Sunday, October 7, 2018
Fire Prevention Week begins today. Any study of history is to become aware of the frequency and the severity of fires in human existence prior to modern regulations and fire prevention metho…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:54AM[SHARE]Thursday, October 4, 2018
Today is Buster Keaton’s birthday. See my biographical article on the great silent comedian’s early years here and the Buster Keaton section of Travalanche, containing c…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:36AM[SHARE]I had originally scheduled this post for tomorrow, A Star is Born’s announced U.S. release date. But it already seems to be playing here in New York as of today, and critical word is a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:32AM[SHARE]A brief nod to Borscht Belt comedian Jan Murray (Murray Janofsky, 1916-2006), whose birthday is today. Murray was a frequent television presence when I was a kid — the kind of entertai…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:18AM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 3, 2018
The great Italian actress Eleonora Duse (1859-1924) was born this calendar day. Often spoke of in terms of rivalry with Sarah Bernhardt, in reality Duse was considered by many, including Geo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:18AM[SHARE]Twitter has declared it National Boyfriends Day, and so this post on a minor series of comedy shorts from the early ’30s. The Boyfriends was a talkie comedy series produced by Hal Roac…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:06AM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 2, 2018
Strange but true: Coco the Clown shared a birthday with Toto the Clown, October 2. At least the elder Coco did. There were at least two, a father and a son, who used that handle. The father,…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:42AM[SHARE]Monday, October 1, 2018
As we’ve already announced, we are thrilled to be playing the title character in Edward Einhorn’s The Resistible Rise of J.R. Brinkley, October 12-28. October happens to be a for…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:24AM[SHARE]Having done posts on the stars in favorite movies like The Wizard of Oz and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, it occurred to me that I was well on the way to doing as much for another f…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:18AM[SHARE]Buon compleanno, Joe Kirk (Ignazio Curcuruto, 1903-1975)! The son of Sicilian immigrants, Kirk started out as a vaudeville comedian and emcee in the 1930s. His most fortuitous career move, h…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:18AM[SHARE]Just a quick note on Alice Joyce (1890-1955), “The Madonna of the Screen”. Joyce’s film career worked in round numbers, stretching from 1910 through 1930 and consisting mos…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:12AM[SHARE]Sunday, September 30, 2018
Today we pay tribute to Kenny Baker (1912-1985) and by that we mean neither the little person who played R2D2 in Star Wars (as most of our friends probably would) nor the fiddler who pla…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:18AM[SHARE]Saturday, September 29, 2018
True fans of the tv series M*A*S*H will understand why I chose the birthday of Larry Linville (1939-2000), and not that of, say, Larry Gelbart or Alan Alda, on which to post a tribute to …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:06AM[SHARE]A tribute today today to impresario Nils T. Granlund (1890-1957), once a player in the realms of Broadway, vaudeville, nightclubs, radio, and movies, and with experience in print journalism …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:04AM[SHARE]Friday, September 28, 2018
Well, it’s #NationalDrinkBeerDay according to Twitter, and America seems poised to elevate its first Douche Bro to a seat on the Supreme Court despite some serious blots on his charact…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AM[SHARE]This is Part Three of Carolyn Raship’s Agatha Christie series launched here; and Part Two of the Poirot portion launched here. In the post war era the literary construct called Her…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AM[SHARE]Thursday, September 27, 2018
Tonight: Thursday, September 27, 2018, 7-9pm Mabel Normand and Sailor’s Snug Harbor A fascinating look at the life of silent film actress Mabel Normand, who is famous for her roles…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:12AM[SHARE]Described as the "father of American music," Stephen Foster penned an oeuvre that includes "Beautiful Dreamer" and "Hard Times Come Again No More," songs that helped weave the fabric of Amer…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:12AM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 26, 2018
On this day in 1975, a topical television movie called Death Scream premiered on ABC. Death Scream was a huge television event, I watched it with my family when it premiered. Loosely base…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:18AM[SHARE]Tuesday, September 25, 2018
This one’s been a long time coming! It’s occurred to me in recent years just how influential my K-Tel novelty records were on me as a kid. From a distance these old novelty hits …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:36AM[SHARE]I didn’t get the memo until just now (5 weeks late): Mary Carlisle, the last surviving WAMPAS Baby Star, passed away on August 1 at the age of 104. Carlisle was born Gwendolyn Witter i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:12AM[SHARE]Monday, September 24, 2018
A birthday shout-out to the great low-budget horror auteur Bert I. Gordon (b. 1922). Think of this post as a bit of foreshadowing and a promotion of what’s upcoming…for October n…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:12AM[SHARE]Each month, Theater of the Apes plucks a long forgotten volume from the shelves of the New York Society Library and resurrects it as NECROMANCERS OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, a low budg…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:06AM[SHARE]Sunday, September 23, 2018
For over a year and a half now now, my little backwater of the internet has been a-titter with the news that a new bio-pic about Laurel and Hardy was in the works starring John C. Reilly and…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:48AM[SHARE]Saturday, September 22, 2018
Today is the official publication date of Paula Finn’s new book Sitcom Writers Talk Shop. One is always ready for a book like this to be skimpy…it’s often the kind of bo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:33AM[SHARE]Paul Muni’s career is an interesting window into public perception. Speaking personally, I always most associated him with those 1932 classics Scarface and I am a Fugitive from a Gang.…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:33AM[SHARE]A special birthday nod to comedian and comic actor Art Metrano (b. 1936). Metrano’s signature bit is better known than either his name or any of his roles. It has woven its way into fo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:33AM[SHARE]Friday, September 21, 2018
The idea for this post came to me after writing my Barbara Eden/ I Dream of Jeannie post a month ago. But news that tonight TCM will be showing several genie themed movies tonight (September…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:06PM[SHARE]A top of the hat today to vaudeville/ music hall/ panto performer Lil Hawthorne (1877-1926). Hawthorne was a big-ish star in her day; audiences of her time would be nonplussed to learn that …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:54AM[SHARE]Thursday, September 20, 2018
This just in over the transom: Ginger Rogers’ birthplace, 100 West Moore Street, Independence, Missouri, is now a museum. The Ginger House Museum, containing artifacts and memorabilia …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:54AM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Okay — clowns are seriously intruding on my consciousness lately. So many pieces of clown fluff have been floating my way, I thought it would make sense to paste them altogether into o…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:06PM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
