Thursday, March 14, 2019
I only just became aware of supporting player Gene "Pop" Rogers (1866-1919) " he has a great turn in the L-KOÂ comedy Under New Management, which is in The Alice Howell Collection. During …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:14AM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Susan Miller (1920-2018) figures in a couple of important classic comedies, and she passed away just recently, so she rates a shout out here today. A native of Clark's Summit, Pennsylvania, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:33AM[SHARE]Wonderful happenstance that Dorothy Davenport's birthday falls during Women's History Month, for Davenport (1895-1977), was not just a pioneering director/producer/screenwriter/actress, but …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:42AM[SHARE]Tuesday, March 12, 2019
One of the more notable finds I stumbled across in my plundering of the library's worth of old TV Guides I found in my wife's house were these spreads plugging Liza Minnelli's now historic f…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:39PM[SHARE]A spotlight on stage and screen star Inez Courtney (1897-1975) this morning. Courtney, a redheaded Irish-American colleen, started her working life as a shopgirl (an apprentice milliner, to …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:59AM[SHARE]Just a few words of praise for Killy Dwyer's Sleep Depraved, which we caught in the Frigid Festival over the weekend. I'm not sure if I know anyone as talented as Killy, at least not anyone …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:46AM[SHARE]Monday, March 11, 2019
We were delighted over the weekend to have the opportunity to watch the new two-disk set The Alice Howell Collection. While I've read lots about the pathbreaking comedienne (whom we wrote ab…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:47PM[SHARE]As one would when writing about show business, I have had many occasions to mention Raoul Walsh (1887-1980) here. I have even done a post on his brother George! But I have not yet undertaken…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:44AM[SHARE]Much like Leo Carillo, with whom he appeared in some movies, Al Ernest Garcia (1887-1938), was a native Californian with deep Mexican roots (i.e. dated to the time before California became p…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:03AM[SHARE]Lillian Herlein (1895-1971) was only a teenager when she lucked into the flashy part of Zoradie in the Lew Fields"Victor Herbert show The Rose of Algeria (1909). Her turn was show-stopping e…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:28AM[SHARE]A shout out to chorine, actress, and screen beauty Esther Muir (1903-1995) today. Muir started out as a model in her native Andes, New York, which is located sort of midway between Binghamto…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:43AM[SHARE]Sunday, March 10, 2019
Like many of the supporting players on Sanford and Son (1972-77), Don Bexley (1910-97), who played Fred Sanford's best friend Bubba, was an old cohort of Redd Foxx's from the Chitlin' Circui…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:37AM[SHARE]Saturday, March 9, 2019
It gives me no end of delight to celebrate character actor David Landau (David H. Magee, 1878-1935) today. Classic comedy fans know Landau as characters like Jennings in The Marx Brothers Ho…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:55AM[SHARE]What a feast of riches it is acquainting oneself with the life and career of Will Geer (William Aughe Ghere, 1902-1978): actor, folksinger, political activist, and " wait for it " horticultu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:36AM[SHARE]Friday, March 8, 2019
Gene Fowler (1890-1960) is one of those figures known to show business aficionados, a friend of the famous, even if not a household word himself. Much like Ben Hecht, with whom Fowler collab…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:44AM[SHARE]Thursday, March 7, 2019
Bessie Allison Buchanan (1902-1980) had two remarkable careers. Since one of them was in show business we celebrate her here. Her born name was Bessie Allison, though her circumstances in li…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:16AM[SHARE]Alexander Carr (Alexander Krechevsky, 1878-1946) clambered into the arena of popular attention by playing Morris Perlmutter in the stage and screen hit Potash and Perlmutter and all its sequ…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:43AM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Today is not only the birthday of Ed McMahon (1923-2009) but we are also drawing close to the tenth anniversary of his death. I've been thinking recently that it would be interesting to do a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:46AM[SHARE]I first knew (or noticed) character actor Victor Kilian (1891-1979) from his hilarious role as Grandpa Larkin, the Fernwood Flasher, on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976-77). He'd had over 65…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:02AM[SHARE]Tuesday, March 5, 2019
Happy birthday, Paul Sand (Paul Sanchez, b. 1932). I became intrigued by this massive 1974 TV Guide spread. I recognized the face, but not the name, and certainly not the show they were hypi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:40PM[SHARE]Classic comedy fans know Walter Long (1879-1952) has a hilariously terrifying villain in four Laurel and Hardy comedies: Pardon Us (1931), Any Old Port (1932), Going Bye-Bye (1934), and T…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:46AM[SHARE]Minerva Pious (1903-1979), insomuch as she is remembered at all, is known almost exclusively for playing Mrs. Nussbaum in the "Allen's Alley" segments on Fred Allen's radio show. Her charact…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:09AM[SHARE]Ringgold Wilmer "Ring" Lardner (1885-1933) may be the only sportswriter I'll ever discuss here, and you know why he rates inclusion: he became even better known as a writer of Jazz Age humor…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:13AM[SHARE]Symona Boniface (1894-1950) was a bit player in films who enjoyed larger supporting parts in comedy shorts, in particular those of Three Stooges. She has been called the equivalent of the St…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:29AM[SHARE]Monday, March 4, 2019
New York born Robert Emmett Keane (1883-1981) started out in vaudeville. This review of a 1913 performance at Keith's Union Square describes him doing songs and patter as "The American Engli…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:55AM[SHARE]Violet MacMIllan (1887-1955) was a teenager in Grand Rapids who entered show business by way of a "Cinderella Girl" contest to discover the girl with the tiniest foot. By 1904 (age 17), she …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:25AM[SHARE]Sunday, March 3, 2019
I first learned about Canada Lee (1907-52) from Denise Oswald, my editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux. One of the books ahead of mine in the FSG pipeline was Mona Z. Smith's Becoming Somet…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:39PM[SHARE]If Charlotte Henry (1914-1980) seemed to have appeared from out of nowhere, she nearly did. A child model from Brooklyn, at age 14 she was cast in a Broadway production called Courage in 192…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:51PM[SHARE]Edwin Carewe (Jay Fox, 1883-1940) is arguably the most significant and important Native American film director to come out of Hollywood: 58 films to his credit over a 20 year span (1914-1934…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:44PM[SHARE]Billy Williams (Richard Isaac Banks, 1878-1915) was an Australian star of music hall, starting from around the turn of the last century. Originally from Melbourne, Williams arrived in the UK…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:02AM[SHARE]Juanita Hansen (1895-1961) was a local Los Angeles kid (originally from Iowa), who lucked out one day when she was cast in a supporting part in L. Frank Baum's movie version of The Patchwork…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:03AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
