Carnival Company, and this started him in a career that initially certainly seemed destined to be in front of an audience rather than behind a camera. He worked in a variety of jobs with the circus, including being a magician's assistant, a clown, a contortionist, and even a barker. He claimed that he even worked for a bit as a geek, meeting a person who performs bizarre acts or grotesquery under the name Bosco the Snake Eater. His most impressive turn in his circus years may have been his stint traveling through the southern United States as the hypnotic Living Corpse. And this act, Browning would be hypnotized kind of in air quotes and then buried alive in a shallow grave and a coffin that had slits that were left uncovered so spectators could see him in this faux dead state. He allegedly stayed buried, sometimes for two days at a time. This obviously would have been rough, but he did not go totally without sustenance. During this act. He would be buried with malted milk pellets in his pockets. I don't know why that particular choice of sustenance delights me. Um. His fellow performers would also lower drinks down to him when there wasn't a crowd of spectators around. Browning told a reporter years later, quote, when I heard the dirt come crashing down on that coffin, I actually shivered. This show was shut down and find though, because it violated the sabbath while they were in Indiana, and that just put a total end to Brownie circus career. Yeah, to be clear, those slits that let the audience see also made it fine for him to breathe getting air the whole time. I too, found the malted milk pellets detail extraordinarily charming. Um. Yeah, he would just put him in his jacket pocket. There they'd be. I suppose they keep relatively well. But after the circus, Browning ended up working on the vaudeville circuit Unfortunately, in that phase of his entertainment career, he often appeared in black face, which was, as we've discussed on the show before, customary at the time, and of course now we recognize it as pretty horrifyingly racist. Yeah, I would say there were definitely people who realized that then too, but it was such a widespread thing, Yeah, it was. It had a wide range of acceptance, even though there were people from the get go with it, We're like, this is not cool. Um. He bounced around from partnership to partnership with various other performers or troops, and later in life he actually claimed that he worked for the zig Field Follies at one point, although that has never been corroborated by any of the surviving documentation of that true. He also claimed that he worked with a famed magician named Herman the Great. That was Leon Herman, who was from a family of magicians, and this is also not corroborated, although it's pretty hard not to recognize the similarities between Herman's performance garb, which was a tuxedo, a cape and a crisp white shirt, and the main character in Browning's famous ninety one film Dracula Browning's personal accounts of his life indicate that he was traveling all over the United States and the early nineteen hundreds. But while most of his details in that regard just can't be substantiated, what can be substantiated is that he was involved with a young woman back in Louisville, Kentucky, starting in nineteen oh five. That woman, Amy Louise Stevens, was twenty three at the time. The two of them got married in late March nineteen o six, and papers reported in social columns at the time that Todd Browning was employed, not in show business but by the Ellen Railroad. Yeah, none of this part of his story really lines up with the way he told the tale of his life in later years, and part of that maybe because this marriage did not go well at all. Todd and Amy lived with Amy's parents, and the Stevenson's claimed that Browning was not employed during this period, was not supporting his wife is expected, and was a financial drain on the family. He may have worked on and off during this time at the Fountain Ferry amusement Park. That again is unclear, but seems like it makes logical sense, and there is some sort of hazy corroboration there. Browning left Louisville and Amy behind in the summer of nineteen o nine, and their divorce was completed in nineteen ten. She filed for divorce and pretty much handled that whole thing. Browning was not even present for the proceedings, and he had actually been out of contact with the Stevens family for some time. When the divorce was completed. It seems like that Browning once again went back to a life on the road at this point, performing in burlesque shows as a comedy act and in vaudevilt theaters. His performance and a variety show called The Whirl of Mirth was reviewed in the Louisville Courier Journal as being quite amusing. The show was primarily comedy sketches that took popular newspaper comics of the day and then acted them out on stage. While Browning was performing in Louisville, his former mother in law tried to take him to court over the money that he still owed her, but he skipped down before that. Hearing Yeah once again often claimed he was never in Louisville during any of this. There is a little bit of a side story about the people that ran the world of mirth and how some comics artists were trying to soothe them because they're like, we're basically writing your show for you. Um, I mean that seems valid, completely valid of a whole other tale outside the scope of this one. Uh So, the Biograph Company finally hired him as an actor in and Browning appeared in several comedy pictures that were directed by D. W. Griffith, who pioneered a whole lot of techniques that became standard in filmmaking. If that name rings a bell, it's because he also directed the horrifyingly racist film The Birth of a Nation in nineteen fifteen, but this was a couple of years earlier, and at this time Griffith was just happy to have a reliable performer in Todd Browning, and Browning followed him to California to make films under the banner of Comic Company That's Comic with a K. As an actor for Comic Browning appeared in comedy shorts, including one that was titled Nell's Eugenic Wedding. And this was an early gross out film in which a man eats a bar of soap and then spends the rest of the short movie throwing up a lot. A review for the film in the Moving picture world was pretty blunt about it. Quote, there's nothing funny or elevating and having a man eat soap and vomit all over creation as the result of his diet. Because most people will take this view, it may be said that Nell's eugenic wedding does not belong. Incidentally, the writer of this gross out film was a woman named Anita Loose, who later became famous for writing the book A Gentleman Prefer Blonds, which of course became a very famous film, which involves no soap eating or vomiting. Uh. The soap eating film is actually lost, So we don't know a whole lot more about it. But I'm not sure that we really want to. I don't know. I was. I was as we were putting this together and I was writing a pissico. Tracy doesn't want to know about this. But following that strange film, Mutual Film Corporation also started producing a comedy series in nineteen fourteen called Bill the Office Boy, and Browning actually appeared in seventeen episodes of it as Bill's Boss. Coming up, We're going to talk about a pretty horrible incident in Browning's life and how that to him writing screenplays. But before we do that, we will take a quick sponsor break. Those years that Browning was working with Comic Company also encapsulated the period of his life where he met Alice Wilson. Alice, who had been born Alice Lilyan Houghton, was divorced by her husband, Douglas Wilson in nineteen fifteen, and she and Browning were both