AUDIO UP MEDIA ANNOUNCES FIVE PART JAMES ELLROY TRUE CRIME SERIES HOLLYWOOD DEATH TRIP TO DEBUT IN AUGUST
LOS ANGELES, CA (April 14, 2021) Audio Up has joined forces with the revered author of L.A. Confidential, The Black Dahlia, and American Tabloid for a groundbreaking new podcast series centered in the City of Angels, featuring some of the most gruesome murders of our time.
In this five-part series entitled James Ellroy’s Hollywood Death Trip, the Demon Dog of American literature takes listeners on a nocturnal tour of murder and mayhem in the city of Los Angeles, based on his lauded true crime reportage. Featuring Ellroy himself as the series narrator, the stories presented here span mid-century Hollywood’s most memorable murders.
Each one will be recreated with period music, archival radio, and sweeping, cinematic sound design. Listeners will travel back to a time when tabloid radio reported the misdeeds and misadventures of the rotten and unlucky, exploring some of the darkest crimes in Los Angeles history with James Ellroy as their guide.
James Ellroy’s Hollywood Death Trip will feature episodes including “Glamour Jungle,” which takes readers back to the 1963 unsolved murder of Karyn Kupcinet, daughter of Irv Kupcinet, famed columnist and friend to mobsters. “Stephanie” tells the haunting tale of Stephanie Gorman, who met an untimely end in the Cheviot Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1965. “Clash By Night” fast forwards to 1976, to the murder of Rebel Without a Cause star Sal Mineo. The series concludes with a dramatic two-part episode—“Body Dumps” and “My Mother’s Killer”—which takes the listener all the way back to the 1958 murder of Ellroy’s own mother.
“Nothing moves the needle in this medium like true crime. To work with the master himself to create a first of its kind series that harkens back to the golden age of tabloid radio is a dream come true,” says Audio Up’s Chief Creative Officer Jimmy Jellinek.
“James Ellroy’s first ever podcast series is the perfect addition to our growing slate of prestige programming that will see Audio Up become an HBO for your ears in the coming months. I can’t wait to reveal what else we have in the hopper. But for now, Ellroy and true crime is a match made in heaven,” says Audio Up founder and CEO Jared Gutstadt.
“Summer ’21 is the soil-your-soul season of the Demon Dog,” added a classic Ellroy. “I’m a rapacious reader of my own work, and I’m here to rip and revitalize radio -- and run it raw. And that’s no shivering shit, Daddy-O.”
James Ellroy’s Hollywood Death Trip is slated for an August release. It will come hot on the heels of Ellroy’s latest novel, Widespread Panic, which will be published on June 15, 2021 from Alfred A. Knopf. Widespread Panic features the fictionalized exploits of legendary Hollywood “fixer” Fred Otash, a corrupt cop-turned-private eye, shakedown artist, and strongman in 1950’s Los Angeles. Otash, who has played a supporting role in three of Ellroy’s previous novels, now takes center stage in Ellroy’s latest outing. Told in Otash’s viciously entertaining voice, Widespread Panic torches 1950’s Hollywood to the ground, laying bare its sins and salacious secrets. For more information on Widespread Panic or to request a review copy, contact Abigail Endler, aendler@penguinrandomhouse.com.
About Audio Up Media:
Audio Up Media is a podcast content production studio, housing a world of infinite, audio-based properties. Ran by Audio Up CEO and Adweek’s 2020 Podcast Innovator of the Year and Podcast Producer of the Year recipient, Jared Gutstadt (formerly of the Jingle Punks), Audio Up is building an ecosystem of premium entertainment content within the music and audio space. From fictional scripted podcasts, which include a Marvel-like universe of musicals, where the records themselves become the story foundation, to one-on-one interview formats, Audio Up’s goal is to create a new and innovative form of IP. They are bringing audio blockbusters to life and taking this media from black and white, into technicolor. Current properties include the riveting top 20 crime podcast Where The Bodies Are Buried, Michael Cohen’s new chart-topping podcast Mea Culpa, and Tom Green’s The Tom Green Interview. Their recent projects include Make It Up As We Go with Scarlett Burke, Miranda Lambert, Lindsay Ell and other huge country entertainment; and four-part scripted Halloween podcast Halloween in Hell with Machine Gun Kelly, 24kGoldn and iann dior. Up next, Audio Up will debut Sonic Leap featuring Hero The Band, and Uncle Drank: The Totally Hammered Podcast starring Gary Busy.
For all media inquiries on Audio Up and James Ellroy’s Hollywood Death Trip, please contact:
42 West:
Greg Cortez
Jessica Butalla