Thursday, December 23, 2021
Scarcely more than a dozen years and 40 film performances comprised the screen career of Jean Brooks (Ruby Kelly, 1915-1963), but today she is regarded as something of a Goth icon and pionee…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:06PM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 22, 2021
Wow! Lucie Arnaz was right, after all " Nicole Kidman turned out to be an excellent casting choice for the part of Lucille Ball in Aaron Sorkin's Being the Ricardos. It shouldn't have shocke…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:42PM[SHARE]Tuesday, December 21, 2021
I just learned of the passing of Steve Trimboli (Stephen Paul Trimboli), reportedly of a massive stroke on the night before Thanksgiving. We weren't friends IRL (just social media), and I me…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:24PM[SHARE]December 21 was the birthday of theatre impresario Arthur Hammerstein (1872-1955). What with our vaudeville goggles on, we have given Arthur short shrift, having written mostly about the fat…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:24PM[SHARE]Monday, December 20, 2021
Good news (for me) ! Starting January 1, the content on Travalanche (over 6000 posts, including over 2000 profiles of historical variety performers, greater than any similar resource) is goi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:36PM[SHARE]We watched Shoot Me, the 2013 documentary about Elaine Stritch (1925-2014) recently, and my main takeaway from the film was "How could anyone abide that wretched woman? WHY would anyone? For…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AM[SHARE]Sunday, December 19, 2021
Some words of appreciation today for the great French singer and national symbol Edith Piaf (Édith Giovanna Gassion, 1915-1963). "Piaf" was a stage name " it is French for "Sparrow". The…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:06AM[SHARE]Saturday, December 18, 2021
Two generations of Burrows conquered a huge swath of American show biz between them: radio, Broadway and television, with some dabbling in the recording industry and films. The founder and f…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:54AM[SHARE]Happy National Twins Day! Travalanche has long had a special section devoted to conjoined twins " we now have amassed enough posts on the more common sort of twins to justify their own categ…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:54AM[SHARE]Friday, December 17, 2021
No, shame on YOU, Spade Cooley! "Spade" was western swing fiddle player and band leader Donnell Clyde Cooley (1910-1969). The native Oklahoman was part Cherokee; his folks were sharecroppers…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:33AM[SHARE]Thursday, December 16, 2021
The Montague Brothers were a strong man act of the British music hall in the early 20th century. Their real last name was Woollaston; their father owned a shoe factory, was a Methodist preac…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:24AM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 15, 2021
My wife and I have been binging Seinfeld re-runs for the sheer pleasure of it in recent weeks and I caught a "Farfel" reference in one not long ago. Of course, the origin of that name is a J…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:18AM[SHARE]Tuesday, December 14, 2021
Great was our enjoyment, occasionally swelling to awe, of Showtime's The Real Charlie Chaplin, which we mentioned here a few days ago. Directors Peter Middleton and James Spinney pulled off …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:42AM[SHARE]…And by that I mean of course, not just the period in which she wrote but the need to restore Aphra Behn (1640-1689) to her rightful place in the hierarchy of English writers. I'm uncertai…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:33AM[SHARE]Monday, December 13, 2021
Norman Foster (Norman Foster Hoeffer, 1903-1976) was one of the rare ones who worked in Hollywood as an actor, screenwriter and director " all three " during the talkie era. If that sounds W…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:24AM[SHARE]Sunday, December 12, 2021
Grateful homage today to Margo Jones (Margaret Virginia Jones, 1911-1955), whose contributions to American culture were significant and real, though they are often badly articulated and misu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:33AM[SHARE]Saturday, December 11, 2021
Today, two weeks out from Christmas, you've no doubt heard the most lasting hit of Brenda Lee (Brenda Mae Tarpley, b. 1944) several times already, as America does every year. "Rockin' Around…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:24AM[SHARE]Well, I don't get Showtime, and I don't know anyone who does, but periodically they show something that makes me wish I did. Tonight they premiere a program called The Real Charlie Chaplin. …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:24AM[SHARE]Friday, December 10, 2021
A few words today on a Scottish strongman born in Banff as William Bankier (1870-1949). Bankier's father was, of all things, a hand loom weaver, an occupation that can hardly have been remun…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:42AM[SHARE]Thursday, December 9, 2021
This may come as news to many of you below a certain age, but some of us had not one, but two Hermiones in our lives prior to the 1997 publication of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone.…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:33AM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 8, 2021
The internet possesses no shortage of gushing, enthusiastic blogger valentines to the great actor Lee J. Cobb (1911-1976) and that's as it should be. So I'm not going to dwell on Cobb's exce…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:18PM[SHARE]It may be hard to credit for those who were alive and sentient back then but it's nonetheless true " while he was alive, Sam Kinison (1953-1992) was only prominent in the pop culture landsca…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:18PM[SHARE]Tuesday, December 7, 2021
80 years ago today, the air forces of Imperial Japan attacked the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, precipitating U.S. entry into World War Two. My Tennessee grandfather enlisted in t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:54AM[SHARE]Monday, December 6, 2021
A gingerly nod of the head today to Joseph Milana (1884-1959), a.k.a. Ajax the Great, Professor Ajax or the Mighty Ajax. A native of Washington DC, Milana began working in dime museums as a …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AM[SHARE]Sunday, December 5, 2021
Tonight, I was flipping through channels and stopped just in time to see a fan of one of my books accept her Kennedy Center Award from the President. Congratulations, Bette Midler. I am kvel…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:06PM[SHARE]With Steven Spielberg's reboot of West Side Story due for nationwide release this coming Friday, he will be the last of the major "New Hollywood" directors of the 1970s to tackle a famously …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:54PM[SHARE]Saturday, December 4, 2021
60 years ago (late 1961) a group named Joey Dee and the Starliters released a new variation on the Twist craze spawned by Chubby Checker the previous year. By January 1962, their single "The…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:18AM[SHARE]Friday, December 3, 2021
I had the best time this afternoon rapping with the illimitable Wayne Federman about comedy and vaudeville on his podcast. In addition to being the former headwriter for Jimmy Fallon, a co-p…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:54PM[SHARE]Tonight (December 3) at 8pm Eastern " our pal Torkova the magician and mentalist will be on Penn and Teller Fool Us on the CW Network. It was honor to present Bobby Torkova many a time in my…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:03AM[SHARE]Thursday, December 2, 2021
Having done ten posts about stars with the first name of Virginia and about a dozen with the last name of Carroll we must observe that Virginia Carroll (1913-2009) is a likely name for a fil…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:48PM[SHARE]Eddie Mekka (Rudolph Edward Mekjian, 1952-2021) was much more than "Carmine from Laverne and Shirley" of course, it's just that when you say his real name everyone goes "Who?" and when you s…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:48PM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
