Richard Pryor was a comedy truth teller, who busted taboos about race, language, and sexuality. But what made Richard so raw and honest, was also the source of his troubled and tumultuous personal life – bouts of addiction, domestic abuse, and host of other personal demons, which culminated in a very public drug-induced meltdown on Parthenia Street in Los Angeles, where he lit himself on fire and ran down the street in an unhinged suicide attempt. We’ll travel to Richard’s hometown of Peoria, Illinois to find the source for his demons, and for his brilliant comedic mind – the elementary school where he first performed comedy, and the Community Center where he honed his craft, and to his compound on Parthenia Street in the San Fernando Valley, where he nearly died in 1980, before making a remarkable comeback. Read less

Soul music legend Marvin Gaye’s life was cut short a day before his 45th birthday on April 1, 1984, when he was shot dead by his own father in their family home in Los Angeles. Marvin and his father’s tumultuous relationship goes all the way back to his troubled childhood in Washington DC, which is where we’ll visit Bo Diddley’s House, site of Marvin first recording session, and the iconic Howard Theatre, where the aspiring singer first performed in the late 50s. In Los Angeles, we’ll follow Marvin’s downward spiral from his early 70s peak – at a secret hideaway above Pacific Palisades that he would visit with his brother Frankie and sister-in-law Irene, the Malibu beach where he jogged and meditated during his darkest days, and the Gaye family home, where Marvin’s sister Zeola will walk us through the tragic day of Marvin’s murder. Read less

In the mid 90’s the infamous East Coast – West Coast hip hop rivalry was in full swing, and two of raps biggest icons – former friends The Notorious B.I.G, and Tupac Shakur – were caught in the middle of it. It was a battle that tragically cost both starts their lives before the end of the decade, in a pair of murders that are unsolved to this day. We’ll trace the story of these two legendry rappers by visiting the locations that lead to their rise and fall – the gritty streets of Biggie’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn where he hustled, sold drugs, and became a freestyling legend; a hidden set of train tracks in Vernon, California; New York City’s Quad Recording Studios, where a 1994 assassination attempt on Tupac ignited the biggest feud in the history of rap, and the corner of Fairfax and Wilshire in Los Angeles, where Biggie was tragically gunned down in a hit and run. Read less

Iconic pop artist Andy Warhol was the target of a bizarre assassination attempt at the height of his fame in 1968, by a woman desperate to become part of his inner circle. Warhol rose to fame as a commercial illustrator in New York City after leaving his childhood home in Pittsburgh. He would go on to become a trailblazer – the most important and influential artist in New York, creating new forms of art, controversial films, and totally transforming our entire idea of celebrity. But his near fatal shooting changed his life forever. We’ll visit the locations that made Andy an icon – the restaurant where he sold his first original pieces of art, the Upper East Side townhouse where he created some of his most important art (and also lived with his mother!), the former site of a legendary nightclub where he held court with his Superstars and The Velvet Underground, and 33 Union Square, Andy Warhol’s second Factory, the site of the attempt on his life in 1968. Read less