living at a Hollywood apartment house called the Writer Arms. It is unclear whether they were living together or in separate units, because accounts from people who knew them differ on this point, and while Alice still used Wilson as her acting name, some people actually knew her socially as Alice Browning, although they were definitely not married at this time. Browning's first directing work came in nineteen fifteen. That year, he directed a film called The Lucky Transfer. Soon he was direct sing short films regularly, But as his star began to rise, so too did a problem with alcohol, and that led to a tragic event. On June sixt Browning and a number of his colleagues went out for drinks after they finished filming for the day. That was something they did pretty regularly. Late into the night, Browning got behind the wheel with actor Elmer Booth in the passenger seat. The night was foggy, Browning was intoxicated. When they approached a railway intersection at top speed, Browning did not see that there was a train on the tracks, and he slammed into a flatbed car that was carrying iron beams. Elmer was killed instantly. There were two other people involved in this accident, Edward Booth, who was a relative of Elmer's, and actor George A. Siegman. They were described as being behind Browning and Elmer Booth, but it's not totally clear if that meant they were in the backseat of the car or if they were in another car that was following closely behind. Siegmund wrote four of his ribs. Browning broke his right leg in three places and also had internal injuries. Papers speculated about whether Browning would recover and whether there were any women in the car. Other speculations besides that friends who left the gathering shortly after Browning did happened upon this crash, and their descriptions of it were gruesome. In the papers, particularly outside of Hollywood. The crash was reported in pretty broad strokes, and it was never ever suggested in print that Browning was responsible. For example, the Morning Union of Grass Valley, California covered the incident and they're right up. Is pretty similar to most that you would find that ran across the country. It merely said this quote. Elmer Booth, a motion picture actor, was killed and to motion picture directors seriously injured today when their automobile returning from Vernon crashed at high speed into the rear of a freight car. A fog was to blame Todd Browning and George Seligman. They spelled his name wrong. The men with Booth sustained serious injuries. There are other versions of the story that are similarly brief that call Browning and Sigma actors or at director Slash actors, and some of them left out the details of the collision entirely and just said there had been an automobile accident. Browning really never shared his thoughts or feelings with anybody on the record about what happened that night or about Booth's death. The death was ruled accidental due to quote lack of precaution, and that was attributed to both Browning and the railroad engineer involved, although the engineer remained adamant that he had been waving a signal light. Browning started screenwriting in nineteen fifteen, and it was because of that tragic event, for the simple reason that writing was really the only thing he could do while he was sitting in the hospital recovering. He also spent some of his every time back in Louisville, although it is unclear how long he was there, and it wasn't until nineteen sixteen. The following year that Browning returned to more active jobs, back on movie sets, and that year he was the assistant director and actor in a film called Intolerance. Browning's first feature film as a director was Jim Bloodsoe. That was in nineteen seventeen. He shared directing credit with Wilfred Lucas, who also started the picture. The exact nature of that shared credit isn't really known, although one of the other actors in the picture, Winifred Hart, later said that it was nothing more than the star insisting on getting that credit. Later in nineteen seventeen, Browning signed a five picture contract with Metro Pictures. He moved temporarily to New York to make those pictures. He and Alice Wilson were married in New Rochelle in June of that year. In nineteen eighteen, Browning entered into a contract which us it in a very productive time and really cemented his career as a feature film director. He signed with Universal Film Manufacturing Company, which eventually, of course, became Universal Studios. Over the next several years, he made nine films for Universal. For The Wicked Darling, which was made in nineteen Browning worked for the first time with Lawn Cheney, and that was the start of a long term and very fruitful collaborative relationship. Browning film The Virgin of Stambul was a box office hit by modern standards. It is loaded with so many problems. It's filled with white actors who were playing Turkish people. There's a completely stereotyped characterizations of the non white characters. The premise is that a Turkish princess who's played by very American Priscilladine falls in love with the mercenary from the US. The plot involves the murder and kidnapping and disguise yeses and the anticipation of the film was stoked by the studio. In weeks leading up to it, they had an actor pose as a shake to stay at the Hotel Majestic in New York. I claimed that he was looking for a woman who had eloped with an American and would give a reward to the person who returned hers. There's just a lot, a lot to unpack with all this. The story continued with daily feeds to the papers of information, so people realized this whole thing was a hoax. The film mostly got good reviews, though some noted that it was entertaining but should not be taken as a real representation of Middle Eastern culture. This publicity stunt seems to have worked. The film made a pretty nice profit. Yeah. It's funny to me that even even then the papers were like, oh you guys, nope, nope. Um. Soon though, because it was profitable, Browning had a six room suite at Universal to work and edit in, and he started working the hours that he felt most productive when he was writing, those hours being six pm to six am. Kind of identify with this. Another nineteen twenty film, Outside the Law, which was a gangster picture that he made, also made money for the studio, and that further built up Browning's reputation as a reliable and profitable director. Browning's father, Charles, was ill around this time. He had a stroke, He never really recovered from it, and he died on March thirty one of ninety two. Todd did not return home to Louisville for these services, uh, something that was really a source of dismay for some of his family after his father's death, Browning, who had seemed to reduce his drinking somewhat after that nineteen fifteen crash that killed Elmore Booth, once again started drinking excessively. He directed the movie Under Two Flags, adapted from the novel by Weeta about the occupation of Algeria, later that same year, and that production was kind of plagued with strange problems. There was a sandstorm that buried equipment on location, but the worst problem came when a fire on the Universal lot threatened the entire picture. According to the news periodical that Universal put out weekly to tout and share updates on their various project that fire played out as follows quote fire last week destroyed film valued at thousands of dollars and threatened to wipe out Universal City faster than a telephone call could reach outside fire departments. Crackling sparks, A short circuited electric wire whipped through an open doorway of a film cutting room with an explosion that rocked the film city. Almost two hundred