The first of three episodes devoted to the Top Gun partnership of Don and Tom Cruise.   In this episode, we track the origins of Top Gun... How MTV videos of bands singing about nuclear war shaped Don’s vision to make a cold war movie. We go behind the scenes of Don’s big pitch at the Pentagon to convince the Navy to give Don their $14 million jets... And we learn of how the pressure to make a third blockbuster movie in a row contributed to Don’s coke addiction which would make him so paranoid for his safety that he wouldn’t leave the house without a bodyguard. 

<p>The first of three episodes devoted to the Top Gun partnership of Don and Tom Cruise. &nbsp; In this episode, we track the origins of Top Gun... How MTV videos of bands singing about nuclear war shaped Don&rsquo;s vision to make a cold war movie. We go behind the scenes of Don&rsquo;s big pitch at the Pentagon to convince the Navy to give Don their $14 million jets... And we learn of how the pressure to make a third blockbuster movie in a row contributed to Don&rsquo;s coke addiction which would make him so paranoid for his safety that he wouldn&rsquo;t leave the house without a bodyguard.&nbsp;</p>

THE DON is a docu-drama on the life of the producer of TOP GUN, Don Simpson, which uses narration, clips, and fictional re-enactments via “lost tapes'' to take you behind the scenes into Hollywood’s decade of decadence, the 1980s. Before the era of MeToo, there was Don Simpson the poster boy of toxic masculinity, whose outlandish behavior was not only tolerated but encouraged by the film industry who profited greatly off Don’s movies. Don Simpson was, like the character he named after himself in his movie TOP GUN, a maverick. His signature style of filmmaking created one hit after another— AMERICAN GIGOLO, FLASHDANCE, BEVERLY HILLS COP, TOP GUN- they all came from the mind of Don Simpson. Don loved the movies so much that he created a mythological persona known as “The Don” to match his signature movies— loud, ballsy, cheesy— his movies were full of homo-erotic testoterone-driven race car drivers and navy fighter pilots and stripper/welders who wanted to be ballerinas— these were the movies from Don’s absurd fantasy world— this was the world that Don actually lived in— there was no separation between life and art. And that movie persona that he created— “The Don”— grew more and more outrageous and more extreme— until ultimately… it killed him.

The first season of the Based on True Events Anthology which dramatizes true stories in the tradition of Hollywood storytelling.

THE DON

<p>THE DON is a docu-drama on the life of the producer of TOP GUN, Don Simpson, which uses narration, clips, and fictional re-enactments via “lost tapes'' to take you behind the scenes into Hollywood’s decade of decadence, the 1980s. Before the era of MeToo, there was Don Simpson the poster boy of toxic masculinity, whose outlandish behavior was not only tolerated but encouraged by the film industry who profited greatly off Don’s movies. Don Simpson was, like the character he named after himself in his movie TOP GUN, a maverick. His signature style of filmmaking created one hit after another— AMERICAN GIGOLO, FLASHDANCE, BEVERLY HILLS COP, TOP GUN- they all came from the mind of Don Simpson. Don loved the movies so much that he created a mythological persona known as “The Don” to match his signature movies— loud, ballsy, cheesy— his movies were full of homo-erotic testoterone-driven race car drivers and navy fighter pilots and stripper/welders who wanted to be ballerinas— these were the movies from Don’s absurd fantasy world— this was the world that Don actually lived in— there was no separation between life and art. And that movie persona that he created— “The Don”— grew more and more outrageous and more extreme— until ultimately… it killed him.</p>

Top Gun- Don and Tom 

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/064998e3-5a20-45ec-b32b-aeb50009c3d4/transcript

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