SIDE HUSTLE: LEE GRANT: ONE MORE THING, WHAT SEX AM I?

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SIDE HUSTLE 7: LEE GRANT. FROM INGENUE STAR TO BLACKLISTED RED TO A SECOND LIFE WHERE SHE WON AN ACTING OSCAR AND THEN A THIRD LIFE AS AN OSCAR-WINNING DOCUMENTARIAN.

Who is Lee Grant? Read the all-caps above! One of the most remarkable people we've covered this, or any season. We are joined by Charlie to discuss Grant's work as actor and director this week!
Born on Halloween in an undetermined year in the mid 1920s (she is still with us!) Grant was raised to be in the arts and was well on her way as a classically trained ballerina and Broadway understudy. She was destined for stardom after nabbing an Oscar nomination for her FIRST film (Detective Story). Following her name appearing in newsletter called Red Channels she was blacklisted as a communist - yes, it was that capricious back in the early 50s to be on the wrong side of fear mongering. Your name in a newsletter put out by a few bums and suddenly you are on the outs.
Losing a decade plus in what was, essentially, what she was raised to do, Grant eventually returned in supporting roles and an extended role on Peyton Place.
Hey, we know she won an Oscar for Shampoo, the climax of her triumphant return to the town that had so pathetically abandoned her, but we may do a Beatty run some day so we are saving it. We are instead talking the second Columbo ever, RANSOM FOR A DEAD MAN (1971), where Grant friend - and future not-friend - Peter Falk was still figuring out his character in what was a second pilot TV film. Grant and Falk, when they are given classic Columbo scenes together, are positively combustible. The story itself may not be prime Columbo but it is a beautifully shot little oddity that would be followed up by the first aired series episode, directed by Steven Spielberg (which we talked about during our Spielberg season and is still the best Columbo ever).
Grant got into directing film in the early 80s, moving into documentary soon after. In 1983 she directed the legendary groundbreaking documentary WHAT SEX AM I? (1983) which tracks the stories of a group people that feels years ahead of its time in its empathy and presentation of their struggles. Grant would win an Oscar for her documentary, DOWN AND OUT IN AMERICA (1986), another film about people the camera usually shies away from during the dark economic side of the 1980s. Grant has a laser focus on people in America normally passed by in representation on film and her work should be heralded more, in front of and behind the camera.
Grant is a damn unsung hero in film so sit down and we'll tell you about her career and these two projects.
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
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