thousand feet of film was ignited. It burned furiously for five minutes, endangering nearby buildings with blowing sheets of flame and intense heat. The fire, by prompt action of the Universal City Fire Department and through the fire airproof construction of all buildings of permanency, did no other damage. There was actually more damaged though. Under two Flags had just finished filming that day, and Priscilla Deane, who was still in costume, ran up a flight of stairs to the burning room to try to save the film. She tripped on the hem of her costume and twisted her ankle. Her hair was scorched, and she was very badly burned. The fire was reported as having quickly burned itself out, and while there was a delay while the negative was inspected, this whole ordeal really only delayed the films released by a couple of weeks, and at this point, despite that kind of craziness, uh Browning was considered something of a Golden Boy for Hollywood, but things quickly started to turn sour, and we're going to explain how after we hear from the sponsors that keep stuff you missed in history class. Going under two Flags was another financial success for the studio, and because Browning had at that point really established himself as their can't missdirector, they then announced that he would be directing Lawn Cheney in a huge and expensive adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. If you are a fan of old film, you know that that picture did get made and that Lawn Cheney did star in it, but Browning did not direct it. While he had three huge successes, his alcoholism had made him erratic. He had turned in another film titled White Tiger, as plans were being laid for the Hunchback adaptation, and it was apparently such a mess that the studio didn't release it for a year so it could be reworked by other people. That was a delay that was kind of unheard of at the time. Now we're used to like films coming out years from now when they get announced, but at that point it was like much faster turnaround. As a concert quints of the problems with White Tiger Todd. Browning was pulled from the Hunchback project. While he did keep working for Universal on smaller projects, his drinking was leading into very bad decisions in his personal life. He had an affair with Anime Wong, who is famous for being the first Chinese American movie star in Hollywood. This was an issue for reasons aside from the fact that he was married, Wong was under age at the time. The interracial relationship was troubling to a lot of people in the nineteen twenties. He also got into a lot of situations when he was drinking that we're really embarrassing to the people who were associated with him. Because of all this, Universal laid him off. Alice left him, but Browning moved to a new contract with Metro goldwyn Mayer in Nive, and his creative relationship with Lawn Cheney moved right along with him. The films that Browning and Cheney made together during this time we're strange and often a little bit shocking for audiences of the day. And here is really the point in his career where Browning started to draw pretty deeply from his experiences as a teenager working in circuses. This is also about when one of only a very few interviews with Browning was published in the feature in Picture Play magazine. He acknowledges that his behavior had led to various fallings out, saying, quote, two years ago, I went smash, temperament, impulse, wanting my own way, stubbornness. There were a number of contributing factors. He sort of recognized that he was at a very low point, but he could not quite see or admit that his alcohol use was the problem initially. Even after he did, he kind of chalked it up to the fault of various difficult things and experiences that he had in his life. Just keep in mind with all this, the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous was a decade away at this point. The idea that alcohol abuse was something treatable wasn't quite the same, right. There were also no UM programs that really focused on people taking responsibility for, you know, their problems that they created. So he was very much like, oh, but it's because of this, Like he never once was like, wow, I just really screwed up UM. Still, he said that he did have a revelation while he was drinking whiskey one night that he kind of suddenly understood through his stupor why Alice had left, and he credited that moment with what he called his regeneration, where he decided he would reject his whiskey drinking, although he did continue to drink things like beer or wine on occasion after this, particularly beer. He spoke to Alice the next day after this revelation and he told her about his epiphany, and she basically told him, if you want me back, you have to win me back, and she was not interested in going down with what she called a quote sinking ship. So even though they had been married for more than seven years at that point, they basically started dating again and this went well. They rekindled their relationship and he would later credit her with getting his career back on track. This was a valid credit. Alice really supported him emotionally, but also was not afraid to flex her own connections in the film industry to try to move him into a better position. Not long after executive Irving Thalberg left Universal and went to MGM, which is that's its own wild story, Alice approached him to try to help Todd regain his footing in Hollywood. Thalberg was a fan of Browning, and knew what he could do when he was healthy. So when Browning pitched a film called The Unholy Three, he went for it, and that was how Browning wound up at MGM. The Unholy Three is a story about three sides o performers, a strong man, a little person, and a ventriloquist, and they leave their sideshow lives and start a life of crime together. It was based on a book by Todd Robbins and it had been a best seller, but Hollywood had been reluctant to adapt it despite multiple attempts. But Solberg let Browning do it, although he paid him a far lower rate than Browning had been commanding before that totally six hundred dollars paid out in weekly installments during this shooting, Browning was also offered a bonus of thirty five hundred dollars if he came in on time and under budget. This movie was a spectacular return to success for Browning. The movie made a lot of money, he got his bonus, and mg N optioned him for several more pictures. As for the reviews, they were also glowing almost across the board, and it's review The New Yorker said, quote to Mr Todd Browning all honor. His next two pictures, The Mystic and The Black Bird, did well, but nothing near the level of The Unholy Three. Still, MGM was overall pleased and increase his rate. The Unknown, which lawn Cheney and Browning worked on together in nine seven, really started to evidence the early seeds that would eventually manifest into the movie Freaks. The film, which starred lawn Cheney in eighteen year old Joan Crawford, is about a circus performer who has no arms whose act involves throwing knives and shooting a gun at his fellow performer. That's a beautiful young woman named Nannon, who is played by Crawford. The film's initials set up unravels as it's revealed that Cheney's character, Alonso the Armless, is a faker. He has all of his limbs. From there, things get darker and darker as the film explores identity, deception, obsession, and self mutilation. While modern critics have lauded it as a groundbreaking piece of cinema, critics at the time were far less kind. Browning was described as pathological for having made the film. The New York Daily Mirror suggested that you might like it quote if you like to tear butterflies apart and see