Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Today is the birthday of Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970). About five years ago when I gave a talk in Seattle about  their local vaudeville history, I dropped the bombshell that Jimi Hendrix̵…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:10AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of James Agee (1909-1955). Over the past twenty years I have managed to go from dismissing him in my ignorance to totally revering him. Well, it’s all in how some…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:22AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Buffalo Bob Smith (1917-1998). Buffalo native Robert Emil Schmidt started out in local radio in the early 1940s. His upstate success was so great, that he was brough…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:21AM[SHARE]Monday, November 26, 2012
This is one in a series of posts we are producing in connection with our new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, available from Bear Manor Media…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:11AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Wayland Flowers (1939-1988). I got an earful from the makers of a ventriloquism documentary a few months back when I opened that Flowers was unjustly excluded from t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:39AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Roumanian-French absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco (1909-1994). In 1960 he claimed that the three greatest influences on his writing had been Groucho, Chico and Ha…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:30AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Star of Vaudeville #264: Vesta Victoria (for more on her, go here). Now for your delectation, from 1912, here is “Look What Percy’s Picked Up in the Park…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:28AM[SHARE]Sunday, November 25, 2012
This is one in a series of posts we are producing in connection with our new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, available from Bear Manor Media…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:11AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Jonathan R. Bass (1830-1892). Bass was one of a sub-branch of exhibited peoples known as “ossified men”. Afllicted with rheumatism since childhood, he…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:15AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Eva Puck (1892-1979). Through most of her childhood and some of her young adulthood she was in a vaudeville two-act with her brother, known variously as “Puck …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:34AM[SHARE]Saturday, November 24, 2012
Today is the birthday of Sealo, the Seal Boy (1899-1980). It is unknown technically what condition he suffered from to produce his flipper-like appendages; he was born a half century …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:45AM[SHARE] Today is the birthday of Richiardi, Jr. (Aldo Izquierdo, 19243-1985), the son of magician Richiardi the Great. Of Peruvian descent, his claim to fame was horrific special effects (e.g…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:52AM[SHARE]This is one in a series of posts we are producing in connection with our new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, available from Bear Ma…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:23AM[SHARE]Friday, November 23, 2012
P.T. Selbit (1881-1938) was the first magician to saw a woman in half. His actual name was Perry Thomas Tibbles (he arrived at his stage name by spelling that backwards and taking out a &…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:45AM[SHARE]Benny Ryan is best known today as a George Burns anecdote; he was his rival for Gracie’s hand, and by all accounts she didn’t make it easy for either one of them. Ironically B…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:04AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of William Henry Pratt (1887-1969), a.k.a Boris Karloff. A native of Enfield, England, he dropped out of college in 1909 to follow his dream of becoming an actor, worki…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:04AM[SHARE]This is one in a series of posts we are producing in connection with our new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, available from Bear Manor Media…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:24AM[SHARE]This is one in a series of posts we are producing in connection with our new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, available from Bear Ma…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:19AM[SHARE]Thursday, November 22, 2012
Tomorrow is the nationwide release day for the new movie Hitchcock. Presumably in recognition of that fact, tomorrow all morning TCM is running a bunch of his films. Here’s the schedul…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:59PM[SHARE] Today is the birthday of Terry Gilliam (b. 1940). I think he is one of our greatest film-makers (though he stops just short of his potential), which is why of course he rarely seems a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:39AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of the great American songwriter Howard Hoagland “Hoagy” Carmichael (1899-1981), responsible for “Stardust”, “Skylark”, “Georg…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:57AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Jacob Cohen, a.k.a. Rodney Dangerfield (1921-2004). The son of vaudeville comedian Phil Roy (Philip Cohen), he began writing jokes for other comedians as a teenager,…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:50AM[SHARE]Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Today is the birthday of jazz tenor saxophonist and bebop pioneer Coleman Hawkins (1904-1969). Given the subject matter, I thought I’d hold this post for the night owls. Have a …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:29PM[SHARE] Today is the birthday of Francois-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire (1694-1778): champion everywhere of freedom: of speech, of religion, of trade, etc etc. Though he wrote histor…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:38PM[SHARE] Today is the birthday of Rene Magritte (1898-1967). If he is not already the favorite painter of clowns everywhere, I nominate him for that position, by virtue of the strain of the ab…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:24AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Goldie Hawn (b. 1945). That is actually her real name. A lot of people make the erroneous assumption (at least I did) that she was just a go-go dancer who was hired …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:10AM[SHARE]They grow ‘em cool in New Orleans but they also grow ‘em weird. (That “but” is for your benefit. If it ain’t weird, I ain’t interested). Dr. John (born Ma…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:41AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Star of Vaudeville #81, Eleanor Powell (for my full article on her go here). Here is what purports to be a clip of her live nightclub act: To find out more about the…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:51AM[SHARE]This is one in a series of posts we are producing in connection with our new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, available from Bear Manor Media…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:28AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Francis Leon (b. Francis Patrick Glassey, 1844-1883), one of America’s first female impersonators. Trained as an operatic boy soprano, he went on the minstrel …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:23AM[SHARE]Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Today is the birthday of Little Dickie Smothers (born 1939). I often think of the act he did with his brother Tommy (born 1937) as the last American comedy team with a wide national exposure…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:38AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
