Monday, February 5, 2018
Black History Month is the perfect time to acknowledge an iconic venue that provided prestige, high salaries and a prominent outlet for so many of the African American entertainers we’…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, February 4, 2018
Eddie Foy, Jr. (1905-1983) was born on February 4. Foy was actually Eddie Foy, Sr.’s fourth son, and was given the honor of being his famous father’s namesake by virtue of th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:35AM[SHARE]John W. Isham (1866-1902) was a producer of groundbreaking all-black minstrel and proto-burlesque shows. Of mixed-race ancestry, he often “passed” for white, which gave him emplo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:57AM[SHARE]Saturday, February 3, 2018
February 3 is the birthday of the legendary Broadway producer Sam H. Harris (1872-1941). It’s a famous name, but one that is apt to cause confusion. He was not, for example, related to…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:13AM[SHARE]Just a brief squib on 19th century actor Edwin Adams (1834-1877). Born in Medford, Mass. on this day in 1834, I think it more likely than not that he bears some relation to those Adams (the …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:52AM[SHARE]Friday, February 2, 2018
Just got word that Connie Sawyer (Rose Cohen, 1912-2018) passed on January 21 at the age of 105. She was America’s oldest working actress, as well as the oldest member of both the Scre…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:12AM[SHARE]The Weaver Brothers and Elviry were one of vaudeville’s more successful hillbilly acts. The performers were the genuine article. Leon a.k.a.“Abner” Weaver (1885-1962) and F…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:26AM[SHARE]Wednesday, January 31, 2018
It’s the late Norm Prescott’s birthday and so it seems high time I blogged a little appreciation for the company he ran with Lou Scheimer and Hal Sutherland, Filmation Associates…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:20AM[SHARE]Jans and Harold were a popular vaudeville team from 1922 through 1935, whose unique act was a combination of peppy comedy crosstalk, song and dance. The team consisted of  Harold Whale…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:12AM[SHARE]Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Our Accidental President gives his State of the Union Address tonight, perhaps more accurately titled, “The 1,002nd Arabian Night: A Wonder Tale from Russia.” On behalf of the Ma…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:45AM[SHARE]At the age of 11, Jeanne Devereaux (Jean Helman, 1912-2011) became an international ballet star. Born in St. Louis, she was given the responsibility at a young age to help support her family…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:19AM[SHARE]Monday, January 29, 2018
January 29 is the birthday of the celebrated film director Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947) The son of a Berlin clothing manufacturer, Lubitsch went into theatre as a young man, initially as an ac…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:10PM[SHARE]Sunday, January 28, 2018
Ziegfeld star Vera Maxwell (1892-1950) has unfortunately been eclipsed in the public’s mind by another dancer by the same name who came slightly later and lived much longer (1901-1995)…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:56PM[SHARE] For some reason I have no desire to know, January 28 has been designated National Kazoo Day. While the kazoo may be associated with vaudeville and vaudeville music in the popular mind…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:59AM[SHARE]Saturday, January 27, 2018
Cartoonist Mort Walker just passed away at age 94. I was surprised to hear he was still around, as I think it’s been a good long while he was directly responsible for turning out his c…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:36PM[SHARE]Friday, January 26, 2018
I’ve been attending Off-Off Broadway theatre for over 30 years, and covering it as a critic/arts journalist for almost 20. When you’ve seen a lot of water flow under the bridge, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:27PM[SHARE]According to sources, today has been designated “National Spouse Day”, which not only seems redundant, but possibly excessive and even cruel. It’s single people who need a …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:35AM[SHARE]Happy Australia Day! We’re truly sorry that our embarrassment of a President yelled at and hung up on your Prime Minister as one of his first official acts, Australia. The American peo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:25AM[SHARE]Milwaukee native Ben Bard (Benjamin Greenberg, 1893-1974) had one of show business’s most eclectic careers, with successes both in and out of the spotlight. As a teenager, billed as B.…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:12AM[SHARE]Thursday, January 25, 2018
It’s Robert Burns’ birthday. I was going to tape myself reading “Ode to a Hagis” ( a real poem, btw) but instead there’s this, which has nothing to do with Robe…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:19AM[SHARE]Today being the birthday of the late Dean Jones (1931-2015) I thought it only fitting to talk about a sit-com he starred in that I learned about only yesterday, which happened to be Marvin K…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:51AM[SHARE]Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Ernest Borgnine (1917-2012), had an exceedingly rare career trajectory: he had an excellent (Oscar winning) film career, then a hit tv show, then he returned to a great movie career pretty m…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:43PM[SHARE]Just a few words to hopefully illuminate the memory of Estelle Winwood (1883-1984 — yes she was 101 when she died). Most of us know her chiefly from when she was already ANCIENT! She i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:15AM[SHARE]For almost 70 years, Marvin Kaplan (1927-2016) was a familiar face and voice to American audiences, so perfect as a Marvin that his characters were often named Marvin, or something lateral l…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:04AM[SHARE]One of the glories of Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) is that the starring super-trio contains both Tura Santana AND Haji. In a Hollywood movie at that time, and f…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:46AM[SHARE]Tuesday, January 23, 2018
There are many 19th century actors I wish I could go back in time to see. Benoît-Constant Coquelin (1841-1909) is one of the few non-English speakers to make the list. Coquelin was…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:50AM[SHARE]Monday, January 22, 2018
Theodore Kosloff (Fyodor Mikhailovich Koslov, 1882-1956) had an exceedingly rare career trajectory…from international ballet star to Broadway choreographer to silent movie star to danc…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:08PM[SHARE]Stage and screen performer June Knight was born Margaret Rose Valliquietto on January 22, 1913 in Los Angeles, California. Plagued by an almost unbelievable string of childhood diseases incl…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, January 21, 2018
January 21 is the birthday of Aristotelis “Telly” Savalas (1922-1994). It is hard to describe what a phenomenon his hit tv series Kojack was in the 1970s. It was not just an …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:34PM[SHARE]Saturday, January 20, 2018
Just a quick shout out to honor the natal day of actor Henry James Montague (Henry John Mann, 1843-1878). Montagu came to our attention through that eerie, ghostly portrait above, which hang…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:47AM[SHARE]Friday, January 19, 2018
R.I.P. Dorothy Malone, who passed away today at age 92. I was surprised to note just how how many of her performances I had seen. In truth, Malone’s best known work was in the sort…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:31PM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
