Saturday, October 17, 2020
My previous apartment was about a ten minute walk from the Quaker Cemetery in Prospect Park which contains the last remains of Montgomery Clift (1920-1966). Double damn the exile that preven…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AM[SHARE]A wink and a nod to stage and screen character actress Sarah Padden (1881-1967). Half English/ half Irish, Padden immigrated to the U.S. as a child. During her stage career she supported Oti…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:36AM[SHARE]This year, the landmark 1980 comedy Airplane! turned 40; having referenced that film and its influential creators many a time on this blog, this seems an appropriate time to shine a spotligh…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:36AM[SHARE]Rex Bell (George Francis Beldam, 1903-1962) was one of the last silent movie cowboys and the husband of one of Hollywood's biggest stars, but almost certainly his most significant life's wor…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:36AM[SHARE]Thursday, October 15, 2020
Before we get to the best known acting credit of Jan Miner (1917-2004), I think it advisable to paint a broader picture of the complete artist. A Boston native, Miner studied with Lee Strasb…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:32PM[SHARE]Some props this morning for Oscar winning character actress Jane Darwell (Patti Woodard or Woodward, 1879-1967). Stout, sturdy Darwell was a familiar face on screens for a half century in ro…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:03AM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 14, 2020
Fans of The Masked Singer may be interested to know that the concept is nearly a century old. Joseph M. White (1891-1959) began appearing on radio as "The Silver Masked Tenor" in 1923 on sta…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:54AM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 13, 2020
Gertrude Howard (1892-1934) is best known today for playing Mae West's maid Beulah in I'm No Angel (1933), sadly one of her last films. Howard had been in movies since 1925, starting with th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:42AM[SHARE]I've never been able to unsee Robert Walker (1918-1951) as a big creep after firm seeing him in Strangers on a Train (1951). It was his penultimate film, though. Theoretically he's the boy-n…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:36AM[SHARE]Monday, October 12, 2020
Indiana born Victor Potel (1889-1947) was a 21 year old kid when he started out at Chicago based Essanay studios in 1910. By the time the sun set on his career he was in nearly 450 films. Po…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:32AM[SHARE]Sunday, October 11, 2020
Lowell Sherman (1888-1934) cut a rare figure in show business, both an actor and a director of both stage and screen. A third generation he went from working with David Belasco to D.W. Griff…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:48AM[SHARE]Saturday, October 10, 2020
Missouri native Marian or Marion Shockley (1911-1981, her name was spelled both ways professionally) was studying to be a history teacher when a lucky audition sent her down the primrose pat…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:42AM[SHARE]Friday, October 9, 2020
If things had gone another way, today John Lennon would be turning 80 years old today; we are also coming up on the 40th anniversary of his murder. Shortly we will know a post-Lennon world l…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:36AM[SHARE]Thursday, October 8, 2020
There is much to savor about the work stage and screen director Rouben Mamoulian (1897-1987). Though Mamoulian directed fewer than a dozen and a half Hollywood films, several are classics or…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:18PM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 7, 2020
A tip of the hat today to silent screen star Jack Mulhall (1887-1979). Mulhall was from upstate Wappinger's Falls, New York and started out as a teenager working carnivals and vaudeville, th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:03PM[SHARE]Yesterday, the music world lost two trailblazers, each of whom only hit the #1 spot once on the pop charts, but who both left much much greater legacies than that might imply. Johnny Nash wa…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:42AM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 6, 2020
One Week From Today, October 13, 7pm: Show Business 101 I hope you'll tune in next Tuesday for my online talk for the The South Orange-Maplewood Adult School. What you'll learn: American …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:06PM[SHARE]Saddened to hear the news about the passing of Ernie Orsatti (1940-2020) back on September 12. He was the son of two remarkable parents. His father Ernie Orsatti, Sr, had been a stand-in for…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:18AM[SHARE]Monday, October 5, 2020
With little prompting, I could wax enthusiastic about Glynis Johns (b. 1923) to an unseemly degree. In her youth she was often cast as a sexpot; in middle-age there remained more than a hint…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:54PM[SHARE]Sunday, October 4, 2020
When I was a kid and heard the name of Damon Runyon (1880-1946) mentioned, I had the wrong idea about what he wrote. I don't know why, but I somehow got the notion that he was a writer of to…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:48PM[SHARE]I may have eventually got 'round to a post on director Stan Dragoti (1932-2018) but probably not as soon as today. The fast track is accounted for by the fact that he was an old friend of my…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:48PM[SHARE]Saturday, October 3, 2020
I have long been amused that the name "Chubby Checker" is similar to those of Fats Domino and Leonard Chess " this faction of the early rock and roll pantheon sounds like the game shelf. It …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:36AM[SHARE]This morning's subject is not to be confused with the other Johnny Burke the minor film comedian. This Johnny Burke (1908-1964) was a tin pan alley songwriter, usually a lyricist. A graduate…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:36AM[SHARE]Friday, October 2, 2020
Classic comedy fans may know Matthew Coniam as one of the presenters of the Marx Brothers Council Podcast. But his interests and research are wide ranging (from Jane Austen to Egyptomania) a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06PM[SHARE]Thursday, October 1, 2020
October 1 is the natal day of the late Tom Bosley (1927-2010) and we're just a couple of weeks shy of the 10th anniversary of his death, and we've dropped his name here on Travalanche about …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:32PM[SHARE]It's just so weird and uncanny that Mac Davis died on the same day as Helen Reddy " they were both the same age, they came to fame at the same time, they both had similar careers (encompassi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:32PM[SHARE]Almost as if I KNEW I would be cooped up in my house for a year, just about a year ago I stretched my legs a bit and traveled to San Francisco and environs and western New York and some othe…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:32PM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 30, 2020
I selected the photo above not because it is the best representation of George Bancroft (1882-1956) but because it represents the film role of his which I know best, the part of Marshall Cur…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:18AM[SHARE]I had already been planning a post on Helen Reddy (b. 1941), her birthday is in less than a month, but upon learning of her passing yesterday, we elevate her to where she was during much of …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:12AM[SHARE]Tuesday, September 29, 2020
It is inevitable that I will do a post on Deadwood, which I rate the highest TV western series ever made (at least in terms of production values; arguments can be made about the writing). Am…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:48PM[SHARE]If you're reading this blog you no doubt hold the late Madeline Kahn (1942-1999) high in your esteem already; but now that I look at her career in its totality I am fairly agog. Like most, I…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:32PM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
