Significant Others

Team Coco

Did you know that the novel "Lolita" would not exist if Vladimir Nabokov’s wife hadn’t stopped her husband from burning the manuscript? Or that Gandhi learned his legendary method of passive resistance from his wife? Or that the person responsible for Maya Angelou’s genre-defining memoir was her good friend James Baldwin? Significant Others is a narrated, nonfiction podcast about folks just beyond the spotlight of history. Each episode tells the story of a talented, difficult and little-known individual who altered the destiny of their better-known partner, child, sibling, or friend, and impacted the world they left behind. Narrated and written by Liza Powel O’Brien and featuring the voices of Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, Jameela Jamil, Rita Wilson, Timothy Olyphant, Lisa Kudrow and many more. read less

Our Editor's Take

History tends to leave out the man or woman behind historical figures. While people like Abraham Lincoln are household names, their partners become mere footnotes. The Significant Others podcast examines those closest to better-known figures in history. These hidden figures may be spouses, friends. or other relations to the person in question.

As the wife of a world-famous celebrity herself, host Liza Powel O'Brien is no stranger to this phenomenon. Liza's husband Conan O'Brien is a well-known TV host. Following a successful advertising career, Liza became a screenwriter. She then created Significant Others. On this podcast, Liza reveals the most important historical figures no one talks about.

Significant Others features guest voices speaking as historical figures. Liza herself writes and narrates each episode. The result is an engaging, biographical audio drama. Anyone interested in the unexplored sides of historical figures should try this podcast. It's a fascinating view of the relationships that define influential people. Liza's skillful narration keeps the listener engaged. The guest voice actors bring the true stories to life with dramatized readings. The tasteful musical sound bed sets the mood for each historical account.

History enthusiasts may enjoy this refreshing exploration of people who shaped modern culture. Liza adds tasteful humor to these otherwise serious stories. In the process, she always remains objective. Past episodes discuss Molly Day Thacher, Elia Kazan's wife and Jane Cheney Spock, Dr. Benjamin Spock's wife.

Fans of the show appreciate the detailed accounts. For topics needing more coverage, Liza does followup episodes. Each topic gets the right amount of attention. In addition to guest voices, Liza invites guests to discuss past episodes. Examples include Jake Tapper and even Conan himself.

Anyone looking for an intellectual view of history may enjoy this podcast. Significant Others offers an intriguing account of unknown people related to historical figures. Told in a narrative style, the show may attract fans of biographical media.

