I first became aware of singer James Melton (1904-61) as a member of The Revelers, a jazz age vocal group who were popular on records, on radio, in big time vaudeville, and at least one Vita…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:11AM[SHARE]1923 was the year that Carl John Sedlmayr (1886-1965) first hung out banners bearing the brand "Royal American Shows". He had been in the carnival and sideshow business for years by then, fi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:23AM[SHARE]Don Novello turns 80 years old today; his best known character Father Guido Sarducci turns 50 this year, as well. This character always intrigued me when I was a kid. I'm not a Catholic, so …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:14AM[SHARE]We pen this on New Year's Eve, the one night of the year more than any other when all eyes are pointed in the direction of Times Square, the Crossroads of the World. I used to have a post on…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:36PM[SHARE]We learned the sad news about the passing of Barbara Walters (1929-2022) late last night. I would have eulogized her anyway on account of her own pathbreaking work in the television field, a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AM[SHARE]We stipulate the other Mike Connors in our headline to differentiate our subject from the star of TV's Mannix you're more apt to know and care about; have no fear, we plan to get to him. The…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:32PM[SHARE]A little tribute to the late actor Fred Ward, who passed away in May, and would have been 80 years old today. A cause of death was not given out publicly but commentators have chosen to read…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:32PM[SHARE]Today we take on the towering topic of one time world heavyweight champion Jess Willard (1881-1968). Your correspondent is far from a sports person, but I write about the topic as a logical …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:12AM[SHARE]I hope the title of this post doesn't result in disappointment for some people (actually, I don't care). While it's not impossible that I would ever write an article about the '80s New Wave …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:42PM[SHARE]A little confession: whenever my wife or anyone mentions the comic book The Sandman, I never think of the Neil Gaiman one from 1989 through 1996 or its screen adaptation first. (Though I did…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:42PM[SHARE]Screen actor John Rolfe (1911-2003) was a sort of second tier version of stars like Basil Rathbone and Peter Cushing, who appeared in historical dramas and literary adaptations during the ci…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:12AM[SHARE]We get a thrill every time we see the logo on a contemporary or recent film or tv show bearing the logo of Pathé, for the corny reason that it is one of the oldest continuously operating mo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AM[SHARE]Can you believe it's been 50 years since the premiere of the widely loved Christmas classic Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny (1972)? What's that? You never heard of, let alone seen, Santa and t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:32PM[SHARE]Screenwriter Noel Langley (1911-1980) was one two people connected with the 1939 MGM screen version of The Wizard of Oz to have a Christmas birthday (the other was Candy Candido, who voiced …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AM[SHARE]If the creek don't rise, you'll be hearing much more from this quarter on the topic of RADIO (the old time kind) over the next few months and years, as we are now beginning to enter a stretc…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:03AM[SHARE]A brief thing on Danish singer, actor and sometime pugilist Carl Brisson (Carl Frederik Ejnar Pedersen, 1893-1958). Brisson was only in about a dozen films, but three of them are moderately …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:03AM[SHARE]We've chosen the birthday of Joseph Smith (1805-1844) for a post I've long been contemplating about Mormons in the Movies. I have many close Mormon relatives, and some farther afield (includ…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:24PM[SHARE]Well, it's the night before The Night Before Christmas, but it seemed a reasonable thing to peg this post about the McCutcheons to, in addition to December being the birthday of Wallace McCu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:24AM[SHARE]Some foolhardy person attempted a quip on my social media page earlier today with reference to a hallucinatory movie from the 1930s, joking along the lines of "Who knew people were taking dr…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:06PM[SHARE]December 22 was the birth date of the Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). I was startled to learn how recently he'd died; we are only just coming upon the centennial. So mode…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:54AM[SHARE]Born on this day, the great Broadway composer/director/producer Edward E. Rice (1847-1924). When most people think "classic, old Broadway" they think of shows that opened two decades after R…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:18PM[SHARE]Something about the way he styled his name caused me to assume that Ted Fio Rito (1900-71) was one of those Latin bandleaders, like Vincent Lopez or Xavier Cugat. His given surname was actua…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:36PM[SHARE]We were saddened yesterday to learn of the passing of neo-realist painter Philip Pearlstein (b.1924). The little bookmark above is a memento from a time when I was honored to know him, a doz…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AM[SHARE]It's unthinkable to me, but it seems to be true. I worked weekly, more or less, with Martin Denton on one thing or another for well over a decade, and…there don't seem to any photos of us …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:24PM[SHARE]Wahoooooooooooo!!! We begin this post with a reference to Yukon Cornelius from the Rankin-Bass holiday special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1969) not just because it's Christmas season, b…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:42AM[SHARE]Words cannot describe the impatience with which I have been holding this post back for several months, not on account of its contents, but its headline, for which I believe I deserve some so…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12PM[SHARE]I've been hanging on to this vintage card to share sometime during the holiday season, and International Day to End Violence to Sex Workers (December 17) seemed the ideal time. I don't know …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12PM[SHARE]Barbara Kent (Barbara Cloutman, 1907-2011) may most pique the interest of our readers on the basis of Harold Lloyd's fourth leading lady, following Bebe Daniels, Mildred Davis, and Jobyna Ra…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:54AM[SHARE]I grew curious about Ty Parvis (Tyrone Parvis, 1912-1990) on account of his best known performance " he's the young man (all of 21) who sings the irresistible song "Honolulu Baby" in one of …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:42AM[SHARE]In the entirely forgivable event that you've already purchased all of my books and DVDs as holiday presents, and still need to find a gift for the vintage entertainment lover in your life, h…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:36PM[SHARE]There is a rumor, started by producer Hal Kanter, that at the start of his career black actor Hal Williams (b.1938) was fired from an episode of The Jimmy Stewart Show by its star because he…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:54AM[SHARE]