sausage made. In contrast his characterization as warped and possibly some sort of monster for having made the film, Joan Crawford later spoke of Browning on set as being incredibly soft spoken and sensitive. Yeah. Reading um actor and crew accounts of what Todd Browning is like is the most head spinning because half of them are like, he was the kindest, gentlest person. He knew exactly how to work with people, and other people were like he was abusive and horrible, and there's no middle ground. It's always one of the other. Um. So it's a little bit interesting in that regard uh Lawn, Cheney and Browning collaborated on London After Midnight, and this is one of those movies that film buffs wish they could see. The last print of it was lost in a fire in the nineteen sixties. You will occasionally see a thing pop up. It's almost like the anti kithera mechanism of we have found London after Midnight and then it turns out, no, no, we didn't. We found a couple of skills that were together. Um. This film is a murder mystery with possible vampires and a little hypnosis in the mix. There are a lot of really moody stills that survive, and in two thousand two those still images plus a shooting script were used to make a reconstruction of the film. If you have ever heard the stories of Lawn Cheney, who was very famous for his makeup work, using fishing wire to create a unique and disturbing popped open look to his eyes, that was for this movie. Chenese makeup work was such a quote horrifying and terrible spectacle that a man named Robert Williams claimed that he was haunted by visions of Chinese character when he murdered his girl end Uh. That defense in that murder trial did not hold. Williams, who had also tried to take his own life during that episode, was found guilty. He was first sentenced to death, then received a medical reprieve. But despite all of that, in any controversy, London After Midnight was another huge money maker, and it enabled Browning to continue to make pictures that he wanted to make with an ever increasing salary. So we're at a pretty good place right now for Browning's life and career. But it's not going to stay that way. So this is where we are going to pause. In part two, we will talk about Browning's most famous films and the latter part of his life. One day we'll see London after midnight. I hope um. I have listener mail, which is uh from our listener Amelia, who writes tear Holly and Tracy. I can't believe it took this long to write the show, but of course it would be kidties that prompted it. I couldn't help but chuckle listening to the stories about Mike the cat. Since I have worked in the museum field for the last decade and have a weak spot for grumpy cats. I have a very handsome cat named Dadalus who was eight years old, and while he loves to be around people, he's not a fan of being pet or snuggled unless it's by me. Two years ago, he ended up at the vent and had to have emergency surgery to remove six feet of quilting thread he had swallowed. I was an emotional wreck, and Dadalus was so angry he sent to Vet text to the hospital for stitches. I had a cat send people to the hospital for stitches, so I understand the embarrassment and shame and fear that happens in your heart when that takes place, she continues. While I was waiting for him to go into surgery, I took my phone out and did the only thing I could think of to distract myself. I turned on stuff you missed in history class. Datalus immediately settled right down, though he did growl if anyone came too close. It seemed that listening to the podcast brought him the same calm and comfort as it has brought me over the years. I meant to write the show back then, but after the surgery and cat proofing, all of my sewing supplies had slipped my mind. I am happy to report that Dadalus has since made a full recovery and is back to terrorizing anyone who tries to love on him. I'm sorry it took so long, but I wanted to send my belated thank you for getting Dadalus and I through one of our toughest times. I've attached pictures of your biggest fuzzy friend. Thank you for everything you do, Amelia and Dadalus. Um, I'm so glad he's okay. Anyone who sows knows that fear um that like of thread in the house. And I love this story and it ended happily. We've had so many people write us about their cats, many of whom have talked about how they have lost beloved cats, and I want to read all of those, but I will cry every time. So if I'm not reading it, please don't think it's because I don't love your story and your devotion to your baby's. I can't get through this. I can't even read them on my screen without kind of becoming a mess. But keep sending them because I love them. Uh. And it is my greatest honor to have comforted a cat when he wasn't feeling well. I am so glad he is okay. We have If anybody has been through that emergency VET terror, it is one of the least fun things I can imagine. Yeah, for real, But again, so glad he is okay. So thank you for sharing that story. Um, also precious. I would give that cat the keys to my car while he shredded my face. It would be fine. You would like to write to us, you can do that at History Podcast at iHeart radio dot com. You can also find us on social media as Missed in History, and you can subscribe to the show. If you haven't done so already, you can do that on the I heart Radio app, or wherever it is you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. Tracy, we've talked a little bit about Todd Browning on the show before. Yeah, he's come up in various episodes. Yeah. Yeah, he came up in our two parter on Baila Lagosi because he directed Lugosi in the hit Dracula, as well as other projects. And browning story is really interesting to me, but also very difficult. He definitely played into some very poor practices that were standard for the day, and he has this cult following and was legitimately groundbreaking, but he's also pretty problematic in a lot of ways that don't come up very often. There aren't a tone of Todd Browning biographies. There's kind of one definitive one that's really well research, but he was kind of private, so it's not like he was out giving interviews left and right. We mentioned Dracula. He really directed two of the most famous films of all time, both of which happened to fall in the horror category. So he's been on my list for kind of a Halloween on Ramp episode For a while. He also directed a lot of other films, but a lot of them do fall in that kind of mystical mystery paranormal potentially maccab or Grizzly Space. But his life story has almost as many twists and turns as any of his films plots. So this turned out to be a two parter, and today we are going to jump right in and talk about where it all started, at least what we know of it. Yeah. So, Charles Albert Browning was born on July twelfth, eighty in Louisville, Kentucky. His parents, Charles Leslie Browning and Lydia Jane Fitzgerald Browning, already had two children before Todd was born. They had a son and a daughter, although their daughter, Octavia, died in infancy. His brother, George Avery, was four years old when Todd arrived. Lydia and Charles also took in Lydia's niece Jenny a few years after Todd was born, and they raised her as a sister to Todd and Avery. Yeah, George Avery went by Avery and Charles Albert went by Todd. We don't really know how that landed, but that's how he has always mentioned, and as early as aged seven, Todd was actually putting on his own theatrical productions in a shed behind the house, and these ranged from little singing numbers to underwater puppet shows, which sounds sort of amazing. Those are all according to family accounts, and he charged initially five pins for admission. He