Thursday, March 9, 2023
Let's establish one thing coming out of the starting gate: Mickey Spillane (Frank Morrison Spillane, 1918-2006) was not a good writer. You may see him in Hemingway-esque photographic poses, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:13AM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 8, 2023
Director Frank Borzage (1894-1962) may be best known to classic film buffs for his sound films, such as the Oscar winning Bad Girl (1931) with Sally Eilers, A Farewell to Arms (1932), the Jo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:53AM[SHARE]Tuesday, March 7, 2023
Last month I contemplated doing some sort of Black History listicle showcasing black artists who meant a lot to me personally. But I quickly gave it up as a bad job, because it was silly and…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:03AM[SHARE]Monday, March 6, 2023
Today is the natal day of the unfortunate Lou Costello. It is one of my chief joys in my life to bait his admirers here on Travalanche and watch them blow their stacks, and toward that end t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:26PM[SHARE]Born this day the Wild West showman, music hall performer, actor, aeronaut, and hoaxer Samuel Franklin Cody (Samuel Franklin Cowdery, 1867-1913). What an American moniker, eh? The first name…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:03AM[SHARE]Sunday, March 5, 2023
Actor Dean Stockwell (1936-2021) passed away about a year and a half ago, and I contemplated a post on him at that time, as I considered doing a piece on him long before that, but my good fr…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:02AM[SHARE]Saturday, March 4, 2023
Paula Prentiss (b. 1938) is often Paired with Popular People (the latter of the day is P, apparently). Chief among them, of course actor Richard Benjamin, to whom she has been married for ov…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:14PM[SHARE]Friday, March 3, 2023
I launched Travalanche on a leap year day, February 29, 2008, with an introductory post about myself. But my first "real" post was a few days later, on March 3. Thus today is the 15 annivers…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:57AM[SHARE]Thursday, March 2, 2023
I came across this photo of Sholem Aleichem (Solomon Rabinovich, 1859-1916) months ago and held on to it 'til now because I was kind of awestruck by how contemporary he looks. It's not just …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:40AM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 1, 2023
March 1 was the DOB of stand-up comedian and comic actor Jackie Gayle (Jack Potovsky, 1926-2002). Originally from Flatbush, Brooklyn, Gayle started out as a drummer in burlesque bands when s…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:13PM[SHARE]Well, you were going to be hearing more from me at some point this year on the topic of Buster Keaton anyway, as 2023 is the centennial anniversary of his first two features Three Ages and O…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:51PM[SHARE]In 1950, Merv Griffin had a hit with a novelty song called "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts". Then he went on to accomplish a lot of different other things, and on the whole he is rememb…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:40AM[SHARE]Tuesday, February 28, 2023
Okay, this isn't a blog about "what's going on" in Brooklyn or anywhere else (and please don't use this post to assume that it is one going forward) but a handful of announcements by friends…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:12AM[SHARE]Today appears to be an old time Broadway double-header (we just posted about actress Christie MacDonald). Rida Johnson Young (Rida Louise Johnson, 1876-1926) was a major playwright, libretti…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:34AM[SHARE]Musical comedy star Christie MacDonald (1875-1962) may be most interesting to modern readers with respect to her private life. Her first husband was stage and screen actor William Jefferson …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:29AM[SHARE]Monday, February 27, 2023
Just the briefest of acknowledgements of the 20th century broadcasting giant David Sarnoff (1891-1971). He's top of mind at the moment as I'm in the middle of working on my book Vaudevill…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:19PM[SHARE]Thanks a thousand times to the the Facebook friend who called my attention to Jennifer Coolidge's acceptance speech for her well deserved SAG award for her work on White Lotus. It had me baw…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:26PM[SHARE]Far be it from us to endorse and advocate the deadly habit of tobacco smoking, but also far be it from me to whitewash history. When I was a kid, "old Jewish comedians with cigars" was a thi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:52AM[SHARE]Sunday, February 26, 2023
This is my eighth post about comedian Jackie Gleason (1916-87), including an overview of his entire career, a piece on The Honeymooners, a look at his movies of the '60s, ones dedicated to t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:11AM[SHARE]Saturday, February 25, 2023
This tribute to lovely Hollywood actress Diane Baker (b. 1938) will be little more than a mash note, but can you blame me? Though she had studied serious acting, I think of Baker as one of t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:45PM[SHARE]Today would have been George Harrison's 80th birthday, and I've realized that out of my 50 or so Beatle related posts, Harrison is the one who has gotten the least attention here. At some lo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:46AM[SHARE]Friday, February 24, 2023
Mothers-in-law are famous fodder for Borscht Belt jokes, but I had exceedingly good luck with both of mine. Ironically I lost my second one first, just when I was getting to know her, but af…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:13AM[SHARE]I'm pretty sure I learned about impressionist Arthur Blake (1914-1985) by virtue of the fact that he was performing at the Cocoanut Grove on the night of the famous 1942 fire. He is not to b…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:46AM[SHARE]Thursday, February 23, 2023
Many folks I admire attended my talk at the Lambs last week; but I feel privileged to have gotten to know one of them a good deal better in the days since then. And I wish I'd done so sooner…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:25PM[SHARE]The above is far from a representative photo of Musidora (Jeanne Roques, 1889-1957), but I knew it would appeal to lovers of music hall and drag. History remembers Musidora best as the origi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:13AM[SHARE]Wednesday, February 22, 2023
Presidents Day notwithstanding, February 22 is the actual birthday of George Washington. Washington (like Lincoln) was once once worshipped in this country with a fervor 21st century people …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:44PM[SHARE]A wink and a nod today on behalf of magician and mentalist Theodore "Ted" Annemann (Theodore Squires, 1907-1942). Like many of his era, Annemann continues to exert an influence upon the worl…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:14AM[SHARE]Tuesday, February 21, 2023
It takes being a biographical blogger to know how common some surnames are in certain fields, and there are a LOT of actors named Daly, Daily or Daley: Augustin Daly, Arnold Daly, Dan Daly (…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:58AM[SHARE]A few words of acknowledgment today on screen actor actor Wheeler Oakman (Vivian Eichelberger, 1890-1949), who appeared in nearly 300 films over a veritable half-century. Based upon his give…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:00AM[SHARE]Monday, February 20, 2023
20 years ago today (February 20, 2003) there occurred one of the worst nightclub fires in American history. It's relatively recent history for me to be covering on this blog, but it's always…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:04AM[SHARE]February 20 was the natal day of writer Marian Spitzer Thomas (1899-1983). Spitzer was someone I really wish I'd gotten to meet, and I was thrilled to learn that my friend Mari Lyn Henry act…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:56AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
