Friday, May 22, 2020
I share this cockamamie little post with you in observation of National Maritime Day (May 22). It concerns a now obscure historical cul-de-sac that I've become sort of obsessed with via a ha…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:24AM[SHARE]Thursday, May 21, 2020
Today we show respect to the very large personality known as Mr. T (Lawrence Turead, b. 1952). Reduced by the public to a catchphrase and an iconic look, Mr. T. is actually a complex welter …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:24AM[SHARE]Some attention today for Johnny Burke (1881-1952), but not the songwriter who penned Tin Pan Alley tunes with Jimmy Van Heusen " that's a topic for a different day. This Johnny Burke was a v…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:18AM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Edith Fellows (1923-2011) is chiefly remembered as a child star, although her career lasted (with gaps) for over 65 years. Fellows was only five years old when cast as a bratty kid in the hi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:12AM[SHARE]Tuesday, May 19, 2020
 Marie Lloyd Jr (Maud Courtenay, 1888-1967) was the daughter of the top English music hall star of her day. Her mother, Marie Lloyd was only 18 years old when she was born and already a …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:18AM[SHARE]Monday, May 18, 2020
Mary Howard (1913-2009) first came on to my radar as the ingenue in the Frank Morgan classic The Wild Man of Borneo (1941), originally devised as a vehicle for W.C. Fields. Her credits we…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AM[SHARE]Ruth Donnelly (1896-1982) figured as a character actress in a number of classic comedies and musicals such as Alibi Ike (1935) with Joe E. Brown, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), the "Annabel"…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AM[SHARE]Saturday, May 16, 2020
May 16, 1980 was the national release date for the hit movie Fame. This film and the eponymous TV series that followed (1982-87) were highly inspirational to me as a teenager, and no doubt t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:48AM[SHARE]Friday, May 15, 2020
This post is adapted from a talk I gave at the Coney Island Museum in August, 2019, in commemoration of the 80th anniversary of my favorite film The Wizard of Oz (1939). We share it today…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:18PM[SHARE]Thursday, May 14, 2020
As you can imagine your correspondent has been doing a crap-ton of writing during this lockdown, but now the process has begun of "getting it out there". It begins today with this video inte…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:36AM[SHARE]May 14 is the natal day of New Hollywood Boy Genius George Lucas (b. 1944). Having written about his most successful movie franchise just a few days ago, I thought today might be a propitiou…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:36AM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Having had many occasions to refer to the Brown Bomber Joe Louis (1914-1981), we thought it time he should rate his own post here. Unlike most of the pugilists we've written about, Louis cam…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:12AM[SHARE]Tuesday, May 12, 2020
I feel like I've been hit by a truck. David Green, my stage manager on I'll Say She Is has died of Covid-19. David wasn't a professional stage manager (though he was in the theatre) but we n…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AM[SHARE]This snippet was generated for upcoming publication in a popular vintage magazine, but I'm missing two vital snippets: from whence she came, and whither she wandered. The subject in question…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:06AM[SHARE]Sunday, May 10, 2020
MA JANIS Elsie Janis was so dependent on her domineering stage mother that she remained in some senses a "child star" until well after her fortieth year. Ma Janis did everything for her: coa…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:32AM[SHARE]Saturday, May 9, 2020
Reginald "Reggie" Wesgate Rymal (1921-2002) got his start in Toronto as a teenage yo-yo champion, but his ball-and-paddle act in nightclubs, film and television is what brought him brief fam…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:24AM[SHARE]Friday, May 8, 2020
50 years ago today, the Beatles' sad swan song Let It Be was released. Then and now, there was much to confound and confuse the casual observer about this ill-fated project. For just a few e…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:36AM[SHARE]Thursday, May 7, 2020
Clapham and Dwyer were a British music hall comedy duo of the 1920s and '30s. The team consisted of Birmingham native Charles Clapham (1894-1959) and William Henry "Bill" Dwyer (1887-1943), …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:36AM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 6, 2020
Today a celebration of circus strongwoman Katie Sandwina (Katherine Brumbach, 1884-1952). It seems extraordinary to me that she had the same birthday as Vulcana, another famous performer in …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:03PM[SHARE]I've had a couple of dozen occasions to refer to Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) on this blog. This fairly flimsy, scattershot post is frankly just to have something to link to! Freud's core theor…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:03PM[SHARE]Marty Brill (b. 1932) " am I right? Brill has had his finger in many pies over the years, except the middle finger of his right hand, which he lost due to an accident, which is probably why …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:03PM[SHARE]Tuesday, May 5, 2020
To learn more about show biz history, please see No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, and for more on classic comedy please read Chain of Fools: Sile…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:32PM[SHARE]Pat Carroll (b. 1927) has been entertaining audiences for over 70 years. I certainly recognized her onscreen when I was a kid, and that was three decades after she'd originally got rolling. …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:42AM[SHARE]Monday, May 4, 2020
Since we're all going to die, today I deliver a heresy: Â Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993) is a figure I respect enormously as an icon and a star but most of whose movies I have little use for. …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:48AM[SHARE]We find the qualifier in the headline necessary to differentiate our present subject from the pioneering female stand-up comedian Jean Carroll, who'd been in the team of Carroll and Howe. To…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:42AM[SHARE]Sunday, May 3, 2020
More than a few thoughts, lifted from my notebooks, to mark the birthday of playwright/screenwriter William Inge (1913-73). I was guilty of being dismissive of Inge for many years, mostly…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:18PM[SHARE]Saturday, May 2, 2020
Today Hedda Hopper (1885-1966) is almost exclusively remembered as a Holy Terror of a right-wing gossip columnist, champion of Joan Crawford, J. Edgar Hoover, and HUAC, and scourge of Charli…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:48AM[SHARE]Friday, May 1, 2020
There is a herky-jerky aspect to the career of Betty Ross Clarke (May Clarke, 1892-1970), preventing her career from attaining the kind of momentum it required to really get going. Clarke wa…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:03PM[SHARE]Several points of interest draw us to the topic of stage and screen actress Rose Hobart (Rose Kefer, 1906-2000). First, she figures in horror classics. She was Fredric March's leading lady i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:54AM[SHARE]Thursday, April 30, 2020
April 26, 1947 was the death day of animal impersonator George Ali (George Bolingbroke, born ca. 1866). Thank you, Matt Brady for suggesting him! (BTW, I don't ordinarily take requests. Let …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:06PM[SHARE]When I was a kid (it seems to me) a lot of the older women emulated Eve Arden (Eunice May Quedens, 1908-1990). Arden was beautiful and glamorous, but also imposing. She stood 5'7″, whi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:42AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