eventually did start asking for actual pennies, but his little enterprise became well known enough that it actually got a right up in the Louisville Herald Post, and that right up compared the young Todd Browning to P. T. Barnum and declared him, quote a go getter. It's not clear what Browning's early education was like. He was enrolled in public school, but it seems like he might not have attended all that much or didn't really pay attention when he was there. There aren't any records at all of him attending high school, and as a teenager, Browning lived out of scenario that now is something of a cliche or a punchline. He actually did run away from home to join the circus. We don't know what motivated this, if he felt unhappy with his family, or if he just longed for something different. We will talk additionally about his relationship with his family as we go. But he later told a friend that he did not make a spontaneous decision in doing this. He had planned for a long time to leave home. He had actually started making money without his parents knowledge by tending horses, and he would stash that money away with the intent that when he had enough to leave, he would take off. But according to his story, he accident only dropped the box containing his small fortune down the outhouse hole before he was able to leave, because he had been hiding that box in the ceiling of the outhouse. Not the smartest place to put money, no, but it's so much worse than dropping your phone in the toilet. Right. You're never getting that money back. That's all there was to it. Uh. That story sounds a little fantastic and it maybe. Browning himself gave varying accounts of how he left Louisville throughout his life. Sometimes he said he left there when he was twelve or maybe sixteen. Other times he claims he was older than he actually was and that he had been born in eighteen seventy four. Yeah, those questions about his exact age like persisted throughout his life where reporters would report him as winning age and he'd go, know that that wasn't actually my age then, but like never really explain what this agent. But regardless of what age he was is when he did it, he did indeed leave home, and his parents eventually heard from him once he was working with the Manhattan Fair and Carnival Company, and this started him in a career that initially certainly seemed destined to be in front of an audience rather than behind a camera. He worked in a variety of jobs with the circus, including being a magician's assistant, a clown, a contortionist, and even a barker. He claimed that he even worked for a bit as a geek, meeting a person who performs bizarre acts or grotesquery under the name Bosco the Snake Eater. His most impressive turn in his circus years may have been his stint traveling through the southern United States as the hypnotic Living Corpse. And this act, Browning would be hypnotized kind of in air quotes and then buried alive in a shallow grave and a coffin that had slits that were left uncovered so spectators could see him in this faux dead state. He allegedly stayed buried, sometimes for two days at a time. This obviously would have been rough, but he did not go totally without sustenance. During this act. He would be buried with malted milk pellets in his pockets. I don't know why that particular choice of sustenance delights me. Um. His fellow performers would also lower drinks down to him when there wasn't a crowd of spectators around. Browning told a reporter years later, quote, when I heard the dirt come crashing down on that coffin, I actually shivered. This show was shut down and find though, because it violated the sabbath while they were in Indiana, and that just put a total end to Brownie circus career. Yeah, to be clear, those slits that let the audience see also made it fine for him to breathe getting air the whole time. I too, found the malted milk pellets detail extraordinarily charming. Um. Yeah, he would just put him in his jacket pocket. There they'd be. I suppose they keep relatively well. But after the circus, Browning ended up working on the vaudeville circuit Unfortunately, in that phase of his entertainment career, he often appeared in black face, which was, as we've discussed on the show before, customary at the time, and of course now we recognize it as pretty horrifyingly racist. Yeah, I would say there were definitely people who realized that then too, but it was such a widespread thing, Yeah, it was. It had a wide range of acceptance, even though there were people from the get go with it, We're like, this is not cool. Um. He bounced around from partnership to partnership with various other performers or troops, and later in life he actually claimed that he worked for the zig Field Follies at one point, although that has never been corroborated by any of the surviving documentation of that true. He also claimed that he worked with a famed magician named Herman the Great. That was Leon Herman, who was from a family of magicians, and this is also not corroborated, although it's pretty hard not to recognize the similarities between Herman's performance garb, which was a tuxedo, a cape and a crisp white shirt, and the main character in Browning's famous ninety one film Dracula Browning's personal accounts of his life indicate that he was traveling all over the United States and the early nineteen hundreds. But while most of his details in that regard just can't be substantiated, what can be substantiated is that he was involved with a young woman back in Louisville, Kentucky, starting in nineteen oh five. That woman, Amy Louise Stevens, was twenty three at the time. The two of them got married in late March nineteen o six, and papers reported in social columns at the time that Todd Browning was employed, not in show business but by the Ellen Railroad. Yeah, none of this part of his story really lines up with the way he told the tale of his life in later years, and part of that maybe because this marriage did not go well at all. Todd and Amy lived with Amy's parents, and the Stevenson's claimed that Browning was not employed during this period, was not supporting his wife is expected, and was a financial drain on the family. He may have worked on and off during this time at the Fountain Ferry amusement Park. That again is unclear, but seems like it makes logical sense, and there is some sort of hazy corroboration there. Browning left Louisville and Amy behind in the summer of nineteen o nine, and their divorce was completed in nineteen ten. She filed for divorce and pretty much handled that whole thing. Browning was not even present for the proceedings, and he had actually been out of contact with the Stevens family for some time. When the divorce was completed. It seems like that Browning once again went back to a life on the road at this point, performing in burlesque shows as a comedy act and in vaudevilt theaters. His performance and a variety show called The Whirl of Mirth was reviewed in the Louisville Courier Journal as being quite amusing. The show was primarily comedy sketches that took popular newspaper comics of the day and then acted them out on stage. While Browning was performing in Louisville, his former mother in law tried to take him to court over the money that he still owed her, but he skipped down before that. Hearing Yeah once again often claimed he was never in Louisville during any of this. There is a little bit of a side story about the people that ran the world of mirth and how some comics artists were trying to soothe them because they're like, we're basically writing your show for you. Um, I mean that seems valid, completely valid of a whole other tale outside the scope of this one. Uh