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Episodios

Eileen Blair
20-03-2024
Eileen Blair
George Orwell has never been accused of being a feminist. And yet his wife Eileen left her mark on his most important works.Starring Sally Drexler as Eileen Blair and Nigel Daly as George OrwellAlso featuring: Ben Partridge, Luke Millington-Drake, Thom Wickes, Amelia Chappelow, and Colin Anderson. Source List:Eileen: The Making of George Orwell by Sylvia Topp, © 2020 Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder, © 2023Orwell: The Life by D.J. Taylor, © 2003, Published 2015 by Open Road Integrated MediaOrwell: The New Life by D.J. Taylor, © 2023, Published by Pegasus Books, Ltd1984 & Coming Up For Air by George Orwell, © 2021 by True Sign1984 & Animal Farm by George Orwell, © 2022, Sanage PublishingThe Guardian, Looking for Eileen: how George Orwell wrote his wife out of his storyThe New York Times, One Biography Questions Orwell’s Image, and Another Brings His First Wife Into FocusNew Humanist, Eric, Eileen and NorahThe American Scholar, Down and OutThe Guardian, Orwell by DJ Taylor Review - A Very English SocialistThe Orwell Foundation, Remembering Eileen: An Interview with George Orwell’s Son, Richard BlairThe New York Times, How ‘Orwellian’ Became an All-Purpose InsultOnline Etymology Dictionary, OrwellianThe Sydney Morning Herald, The Mysterious Absence of George Orwell’s First WifeThe Guardian, Another Piece of the PuzzleThe Orwell Society, Eileen - and Orwell’s Shifting Attitudes on Gender IssuesThe New Yorker, Honest, Decent, WrongThe Article, In Defense of George Orwell
Billy Strayhorn
13-03-2024
Billy Strayhorn
Did Duke Ellington really used to say: “He does all the work and I take all the bows?” One thing’s for sure—neither man would have had the career he did without the other.Starring Fat Tony as Billy Strayhorn and Open Mike Eagle as Duke EllingtonAlso featuring: Sasheer Zamata, Sam Sanders, JaRon Ferguson, Miles Gross, Chris Hayes, and Tavis Doucette Source List:Lush Life by David Hajdu, ©1996, North Point Press, 18 West 18 Street, NY NY 10011Something to Live For: The Music of Billy Strayhorn, by Walter van de Leur, ©2002, Oxford University PressBeyond Category; The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington by John Edward Hasse, ©1993, Da Capo PressMusic is my Mistress by Duke Ellington, ©1973, Da Capo PressJUST JAZZ No. 3, Ed. Sinclair Traill and The Hon. Gerald Lascelles, ©1959, Four Square Books, Landsborough Publications Ltd, 173 New Bond Street, London, W.1JUST JAZZ No. 4, Ed. Sinclair Traill and The Hon. Gerald Lascelles, ©1960, Pub. Souvenir Press Ltd, London, WC1 and Canada, The Ryerson Press, Toronto, Printed GB by Clarke, Doble & Brendon, Ltd, Oakfield PressJazzProfiles, Billy Strayhorn - The Bill Coss InterviewNational Jazz Archive, Duke EllingtonCBC News, Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington’s ‘right arm’, to be paid tribute to at Capilano University concert The New Yorker, The Hot Bach - IThe New Yorker, The Hot Bach IIYouTube, Duke Ellington Interview by Jack Cullen 1962Colburn, Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington’s Collaboration
Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche
06-03-2024
Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche spent the final years of his life incapacitated by illness while his sister bent his works to her use as a social-climbing fascist.Starring Laura Ramoso as Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and Flula Borg as Friedrich Nietzsche.Also featuring Matt Gourley, Jessica Chaffin, and Anja Albertson. Source List:Nietzsche’s Sister and the Will to Power by Carol Diethe, First Illinois Paperback, ©2007, ©2003 by the Board of Trustees of the University of IllinoisI Am Dynamite!, by Sue Prideaux, ©2018, Tim Duggan Books, an imprint of The Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New YorkIn Emergency, Break Glass: What Nietzsche Can Teach Us About Joyful Living in a Tech-Saturated World, ©2022 by Nate Anderson, WW Norton & CoThe Making of Frederich Nietzsche: The Quest For Identity 1844-1869By Daniel Blue , ©2016, University Printing House, Cambridge CB2, 8BS United KingdomThe Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols And Other Writingsby Frederich Nietzsche, Edited by Aaron Ridley and Judith NormanCambridge University Press, ©2005Haaretz, Was Nietzsche Hitler’s Spiritual Godfather?Big Think, How the Nazis Hijacked Nietzsche, and How it Can Happen to AnybodyThe Guardian, Far Right, Misogynist, Humorless? Why Nietzsche is MisunderstoodThe Nietzsche Channel, Nietzsche’s Writings as a StudentStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Friedrich NietzscheThe New York Times, Rocken Journal, No Superman, Perhaps, but the Titan of his Townhttps://www.philosophizethis.org/Cambridge University Press, Friedrich NietzschePhilosophize This!London Review of Books, It Wasn’t Him, It Was HerBritannica, Return from Exile of Richard Wagner
George Palmer Putnam
28-02-2024
George Palmer Putnam
