Sunday, October 31, 2021
We won't bury the lede here. The primary reason you should know the name Shirley Dinsdale (1926-1999) is that she was the winner of the very first Emmy Award. She won in the category of Outs…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:54AM[SHARE]Saturday, October 30, 2021
We've written about many ventriloquism acts that were identity-based: English, Irish, African American, female, gay, etc. but surprisingly, I think Rickie Layne (Richard Israel Cohen, 1924-2…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:33AM[SHARE]I'd seen Ruth Hussey (1911-2005) in quite a few Hollywood classics, but it seems fitting that the one that finally made me curious about her life story was that ghostly, Gothic tale The Unin…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:33AM[SHARE]Friday, October 29, 2021
Just a real quick post on an entertaining father-daughter combo I learned about recently. The dad MacDonald Carey (1913-1994) was someone I knew about throughout my childhood " he played Dr.…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:24PM[SHARE]Thursday, October 28, 2021
A nod today to a pair of lovebirds from the transitional era between old and new show biz. Bill Holliday (William F. Holliday, 1914-1971) was a ventriloquist, trumpet player, and balloon twi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:48AM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 27, 2021
By 100, of course, we mean years, and not pounds, for the fact that Muriel Landers (1921-77) went into comedy has to do with the fact that she was *200* pounds (and only 5'2″ in height…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:18PM[SHARE]Tonight at 8pm EST, TCM will be showing the terrific, eye-opening documentary Carl Laemmle (2019). This movie has special significance for me in that I had the honor of presenting it at the …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:12AM[SHARE]What a treasure trove is the life and work of Daniel P. Mannix IV (1911-1997). I first latched onto him because of his involvement in sideshow, circus, and magic (viz., "The Great Zadma"), a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:06AM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 26, 2021
October 25 through October 31 is National Magic Week, according to the Society of American Magicians! Go here to learn about their activities all over the country. In honor of the season, I …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:06AM[SHARE]We pen this tribute to Holly Woodlawn (Haraldo Santiago Franceschi Rodriguez Danhakl, 1946-2015) amongst good and bad benchmarks. It's the star's birthday of course, and 50 years from the po…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:06AM[SHARE]Monday, October 25, 2021
In a career that spanned over 50 years (1933-1984), and over 300 roles in all genres, given the season, we'd like to begin by pointing out all of the horror and sci fi movies that character …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:48AM[SHARE]Today we sing the praises of Eddie Lang (Salvatore Massaro, 1902-1933), known to some as "the Father of Jazz Guitar". Lang came from a musical family " his father made and sold string instru…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:48AM[SHARE]Alexander P. Linton (1904-1972) was born in Roscommon Ireland, and had immigrated to New York by the 1920s, when he began performing as a magician in the Bowery, at Huber's Museum, and numer…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:42AM[SHARE]African American ventriloquist and magician Louis McBride was working nightclubs and vaudeville as early as the 1930s. His act included coin magic, a rope escape, and byplay with his dummy S…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:42AM[SHARE]Silent Mora (Louis Jerome McCord, 1884-1972) derived his stage name from switching the letters of the name of one of his mentors, Maro, Prince of Magic " and from the fact that he performed …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:42AM[SHARE]Like Sonja Henie and Vera Ralston, the creature known as Belita (Maria Belita Jepson-Turner, 1923-2005) found her way to movie stardom by being a world renowned ice skater. Like Ralston, she…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:42AM[SHARE]Sunday, October 24, 2021
Beloved character actor Peter Scolari (b. 1955) has left us too soon and as always I thought I would chime in with an appreciation that fills in some of the more obscure cracks that other eu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AM[SHARE]Saturday, October 23, 2021
You may be inclined, as I often am, to mix up Jordan Christopher (Jordan Christopher Zankoff, 1940-1996) with Christopher Jones (star of Wild in the Streets). No doubt the two did some scrap…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:42PM[SHARE]Friday, October 22, 2021
During the first year of Covid, we binge watched The Love Boat, and that is how we became aware of Korean American comedian Johnny Yune (Yoon Jong Seung, 1936-2020). I didn't know it at the …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:54AM[SHARE]I became aware of John Sheehan (1885-1952) because he co-starred in the 1934 Educational short Trimmed in Furs with Louise Keaton, Buster's sister. Born in Oakland, Sheehan acted with stock …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:54AM[SHARE]Thursday, October 21, 2021
Saturday October 23, 12-4pm is Tin Pan Alley Day in NYC! I will now do appropriate homage by supplying you with a clattering cacophony of links. My brand new article for Chelsea Community Ne…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:54AM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 20, 2021
Dancer and actress Barrie Chase (b. 1933) has MANY notable screen credits but of COURSE we are going to foreground her memorable turn opposite Dick Shawn in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 19, 2021
The barriers to resumption of NYC cultural life seem to be rapidly melting as the Covid rate goes down and the vaccination rate (here at least) goes up. This week Chelsea Community News publ…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:36PM[SHARE]Just some very brief jottings on producer Hal B. Wallis (Aaron Blum Wolowicz, 1898-1986). Wallis's rapid rise in the movie business was the very definition of what it means to get in on the …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:03AM[SHARE]October 19 is the natal day of the much-missed Divine (Glenn Milstead, 1945-1988). As Lon Chaney was to Todd Browning, so was Divine to John Waters, both muse and star at the heart of his wo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:54AM[SHARE]Monday, October 18, 2021
Well pleased we were with yesterday's Gatsby Fest, organized by Destination Great Neck, a literal stone's throw from the house where F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a good chunk of The Great Gatsb…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:42PM[SHARE]Oh, how Hollywood loved blonde Northern European model/actresses in the '60s. I knew of many of them because they were still around in the '70s when I was a kid, woman like Elke Sommer (Germ…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:12PM[SHARE]Sunday, October 17, 2021
Roy Stewart (1883-1933) starred in over 100 silent films, most of them westerns, but I am personally most interested in the beginning of his career, for that is when he acted in some of the …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:18PM[SHARE]Phyllis Gordon (1889-1964) was mostly a supporting player during her brief heyday " in our visiually focused age, she is primarily known for a couple of flashy publicity stunts. Gordon was f…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:18PM[SHARE]Saturday, October 16, 2021
A few words of apprecation this morning for Ann Guilbert, or Ann Morgan Guilbert (1928-2016). Guilbert enjoyed a sort of charmed career. She went from being a key cast member in the popular …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:42AM[SHARE]Friday, October 15, 2021
Attention paid today to poet, novelist, historian and activist Helen Hunt Jackson (Helen Maria Jackson, 1830-1885), best known today for her 1884 novel Ramona, which was adopted for the Amer…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:42AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