So, the Biograph Company finally hired him as an actor in and Browning appeared in several comedy pictures that were directed by D. W. Griffith, who pioneered a whole lot of techniques that became standard in filmmaking. If that name rings a bell, it's because he also directed the horrifyingly racist film The Birth of a Nation in nineteen fifteen, but this was a couple of years earlier, and at this time Griffith was just happy to have a reliable performer in Todd Browning, and Browning followed him to California to make films under the banner of Comic Company That's Comic with a K. As an actor for Comic Browning appeared in comedy shorts, including one that was titled Nell's Eugenic Wedding. And this was an early gross out film in which a man eats a bar of soap and then spends the rest of the short movie throwing up a lot. A review for the film in the Moving picture world was pretty blunt about it. Quote, there's nothing funny or elevating and having a man eat soap and vomit all over creation as the result of his diet. Because most people will take this view, it may be said that Nell's eugenic wedding does not belong. Incidentally, the writer of this gross out film was a woman named Anita Loose, who later became famous for writing the book A Gentleman Prefer Blonds, which of course became a very famous film, which involves no soap eating or vomiting. Uh. The soap eating film is actually lost, So we don't know a whole lot more about it. But I'm not sure that we really want to. I don't know. I was. I was as we were putting this together and I was writing a pissico. Tracy doesn't want to know about this. But following that strange film, Mutual Film Corporation also started producing a comedy series in nineteen fourteen called Bill the Office Boy, and Browning actually appeared in seventeen episodes of it as Bill's Boss. Coming up, We're going to talk about a pretty horrible incident in Browning's life and how that to him writing screenplays. But before we do that, we will take a quick sponsor break. Those years that Browning was working with Comic Company also encapsulated the period of his life where he met Alice Wilson. Alice, who had been born Alice Lilyan Houghton, was divorced by her husband, Douglas Wilson in nineteen fifteen, and she and Browning were both living at a Hollywood apartment house called the Writer Arms. It is unclear whether they were living together or in separate units, because accounts from people who knew them differ on this point, and while Alice still used Wilson as her acting name, some people actually knew her socially as Alice Browning, although they were definitely not married at this time. Browning's first directing work came in nineteen fifteen. That year, he directed a film called The Lucky Transfer. Soon he was direct sing short films regularly, But as his star began to rise, so too did a problem with alcohol, and that led to a tragic event. On June sixt Browning and a number of his colleagues went out for drinks after they finished filming for the day. That was something they did pretty regularly. Late into the night, Browning got behind the wheel with actor Elmer Booth in the passenger seat. The night was foggy, Browning was intoxicated. When they approached a railway intersection at top speed, Browning did not see that there was a train on the tracks, and he slammed into a flatbed car that was carrying iron beams. Elmer was killed instantly. There were two other people involved in this accident, Edward Booth, who was a relative of Elmer's, and actor George A. Siegman. They were described as being behind Browning and Elmer Booth, but it's not totally clear if that meant they were in the backseat of the car or if they were in another car that was following closely behind. Siegmund wrote four of his ribs. Browning broke his right leg in three places and also had internal injuries. Papers speculated about whether Browning would recover and whether there were any women in the car. Other speculations besides that friends who left the gathering shortly after Browning did happened upon this crash, and their descriptions of it were gruesome. In the papers, particularly outside of Hollywood. The crash was reported in pretty broad strokes, and it was never ever suggested in print that Browning was responsible. For example, the Morning Union of Grass Valley, California covered the incident and they're right up. Is pretty similar to most that you would find that ran across the country. It merely said this quote. Elmer Booth, a motion picture actor, was killed and to motion picture directors seriously injured today when their automobile returning from Vernon crashed at high speed into the rear of a freight car. A fog was to blame Todd Browning and George Seligman. They spelled his name wrong. The men with Booth sustained serious injuries. There are other versions of the story that are similarly brief that call Browning and Sigma actors or at director Slash actors, and some of them left out the details of the collision entirely and just said there had been an automobile accident. Browning really never shared his thoughts or feelings with anybody on the record about what happened that night or about Booth's death. The death was ruled accidental due to quote lack of precaution, and that was attributed to both Browning and the railroad engineer involved, although the engineer remained adamant that he had been waving a signal light. Browning started screenwriting in nineteen fifteen, and it was because of that tragic event, for the simple reason that writing was really the only thing he could do while he was sitting in the hospital recovering. He also spent some of his every time back in Louisville, although it is unclear how long he was there, and it wasn't until nineteen sixteen. The following year that Browning returned to more active jobs, back on movie sets, and that year he was the assistant director and actor in a film called Intolerance. Browning's first feature film as a director was Jim Bloodsoe. That was in nineteen seventeen. He shared directing credit with Wilfred Lucas, who also started the picture. The exact nature of that shared credit isn't really known, although one of the other actors in the picture, Winifred Hart, later said that it was nothing more than the star insisting on getting that credit. Later in nineteen seventeen, Browning signed a five picture contract with Metro Pictures. He moved temporarily to New York to make those pictures. He and Alice Wilson were married in New Rochelle in June of that year. In nineteen eighteen, Browning entered into a contract which us it in a very productive time and really cemented his career as a feature film director. He signed with Universal Film Manufacturing Company, which eventually, of course, became Universal Studios. Over the next several years, he made nine films for Universal. For The Wicked Darling, which was made in nineteen Browning worked for the first time with Lawn Cheney, and that was the start of a long term and very fruitful collaborative relationship. Browning film The Virgin of Stambul was a box office hit by modern standards. It is loaded with so many problems. It's filled with white actors who were playing Turkish people. There's a completely stereotyped characterizations of the non white characters. The premise is that a Turkish princess who's played by very American Priscilladine falls in love with the mercenary from the US. The plot involves the murder and kidnapping and disguise yeses and the anticipation of the film was stoked by the studio. In weeks leading up to it, they had an actor pose as a shake to stay at the Hotel Majestic in New York. I claimed that he was looking for a woman who had eloped with an American and