Monday, August 5, 2013
Today is the birthday of pioneering female comedy writer Selma Diamond (1920-1985). Raised in Brooklyn, her first professional credits were cartoons and humor pieces for The New Yorker. I…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:56AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Joseph Merrick (sometimes known incorrectly as “John”, 1862-1890). Born normal, the physical deformities that gave him his nickname began to emerge in ch…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:19AM[SHARE]Today is the 102nd birthday of the still-living John Calvert (b. 1911). The Indiana native was inspired to take up magic by a boyhood trip to see the legendary Howard Thurston. He began his …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:30AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of The Great Leon (Leon Levy, 1876-1951). This vaudeville magician was best known for his illusion “Fire and Water”, in which an assistant was wrapped in pa…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:53AM[SHARE]Sunday, August 4, 2013
Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: burlesque, Lone Star Follies, Texas, Triad
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:36AM[SHARE]Originally posted in 2011. August 4, 1901 is the birthday of the great Louis Armstrong. (He gave it out himself as July 4, 1900, but the records tell differently). He never played vaudeville…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:08AM[SHARE]Originally published in 2010. Helen Kane was one of those figures — like Josephine Baker, Eddie Cantor, and Texas Guinan - -who defined the spirit of the 1920s. With he…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:00AM[SHARE]\ Today is the birthday of Abe Lyman (Abraham Simon, 1897-1957). Lyman started off in his youth as a drummer in Chicago night clubs. By 1919 he had his own nine piece band that was popular i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:43AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of the great showman William Cameron Coup (1836-1895). An Indiana native, Coup worked first as a printer and then (starting in 1853) managed the side show of Mabies Gra…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:12AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of music hall star Charles Coborn (Charles Whitton McCallum, 1852-1945). Coborn was largely associated with two songs: “Two Lovely Black Eyes” (1886) andÂ…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:48AM[SHARE]Saturday, August 3, 2013
Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Chris McDaniel, Gal Friday, Gotham Burlesque, Triad
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:15AM[SHARE]Today is Tony Bennett’s birthday (Anthony Bennedetto, b. 1926). I worked for him as a factotum in the early 1990s (hence the above, taken at the Performing Arts tent in Beverly, Mass).…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:39AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Bill B. Van (William Webster Van de Grift, 1878-1950). He got his start as a child actor in a Philadelphia production of H.M.S. Pinafore, moved on to blackface mi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:53AM[SHARE]Vera Fokine (1886-1958) graduated from the Russian Imperial School of Ballet in 1904 and married influential choreographer Michel Fokine the following year. In 1919 the two fled the Revoluti…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:45AM[SHARE]Today the Silent Clowns film series presents Louise Fazenda in Footloose Widows (1926) a snappy comedy about two gold diggers on the prowl at a swanky resort hotel. Sharing today's spo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:33AM[SHARE]Friday, August 2, 2013
That heading may sound like internecine struggles amongst curators, administrators and philanthropists, but it really refers to two excellent exhibitions we saw at the Met Museum yesterday,…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:49AM[SHARE]Today is opening day of Burlington, Vermont’s Festival of Fools, now in its sixth year. The Festival of Fools is a curated festival of street theater devoted to community engagement th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:39AM[SHARE]Originally posted in 2009. Today is the birthday of Helen Morgan (1900-1941). Ms. Morgan created the role of the drunken, melancholy torch singer, sitting on top of a piano in a night…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:30AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of James “Paul” Parrott (1897-1939). Parrott broke into films in 1917 through the good graces of his older brother Charles, a.k.a Charley Chase, who was the…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:09AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Bob Burns (1890-1956). Burns was just an Arkansas teenager playing in local brass bands when he invented his own humorous looking trombone-like instrument out of plu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:29AM[SHARE]Thursday, August 1, 2013
Filed under: BROOKLYN, EXHIBITIONS & LECTURES, PLUGS, SOCIAL EVENTS Tagged: Pirate Ball, Red Hook, Waterfront Museum
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:50AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Dominick “Dom” DeLuise (1933-2009). Here’s something odd: DeLuise’s Wiki entry mentions everything about his career — all his movie app…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:10AM[SHARE]Originally posted in 2009 EVA TANGUAY""THE 'I DON'T CARE' GIRL" "She came on like a meteor, but there is a lasting quality. What is that quality? Radium? Electricity? Sheer nerve? Or, as Eva…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:53AM[SHARE]Originally posted in 2011 This gentleman (born today in 1819) is one of my literary heroes. A tribute to this is the fact that my interest in him survived an introduction to his great master…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:44AM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Drawing by Carolyn Raship Wednesday, August 7 at 9pm at Coney Island USA: Trav S.D. (American Vaudeville Theatre) and a High Kicking Chorus of Cuties recreate burlesque as it was in Coney…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:11AM[SHARE]The last chapter of our book Chain of Fools talks about contemporary performers who are making original silent comedy films. And, lo and behold, Sammy Tramp, whom we’re presentin…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:31AM[SHARE]Originally posted in 2010 You’ve undoubtedly seen Clarence Kolb (born this day in 1874) more than once in your movie watching history without knowing it. He was a popular chara…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:07AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Paul “Mousie” Garner (1909-2004). He started out in vaudeville at the age of four with his family’s act. As a young adult Garner was hired by Ted H…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:43AM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Originally posted in 2010 Once upon a time, a young Czech performer named Martin Beck had been touring the Americas with a German singing and juggling troupe. Stranded by his company in Chic…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:52AM[SHARE]Monday, July 29, 2013
Originally posted in 2010 William Powell (born this day in 1892) was no “star” of vaudeville, but he did do some time there during his years of struggle from the time of his grad…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:00PM[SHARE]We (and probably you) have been much enjoying Kate Mulgrew’s Russian cookie and cell-block boss lately in Orange is the New Black. I’ve come across much online chatter to t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:04AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
