Thursday, August 12, 2021
As I write this, it is at once the birthday of "Hebrew" comedian Nat Carr (1886-1944), and the fourth anniversary of Trump's Nazi rally in Charlottesville. If you're one of the "why must you…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:03PM[SHARE]Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Loew's State, located in Times Square, was considered by many to be the "last vaudeville house", as it was still going into the mid-late 1940s. August 29 will mark 100 years since it opened.…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:32AM[SHARE]Sometimes I think a forgettable professional name is all that prevent some public figures from achieving a lasting place in the popular memory. Such might be the case with regards to Jean Pa…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:24AM[SHARE]Tuesday, August 10, 2021
Gorgeous, classy, somewhat nondescript Martha Hyer (1924-2014) was in some major films, usually as second female lead, and was even nominated for an Oscar, but naturally the thing that makes…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:48AM[SHARE]Monday, August 9, 2021
Robert Aldrich (1918-1983) might seem an odd director for the creator of this blog to have a close affinity with. After all, comedy and vaudeville are our abiding obsessions; whereas Aldrich…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:42AM[SHARE]Sunday, August 8, 2021
This post is manifestly NOT for Baby Boomers, who ostensibly will not require it and will probably find it laughable. But I am of Generation X, and grew up during that bewildering age (the 1…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:54PM[SHARE]Saturday, August 7, 2021
An outsider at the center, that is the contradiction of Nicholas Ray (Raymond Nicholas Kienzie Jr, 1911-1979), who bridged art forms, generations, and even nations (I'm looking at you, Franc…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AM[SHARE]Friday, August 6, 2021
You could well be forgiven for assuming that the appearance by John "Bunny" Breckinridge (1903-96) as the alien commander in Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) was the man's only claim…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:03AM[SHARE]How delightful it was, upon working on my recent post about lip sync pioneer Dotty Mack, that William B. Williams (1923-86) was a real person. John Candy played a character by that name on S…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:42AM[SHARE]Thursday, August 5, 2021
Having had numerous occasions to mention British-American actor Reginald Owen (1887-1972) on this site, we thought that more than ample time had elapsed to make it requisite for us to sketch…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:48PM[SHARE]I have long been intrigued by, and resistent to, the exclusion of John Huston (1906-1987) by the auteur theorists (Bazin, Truffaut, Sarris, etc) from their sacrosanct canon of cinematic sain…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AM[SHARE]Wednesday, August 4, 2021
Here's a gent you surely know without knowing: Joseph Calleia (Joseph Alexander Caesar Herstall Vincent Calleja, 1897-1975). Calleia was never a top star, but he played some key roles in …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:03AM[SHARE]Tuesday, August 3, 2021
I am certain that it was her performance as "the Countess" in WC Fields' You're Telling Me (1934) that made me first sit up and take notice of the gorgeous Adrienne Ames (Ruth Adrienne McClu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:32PM[SHARE]True comedy film auteurs have been so rare since the 1930s (NOT hyperbole) that the loss of any one of them, be it through their own misdeeds or some other cause, can only be regarded as a m…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:54AM[SHARE]Monday, August 2, 2021
Beyond the fact that he existed, and what his act consisted of, little is known of Major Zamora. He was a Little Person, who claimed to be "Triple Jointed". His height was 32 inches and his …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:48AM[SHARE]Sunday, August 1, 2021
For half a tic I thought I'd already done something on The Amazing Blondini (Michael Costello, 1922-1996), but that's just because his stage is an ingenious mash-up of Blondin and Houdini. B…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:24PM[SHARE]Yes, it's true! Actor, writer and comedian Taylor Negron (Brad Stephen Negron, 1957-2015) came to one my shows. It was Dick Zigun's Dead End Dummy at Coney Island, USA, in October, 2014. He …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:48AM[SHARE]A few fleeting fragments on the equally fleeting career of Bonnie (sometimes Bonny) Bonnell (Marion Wright Bonnell, 1905-1964). Bonnell is best (I think we can get away with saying exclusive…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:42AM[SHARE]Saturday, July 31, 2021
Today we sprinkle a little Holy Water on comedian Pat Cooper (Pasquale Caputo, b. 1929). I've seen it expressed that Cooper "often" uses his Italian American identity in his act. That's pret…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:36AM[SHARE]Friday, July 30, 2021
A rare but deserved plug for a book besides ones of my own this morning and that's Steve Massa's Slapstick Divas: The Women of Silent Comedy, the most authoritive and wide-ranging resource o…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:03AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 29, 2021
I am a huge fan of midwestern authors and poets from a century and more ago, guys like Theodore Dreiser, Frank Norris, Sherwood Anderson, Edgar Lee Masters, Vachel Lindsay, George Ade, and o…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:54AM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 28, 2021
Of all the priceless lives lost to the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, on my personal short list of those whose deaths were a blow to American film culture was writer-director Colin Higgins (194…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 27, 2021
According to the old vaudeville quip, the Irish gave the Scots bagpipes for a joke " and the Scots never got the joke. I am a Stewart and was raised to love the sound of pipes, but I can mor…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:12AM[SHARE]Before Willie Tyler and Lester, ventriloquism-loving black audiences had another such act they could appreciate, Stu Gilliam (1933-2013) and his partner Oscar. But you had to be there " afte…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:06AM[SHARE]Monday, July 26, 2021
Thanks be to my intrepid wife who introduced me to British drag star Danny La Rue (Daniel Patrick Carroll, 1927-2009). Sh'd come across a reference to La Rue in a mystery novel she was readi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:32PM[SHARE]Around the time I was in Junior High School, circa 1977, I bought a paperback copy of Paul Gallico's 1969 The Poseidon Adventure. The 1972 film adaptation was (and remains) one of my favorit…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AM[SHARE]Sunday, July 25, 2021
Were she still alive today Janet Margolin (1943-1993) would be nearly 80 years old, but there's no doubt in my mind she would still be beautiful. What's especially interesting to me is that …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:18PM[SHARE]I was born in the town with the oldest continuously operating carousel in the U.S. (the Flying Horses of Watch Hill, Rhode Island, est 1876, above), and so you might say I have been remiss i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:06AM[SHARE]Today we report the death of Jacov Moshe Maza (b. 1928), better known to the world as Jackie Mason. Mason was a last link in two very long lines. One: he was a FIFTH generation rabbi. Two: h…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:54AM[SHARE]The versatile Arthur Lubin (Arthur Lubovsky, 1898-1995) made a success in theatre, movies and television, as an actor, director, and producer. While no relation to the early screen mogul Sig…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:54AM[SHARE]Saturday, July 24, 2021
When working on Rose's Royal Midgets and Other Little People in Vaudeville I came within a whisker of including mention of a couple of troupes for whom I'd seen lots of pictorial references.…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:48AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