would give a reward to the person who returned hers. There's just a lot, a lot to unpack with all this. The story continued with daily feeds to the papers of information, so people realized this whole thing was a hoax. The film mostly got good reviews, though some noted that it was entertaining but should not be taken as a real representation of Middle Eastern culture. This publicity stunt seems to have worked. The film made a pretty nice profit. Yeah. It's funny to me that even even then the papers were like, oh you guys, nope, nope. Um. Soon though, because it was profitable, Browning had a six room suite at Universal to work and edit in, and he started working the hours that he felt most productive when he was writing, those hours being six pm to six am. Kind of identify with this. Another nineteen twenty film, Outside the Law, which was a gangster picture that he made, also made money for the studio, and that further built up Browning's reputation as a reliable and profitable director. Browning's father, Charles, was ill around this time. He had a stroke, He never really recovered from it, and he died on March thirty one of ninety two. Todd did not return home to Louisville for these services, uh, something that was really a source of dismay for some of his family after his father's death, Browning, who had seemed to reduce his drinking somewhat after that nineteen fifteen crash that killed Elmore Booth, once again started drinking excessively. He directed the movie Under Two Flags, adapted from the novel by Weeta about the occupation of Algeria, later that same year, and that production was kind of plagued with strange problems. There was a sandstorm that buried equipment on location, but the worst problem came when a fire on the Universal lot threatened the entire picture. According to the news periodical that Universal put out weekly to tout and share updates on their various project that fire played out as follows quote fire last week destroyed film valued at thousands of dollars and threatened to wipe out Universal City faster than a telephone call could reach outside fire departments. Crackling sparks, A short circuited electric wire whipped through an open doorway of a film cutting room with an explosion that rocked the film city. Almost two hundred thousand feet of film was ignited. It burned furiously for five minutes, endangering nearby buildings with blowing sheets of flame and intense heat. The fire, by prompt action of the Universal City Fire Department and through the fire airproof construction of all buildings of permanency, did no other damage. There was actually more damaged though. Under two Flags had just finished filming that day, and Priscilla Deane, who was still in costume, ran up a flight of stairs to the burning room to try to save the film. She tripped on the hem of her costume and twisted her ankle. Her hair was scorched, and she was very badly burned. The fire was reported as having quickly burned itself out, and while there was a delay while the negative was inspected, this whole ordeal really only delayed the films released by a couple of weeks, and at this point, despite that kind of craziness, uh Browning was considered something of a Golden Boy for Hollywood, but things quickly started to turn sour, and we're going to explain how after we hear from the sponsors that keep stuff you missed in history class. Going under two Flags was another financial success for the studio, and because Browning had at that point really established himself as their can't missdirector, they then announced that he would be directing Lawn Cheney in a huge and expensive adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. If you are a fan of old film, you know that that picture did get made and that Lawn Cheney did star in it, but Browning did not direct it. While he had three huge successes, his alcoholism had made him erratic. He had turned in another film titled White Tiger, as plans were being laid for the Hunchback adaptation, and it was apparently such a mess that the studio didn't release it for a year so it could be reworked by other people. That was a delay that was kind of unheard of at the time. Now we're used to like films coming out years from now when they get announced, but at that point it was like much faster turnaround. As a concert quints of the problems with White Tiger Todd. Browning was pulled from the Hunchback project. While he did keep working for Universal on smaller projects, his drinking was leading into very bad decisions in his personal life. He had an affair with Anime Wong, who is famous for being the first Chinese American movie star in Hollywood. This was an issue for reasons aside from the fact that he was married, Wong was under age at the time. The interracial relationship was troubling to a lot of people in the nineteen twenties. He also got into a lot of situations when he was drinking that we're really embarrassing to the people who were associated with him. Because of all this, Universal laid him off. Alice left him, but Browning moved to a new contract with Metro goldwyn Mayer in Nive, and his creative relationship with Lawn Cheney moved right along with him. The films that Browning and Cheney made together during this time we're strange and often a little bit shocking for audiences of the day. And here is really the point in his career where Browning started to draw pretty deeply from his experiences as a teenager working in circuses. This is also about when one of only a very few interviews with Browning was published in the feature in Picture Play magazine. He acknowledges that his behavior had led to various fallings out, saying, quote, two years ago, I went smash, temperament, impulse, wanting my own way, stubbornness. There were a number of contributing factors. He sort of recognized that he was at a very low point, but he could not quite see or admit that his alcohol use was the problem initially. Even after he did, he kind of chalked it up to the fault of various difficult things and experiences that he had in his life. Just keep in mind with all this, the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous was a decade away at this point. The idea that alcohol abuse was something treatable wasn't quite the same, right. There were also no UM programs that really focused on people taking responsibility for, you know, their problems that they created. So he was very much like, oh, but it's because of this, Like he never once was like, wow, I just really screwed up UM. Still, he said that he did have a revelation while he was drinking whiskey one night that he kind of suddenly understood through his stupor why Alice had left, and he credited that moment with what he called his regeneration, where he decided he would reject his whiskey drinking, although he did continue to drink things like beer or wine on occasion after this, particularly beer. He spoke to Alice the next day after this revelation and he told her about his epiphany, and she basically told him, if you want me back, you have to win me back, and she was not interested in going down with what she called a quote sinking ship. So even though they had been married for more than seven years at that point, they basically started dating again and this went well. They rekindled their relationship and he would later credit her with getting his career back on track. This was a valid credit. Alice really supported him emotionally, but also was not afraid to flex her own connections in the film industry to try to move him into a better position. Not long after executive Irving Thalberg left Universal and went to MGM, which is that's its own wild story, Alice approached him to try to help Todd regain his