“It wasn’t sexism, then” (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 1)

You Must Remember This

Karina Longworth

Tv & Film

4.7 • 15.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2020

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’ll begin with a look at how Polly Platt’s legacy was appraised when she died in 2011. Then we’ll go back in time to tell Polly’s story from the start, beginning with her Revolutionary Road-esque childhood in Europe and America as the neglected daughter of two alcoholics; to her years studying scenic design in environments in which women weren’t welcome; the secret pregnancy that halted her formal education, and the early marriage that took her West and cemented her desire to tell stories through design. Throughout, we’ll talk about how Platt’s experiences, as the product of an American military family of the 1950s—and the daughter of a mother who had been forced to abandon a career for motherhood––shaped her view of gender roles and relations, and her idea of what it meant to be the wife of a important man. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	to
0:28.1	Another season of You Must Remember This, the podcast dedicated to exploring the
0:35.0	secret and or forgotten histories of Hollywood's first century. I'm your host,
0:42.7	Kareena Longworth. Over the course of the past six years, we've told stories
0:49.4	spanning the whole of the 20th century, from the first stars of the silent
0:55.3	era, all the way through the classical Hollywood era, the new Hollywood and
1:00.6	into the 80s and 90s. Today, we begin a new season which will encompass most of
1:08.5	those eras, but we will begin in the early 21st century.
1:16.4	On August 12, 2011, the Hollywood reporter ran a several-page spread, memorializing
1:28.6	Polly Platt, who had died of ALS at the age of 72 about two weeks earlier. This
1:37.6	expanded remembrance included quotes from stars such as Jeff Bridges, William
1:42.8	Hurt and Danny DeVito, Oscar-winning writer-directors Cameron Crowe and
1:48.1	James L. Brooks, as well as Polly's ex-husband, Peter Bagnonovich. It was a
1:55.4	remarkable and a remarkably large tribute from one of the industry's key trade
2:00.9	papers to a woman who was probably best known as the odd woman out in a love
2:07.5	triangle between Bagnonovich and Cibbl Shepard. The ongenew of Bagnonovich's
2:12.7	breakthrough film, The Last Picture Show.
2:16.7	Professionally, Polly Platt was most recognized while she was alive as a production
2:23.0	designer. Her only Oscar nomination came in 1984 for her work in that capacity
2:30.5	on the best picture winner of that year, Terms of Endearment. But Polly did a lot
2:37.8	more on Terms of Endearment than simply oversee the look of the film. On that
2:43.8	movie and many others, she acted as an uncredited producer, unofficial writer,
	...

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