The man who made Amelia Earhart famous may also have gotten her killed. But their marriage was completely on her terms.Starring John C. McGinley as George Palmer Putnam and Christa Miller as Amelia Earhart.Also featuring Conan O’Brien, Neve O’Brien, Tavis Doucette, Maddie Ogden, and Miles Grose. Source ListAmelia Earhart, A Biography by Doris L. Rich, ©1989, 2010 by the Smithsonian InstitutionThe Sound of Wings by Mary S. Lovell, St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY, 10010 ©1989 Letters From Amelia by Jean L. Backus, Beacon Press, ©1982 Soaring Wings by George Palmer Putnam, Manor Books Inc., ©1939, ©1967 by Margaret H. Lewis, Published by arrangement with Harocourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc. Wide Margins, a publisher’s autobiography by George Palmer Putnam, ©1942, Harcourt, Brace and Company, NYEAST TO THE DAWN,The Life of Amelia Earhart by Susan Butler, Da Capo Press, ©1997 Whistled Like A Bird by Sally Putnam Chapman, Warner Books, Inc., Hachette Book GroupProject Muse, “The Earhart Phenomenon and the “Accident of Sex” PBS, “American Experience: Amelia Earhart”“Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight” by Judith Thurman, The New Yorker, Sept. 7, 2009National Air and Space Museum, Earhart and George Palmer PutnamNew England Historical Society, Amelia Earhart, Reluctant BridePurdue University, Putnam, George Palmer, 1887-1950CT Insider, Amelia Earhart’s ‘Secret’ Connecticut Wedding: From the ArchivesUPI, Husband of Missing Flier Earhart Secluded After Long VigilThe New York Times, 1932: I’m Not ‘Mrs. Putnam,’ I’m Amelia EarhartPBS American Experience, Amelia Earhart Program TranscriptPalmer, Amy Phipps Guest PortraitHistory.com, Charles Lindbergh Completes the First Solo, Nonstop Transatlantic FlightCharles Lindbergh House and Museum, New York-to-Paris FlightBritannica, Charles Lindbergh, American AviatorNASA.gov, Realizing the Dream of FlightMedium, Ghostwriters in 2020: The Current Trends and BeyondThe New York Times Archive, Tuesday, June 19th, 1928. Wednesday, June 20th, 1928.Flight Paths: Purdue University’s Aerospace Pioneers, The Earhart Brand: Amelia Earhart’s Impact on Celebrity CulturePBS, Navigating the Truth Behind Amelia Earhart and Fred NoonanGhost Writing and History by Ernest R. May,  ©1953, The American Scholar, Published By: The Phi Beta Kappa Society
Bayard Rustin
21-02-2024
Bayard Rustin
The architect of the March on Washington and co-author of Dr. King’s memoir was a mentor to the great civil rights martyr. But he was nearly hidden from history—largely by choice.Starring: J. Holtham as Bayard Rustin and Anthony Obi as Martin Luther King, Jr. Also featuring: Miles Grose, Matt Gourley, and Jesse Thorn. Source List:The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Bayard Rustin, To Bayard Rustin, Glenn E. Smiley, From Bayard Rustin, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Address at NAACP Mass Rally for Civil RightsFacing History & Ourselves, Brother Outsider: Remembering Gay Civil Rights Leader Bayard RustinLambda Legal, 67 Years Later, Bayard Rustin’s California Arrest and Jail Time Have Been PardonedJewish News Syndicate, Bayard Rustin (1912-1987)Bill of Rights Institute, Bayard Rustin, Nonviolence vs. Jim Crow, 1942PBS.org., Who Designed the March on Washington?The Weekly Challenger, The FBI Plot to Bring Down the Gay Man Behind the March on WashingtonMaking Gay History, Bayard RustinWashington Blade, Looking Back: 50 Years of the BladeThe Washington Post, Bayard Rustin, Organizer of the March on Washington, Was Crucial to the Movement, In ‘I Must Resist,’ Bayard Rustin Lived a Life with No Apologies Montgomery Advertiser, 21, 22, 23, & 24 February 1956Cross Country Solidarity, The Montgomery Bus Boycott: The Full StoryLA Times, Glenn Smiley; Advised King on NonviolenceThe Guardian, When Martin Luther King Gave Up His GunsWhy a Gay, Black Civil Rights Hero Opposed Affirmative ActionMalcolm X and Bayard Rustin Debate on WBAICivilRights.org, Bayard Rustin and the Presidential Medal of Freedom: A Perfect FitYale Law School, Bayard Rustin CentennialResearchgate.net, Arrest Record for Bayard RustinAdam Clayton Powell Jr.Beacon Broadside, Roy Wilkins’s Reluctant Tribute to W.E.B. Du BoisLegal Defense Fund, Brown v. Board of EducationGreensboro.com, Thurmond, FBI Had Close Ties, Records ShowThe New York Times, Negro Rally Aide Rebuts SenatorI Must Resist, Bayard Rustin’s Life In Letters, Ed. Michael Long, City Lights Books, ©2012Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin by John D’Emilio, Free Press/Simon & Schuster, ©2003ALABAMA V. KING, By Dan Abrams and Fred Grey with David Fisher, Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd., ©2022 Martin Luther King, Jr., Homosexuality, and the Early Gay Rights Movement By Michael Long, First published by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, a division of St. Martin’s Press, ©2012Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David J Garrow, ©1986, Edition published 2015 by Open Road Media