Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Just a few brief words of acknowledgment for Rose Wilder Lane (1886-1968). Today Lane is best known as instigator-editor-maybe-ghostwriter of her mother Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little H…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:12PM[SHARE]Tomorrow, December 6 on TCM, starting at 6am (EST): several classic Laurel and Hardy features. Please follow me on Twitter at @TravSD — I may live tweet along with the movie as I often…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:06PM[SHARE]A long overdue post on Walt Disney (1901-1966) today. I have only dragged my feet to this point because Disney is one of those figures who is so major, and possesses so many facets (cartooni…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:04PM[SHARE]Some fragments on the mysterious Pat Goldin (1902-1971). Goldin appears to have been a vaudeville veteran who had been part of acrobatic duo, and later taught dance. He was a small fellow, a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:32AM[SHARE]Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Philip Bosco (b. 1930) passed away yesterday. We felt a special connection to this solid actor for many reasons. He narrated Ric Burns’ 1990 Coney Island documentary, and did voice-ove…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:24PM[SHARE]I was so happy to be reminded of this show a few days back. I enjoyed Carter Country (1977-79) as a kid; it resonated and it was funny. With the hindsight of decades it seems both brave and …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:12AM[SHARE]Monday, December 3, 2018
It’s kind of perfect that Andy Williams’ birthday falls during the Christmas season, isn’t it? My prime-time TV watching days started after he stopped doing his weekly vari…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:24AM[SHARE]December 3 is the birthday of an interesting and anomalous Hollywood star Richard Talmadge (1892-1981). Talmadge was a person of so much fluidity and variation, he’s impossible to put …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:18AM[SHARE]Sunday, December 2, 2018
Sometimes a sad death moves a much-delayed profile to the top of the queue prematurely. So it is with Ken Berry, who passed away yesterday at the age of 85. A likable light comedian and a su…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:12AM[SHARE]Saturday, December 1, 2018
It was very cool to realize last night I am related to Rex Stout (1886-1975), and pretty close, too, as things go. His great-great grandfather Charles Stout (1742-1822), is my (6th) great gr…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:24AM[SHARE]Those old enough to remember the peculiar phenomenon of The Lennon Sisters at all are apt to associate them almost entirely with The Lawrence Welk Show. They made their television debut ther…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:18AM[SHARE]Just a few of the known facts on comedy character actor Barney Hellum (Bjarne Fredrik Hellum, 1895-1935), who appeared as a bit player in films for a decade, including some comedy classics, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:12AM[SHARE]Friday, November 30, 2018
For the birthday of Efrem Zimablist Jr. (1918-2014), a look at his best known show The F.B.I. (1965-1974). The show is a fascinating artifact itself, but the life of Zimbalist is also plenty…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AM[SHARE]Thursday, November 29, 2018
We’ve got King Kong on the brain of late. We caught the new Broadway show on opening night, and several of our friends are appearing in Lisa Clair’s The Making of King Kong, open…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:12AM[SHARE]Wednesday, November 28, 2018
In films, Arthur Stone (Arthur Taykor Goetze, 1883-1940) arrived late and left early. He was over 40 when he began starring in comedy shorts for Hal Roach in 1924; and was only 58 when he sh…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AM[SHARE]Tuesday, November 27, 2018
Today, we cast our gaze backward across the Atlantic for a few words of tribute to the popular British comedy team Morecambe and Wise. The team was composed of Ernie Wise, whose birthday it …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:54AM[SHARE]Monday, November 26, 2018
It’s #CyberMonday once again and so this backward looking Neo-Luddite feels obligated to engage as best he can in the catch-as-catch-can world of e-commerce. As you can see from the ab…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:06PM[SHARE]I cop to this without embarrassment because I was a kid at the time: when it was announced that Ronald Reagan was replacing Alexander Haig with George Schultz as Secretary of State, I though…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AM[SHARE]Sunday, November 25, 2018
A few words today in memory of beloved screen star Ricardo Montalban (1920-2009). It would be foolhardy of us not to make Montalban’s best-known role, the suave and jovial Mr. Roark…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:54AM[SHARE]Saturday, November 24, 2018
Something sad seems to happened on the quiet; even as we were busy mourning the demise of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus last year, an organization of comparable age and eminence…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:18AM[SHARE]Friday, November 23, 2018
Today a celebration of actor/director/producer/tv host John Newland (1917-2000), nowadays chiefly remembered, when at all, for the supercool ABC TV series he hosted and directed for three se…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:24AM[SHARE]Often referred to as a “vaudeville singer” or a “singing comedian”, Al Bernard (Alfred Aloysius Bernard, 1888-1949) was primarily a recording artist, one who was both…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:12AM[SHARE]Thursday, November 22, 2018
Since we wrote extensively about Gilligan Island (and Sherwood Schwartz’s pretensions) just a few days ago we are amused to learn that a new movie is opening at Cinema Village in NYC t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:06AM[SHARE]Wednesday, November 21, 2018
While one of the bigger dramatic stars of the silent film era, Corinne Griffith (1894-1979) is today better remember for things she did decades afterward. No relation to film director D.W. G…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:48AM[SHARE]Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Chester Gould (1900-1985), creator of Dick Tracy, was born on this day. Dick Tracy has always been on my shortlist of favorite comic strips, and is easily my favorite manifestation of no…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:04PM[SHARE]Some brief words of acknowledgment today for actor/ comedian/ gameshow host Richard Dawson (Colin Lionel Emm (1932-2012). Actually probably best to reverse the order of those credits, eh? Ga…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:42AM[SHARE]Monday, November 19, 2018
November 19 is the birthday of Barbara Popejoy, a.k.a Lorna Maitland (b. 1943) a star of the Russ Meyer constellation from 1964 through 1965, with some residual presence in the business the …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:24PM[SHARE]Tonight, 10pm at Beauty Bar, 231 East 14th Street, see Betsy Propane, Gin Minsky, Tanya Solomon, Lee Valone Drag in the Smoke Show, with DJ Twig the Wonderkid. The show is free with the purc…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:04PM[SHARE]Saturday, November 17, 2018
“Everything goes in threes” is the rule. And so it was on the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie, despite having four rotating shows at any given time. Somehow whatever the fourth show was…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:04AM[SHARE]Friday, November 16, 2018
It’s the birthday of Burgess Meredith (1907-1997); having already written a biographical post about the late star, I thought today I’d honor him by paying some attention to the e…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:06AM[SHARE]The sad, wasted life of starlet Barbara Payton (Barbara Lee Redfield,1927-67) is usually told as a footnote in the lives of bigger stars. Despite having seen her in a couple of films, I̵…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:54AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
