Talking Dateline: The Prince, The Whiz Kid, & The Millionaire
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hi, everybody, and welcome to Talking Dateline. I'm Lester Holt. Today, our guest is Josh Mankiewicz, who's going to talk all about The Prince, The Whiz Kid, and The Millionaire. Yes, it's an intriguing title, and it's a more intriguing story. If you haven't seen it, you can go watch the full episode on Peacock or listen to it on the Dateline podcast feed, and then come right back here, and you'll be totally nourished on this story. all right to recap it was retired art collector and palm springs socialite cliff lambert he suddenly vanished in 2008 investigators uncovered an elaborate plot by a group of grifters to steal lambert's money and his life and then when cliff's remains were found nine years after he disappeared it was hardly the end of this twisted and shady saga which we'll get into during this talking dateline
Josh, let's get right into it. This was not weeks in the making. This wasn't months in the making, which is sometimes typical for Dateline. This was literally years in the making.
Yeah, this took about two and a half years. I think the first interview I did was Tyson Ranch, which was in Las Vegas. And then after that, we went to Palm Springs and we did that wonderful interview with Barbara Wisby. The richness of the characters in this episode I thought really made a difference. And I also thought Palm Springs as a character in itself kind of made a difference. And it gave you a sense of sort of what life was like there and also sort of like who Cliff was. Eddie was a sensational interview. We did him early. And then, you know, the case took forever, partly because of COVID. And partly because there were two trials because the first verdict got thrown out. And then the two of the defendants, Danny and David Replogle, managed to delay sentencing for a long time.
And so that made everything last longer. So it was a lot longer than most Dateline episodes.
One of the things I pulled away from this program is that Cliff, in the end, was a lonely character. He surrounded himself by a lot of people, his buddy Eddie. But at the heart of it, he strikes me as someone that was rather lonely.
One of the things that I thought is going to hit home with all Dateline viewers is that there were some very recognizable themes in this. Cliff was a lonely person who made some foolish romantic choices. You know, Cliff lost a lot of his friends to AIDS in the eighties and nineties. So he was not just lonely. He also had lost a lot of people and, you know, there's no way that that doesn't weigh on you. So, you know, I think Danny figured out Uh, that cliff didn't have a family and he didn't have a lot of close friends. And I think they thought if, if we make this guy disappear, basically no one's going to notice in the amount of time that we need to clean out his house, sell the artwork and get all his money.
And were it not for Eddie, uh, they were just about right.
The way this came to light at the end of the day, it came apart because A guy was moving some stuff and a real estate agent kind of blew the whistle.
Yeah. The real estate agent got a listing for the house and couldn't figure out why the person selling it wanted such a small amount of money for what was a house that was going to bring a lot more money, but they wanted to sell it like in the next couple of days. Um, the neighbors across the street who I think were sitting out on their porch having an afternoon cocktail realized they hadn't seen Cliff in a while saw a U-Haul across the street with somebody putting stuff into it and they thought like that's kind of weird I had no idea Cliff was moving they called the cops
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–4:35
2
What happened to art dealer Cliff Lambert in 2008?
4:35–8:57
3
How did the investigation uncover the grifter plot?
8:57–18:41
4
How did Eddie contribute to uncovering the truth?
18:41–23:12
5
What role did the Nepalese prince play in the crime?
23:12–27:20
Speakers
7 identifiedMore from Dateline NBC
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