footing in Hollywood. Thalberg was a fan of Browning, and knew what he could do when he was healthy. So when Browning pitched a film called The Unholy Three, he went for it, and that was how Browning wound up at MGM. The Unholy Three is a story about three sides o performers, a strong man, a little person, and a ventriloquist, and they leave their sideshow lives and start a life of crime together. It was based on a book by Todd Robbins and it had been a best seller, but Hollywood had been reluctant to adapt it despite multiple attempts. But Solberg let Browning do it, although he paid him a far lower rate than Browning had been commanding before that totally six hundred dollars paid out in weekly installments during this shooting, Browning was also offered a bonus of thirty five hundred dollars if he came in on time and under budget. This movie was a spectacular return to success for Browning. The movie made a lot of money, he got his bonus, and mg N optioned him for several more pictures. As for the reviews, they were also glowing almost across the board, and it's review The New Yorker said, quote to Mr Todd Browning all honor. His next two pictures, The Mystic and The Black Bird, did well, but nothing near the level of The Unholy Three. Still, MGM was overall pleased and increase his rate. The Unknown, which lawn Cheney and Browning worked on together in nine seven, really started to evidence the early seeds that would eventually manifest into the movie Freaks. The film, which starred lawn Cheney in eighteen year old Joan Crawford, is about a circus performer who has no arms whose act involves throwing knives and shooting a gun at his fellow performer. That's a beautiful young woman named Nannon, who is played by Crawford. The film's initials set up unravels as it's revealed that Cheney's character, Alonso the Armless, is a faker. He has all of his limbs. From there, things get darker and darker as the film explores identity, deception, obsession, and self mutilation. While modern critics have lauded it as a groundbreaking piece of cinema, critics at the time were far less kind. Browning was described as pathological for having made the film. The New York Daily Mirror suggested that you might like it quote if you like to tear butterflies apart and see sausage made. In contrast his characterization as warped and possibly some sort of monster for having made the film, Joan Crawford later spoke of Browning on set as being incredibly soft spoken and sensitive. Yeah. Reading um actor and crew accounts of what Todd Browning is like is the most head spinning because half of them are like, he was the kindest, gentlest person. He knew exactly how to work with people, and other people were like he was abusive and horrible, and there's no middle ground. It's always one of the other. Um. So it's a little bit interesting in that regard uh Lawn, Cheney and Browning collaborated on London After Midnight, and this is one of those movies that film buffs wish they could see. The last print of it was lost in a fire in the nineteen sixties. You will occasionally see a thing pop up. It's almost like the anti kithera mechanism of we have found London after Midnight and then it turns out, no, no, we didn't. We found a couple of skills that were together. Um. This film is a murder mystery with possible vampires and a little hypnosis in the mix. There are a lot of really moody stills that survive, and in two thousand two those still images plus a shooting script were used to make a reconstruction of the film. If you have ever heard the stories of Lawn Cheney, who was very famous for his makeup work, using fishing wire to create a unique and disturbing popped open look to his eyes, that was for this movie. Chenese makeup work was such a quote horrifying and terrible spectacle that a man named Robert Williams claimed that he was haunted by visions of Chinese character when he murdered his girl end Uh. That defense in that murder trial did not hold. Williams, who had also tried to take his own life during that episode, was found guilty. He was first sentenced to death, then received a medical reprieve. But despite all of that, in any controversy, London After Midnight was another huge money maker, and it enabled Browning to continue to make pictures that he wanted to make with an ever increasing salary. So we're at a pretty good place right now for Browning's life and career. But it's not going to stay that way. So this is where we are going to pause. In part two, we will talk about Browning's most famous films and the latter part of his life. One day we'll see London after midnight. I hope um. I have listener mail, which is uh from our listener Amelia, who writes tear Holly and Tracy. I can't believe it took this long to write the show, but of course it would be kidties that prompted it. I couldn't help but chuckle listening to the stories about Mike the cat. Since I have worked in the museum field for the last decade and have a weak spot for grumpy cats. I have a very handsome cat named Dadalus who was eight years old, and while he loves to be around people, he's not a fan of being pet or snuggled unless it's by me. Two years ago, he ended up at the vent and had to have emergency surgery to remove six feet of quilting thread he had swallowed. I was an emotional wreck, and Dadalus was so angry he sent to Vet text to the hospital for stitches. I had a cat send people to the hospital for stitches, so I understand the embarrassment and shame and fear that happens in your heart when that takes place, she continues. While I was waiting for him to go into surgery, I took my phone out and did the only thing I could think of to distract myself. I turned on stuff you missed in history class. Datalus immediately settled right down, though he did growl if anyone came too close. It seemed that listening to the podcast brought him the same calm and comfort as it has brought me over the years. I meant to write the show back then, but after the surgery and cat proofing, all of my sewing supplies had slipped my mind. I am happy to report that Dadalus has since made a full recovery and is back to terrorizing anyone who tries to love on him. I'm sorry it took so long, but I wanted to send my belated thank you for getting Dadalus and I through one of our toughest times. I've attached pictures of your biggest fuzzy friend. Thank you for everything you do, Amelia and Dadalus. Um, I'm so glad he's okay. Anyone who sows knows that fear um that like of thread in the house. And I love this story and it ended happily. We've had so many people write us about their cats, many of whom have talked about how they have lost beloved cats, and I want to read all of those, but I will cry every time. So if I'm not reading it, please don't think it's because I don't love your story and your devotion to your baby's. I can't get through this. I can't even read them on my screen without kind of becoming a mess. But keep sending them because I love them. Uh. And it is my greatest honor to have comforted a cat when he wasn't feeling well. I am so glad he is okay. We have If anybody has been through that emergency VET terror, it is one of the least fun things I can imagine. Yeah, for real, But again, so glad he is okay. So thank you for sharing that story. Um, also precious. I would give that cat the keys to my car while he shredded my face. It would be fine. You would like to write to us, you can do that at History Podcast at iHeart radio dot com. You can also find us on social media as Missed in History, and you can subscribe to the show. If you haven't done so already, you can do that on the I heart Radio app, or wherever it is you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.