Thursday, February 25, 2021
Oh, did I say, "important"? I meant impotent, but whatever gets you to click the link! This marks my fifth Travalanche post on Zeppo Marx, over and above my numerous posts on the entire team…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:24AM[SHARE]Wednesday, February 24, 2021
A few words of homage to recording pioneer George W. Johnson (ca. 1846-1914). I had previously been under the mistaken impression that Williams and Walker were the first African American rec…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:24AM[SHARE]Tuesday, February 23, 2021
The above chronicles my obligatory pilgrimage to City Lights Bookstore during my sojourn there in October 2019. Its co-founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti passed away yesterday at the age of 101! …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:24PM[SHARE]People name places after particular human beings so that they will be remembered. And then what happens? We forget them anyway. Broadway theatre lovers have no doubt been in the Cort Theatre…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:42AM[SHARE]Monday, February 22, 2021
Now that we add the name of Siegmund Breitbart (1883-1925) beside those of Sandow and The Mighty Atom, it emerges that Jewish strongmen were palpably a thing. Some have speculated that Breit…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:36AM[SHARE]Today, two generations of James Kirkwoods. The father (1876-1963) was a prolific actor and director of the stage and screen who enjoyed his greatest success in the silent movie days. A stage…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:36AM[SHARE]In a world in which there is also a George O'Brien and a George Murphy, it is easy to see where a George O'Hara (George Bolger, 1899-1966) might get lost in the shuffle. But he too was a pop…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:36AM[SHARE]Sunday, February 21, 2021
"Shipwreck" was the metaphor I wanted for the title of this post on Kelsey Grammer (1955). Like the Sea Venture and the characters in The Tempest he hung fire on American Islands (born in th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:03PM[SHARE]Some brief recognition today for Hamilton "Ham" Kinsey (1900-67), a minor figure in comedy history but an important member of the teams on which he played, mostly Hal Roach Studios. Kinsey's…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:42AM[SHARE]Saturday, February 20, 2021
We have written about thousands of performers here on Travalanche, but Delno Fritz (1876-1925) is only our third swallower, after Chevalier Cliqout and Mimi Garneau (apart from some contempo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:48AM[SHARE]The internet is abuzz with news of the streaming availability of The Muppet Show on Disney+, and I am surprised this morning to discover that I hadn't already done a dedicated post on the sh…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:48AM[SHARE]Friday, February 19, 2021
Tomorrow, and streaming throughout next week " the Thunderbird American Indians Dancers' Dance Concert and Pow-Wow! Check out my post from last years Pow Wow for background. I really wish we…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:48PM[SHARE]Thursday, February 18, 2021
The arc of the career of Ukrainian-American actor Jack Palance (Volodymyr Palahniuk 1919-2006) was like a jump-rope in repose: high at the beginning and end and sagging in the middle. It's a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:42AM[SHARE]Wednesday, February 17, 2021
Folks might remember Wayne Morris (1914-1959) somewhat better if his life hadn't been cut short by a heart attack at age 45. He'd been a moderately well known star for decades, never plungin…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:18AM[SHARE]Tuesday, February 16, 2021
The other day we shared a post showcasing pairs of famous people who possessed the same name. Today, a variation on a theme, only with one of the stars chiefly famous for sharing the name of…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:33AM[SHARE]Monday, February 15, 2021
Kevin McCarthy (1914-2010) is one of those actors most people don't know that they know. At best, he bumped his head against mainstream fame, never quite catapulting himself into the upper e…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:36AM[SHARE]Sunday, February 14, 2021
I don't claim that the photo above is REPRESENTATIVE of the career of comical bit player Stan Ross (Abraham Schiller, b. 1926). As an X rated movie, some might regard The Sexpert as a low po…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:24AM[SHARE]Saturday, February 13, 2021
This is a post that has been germinating for years and will no doubt get added to as new inspiration strikes. In fact, the impetus probably goes back 20 years, when I first heard about Spike…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:24AM[SHARE]Friday, February 12, 2021
It's purely and simply weird to live in a world where the significance of Arsenio Hall (b. 1956) is no longer universally known, not just because he was once such an inescapable fact of Amer…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:33AM[SHARE]Thorough as this blog is, we can pre-emptively and categorically state that we will never compose and publish biographies of all 1,500+ victims who went down with the Titanic. We have, howev…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:24AM[SHARE]Today a wave of the wand over the wizardry of Karl Germain (Charles Mattmueller, 1878-1959). Born and raised in Cleveland, Mattmueller began performing magic as a teenager after receiving Pr…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:24AM[SHARE]Thursday, February 11, 2021
There is no way to do justice to the myriad accomplishments and massive legacy of Josh White (1914-1969) at anything less than book length. Fortunately, there are a couple of biographies, an…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:36PM[SHARE]Thornton Freeland (1898-1987) is a notable director for fans of vaudeville to know about, for he directed many comedies and musicals starring vets of the vaud stage. A native of Hope, North …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:24AM[SHARE]Tuesday, February 9, 2021
News just reached us that Mary Wilson (b. 1944) has suddenly passed away at the relatively young age of 76. I was going to subtitle this post "The Last Supreme" but stayed my hand knowing th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:24AM[SHARE]Today, a squint at Clarence Chesterfield Howerton, known professionally as Major Mite (1913-1975). Howerton was at least the third American performer to use the Major Mite handle; prior to h…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:24AM[SHARE]Monday, February 8, 2021
Saturday, February 13, 8pm: Valentines of Vaudeville! In celebration of Valentine's Day, please join me for an illustrated Zoom talk on great romances and romantics of the vaudeville stage! …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:42PM[SHARE]Today we toot a horn on behalf of composer John Williams (b. 1932). There's a tendency to mischaracterize Williams' signficance in terms of "firsts", suggesting his art as a harbinger of fut…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:42AM[SHARE]Sunday, February 7, 2021
At 8443 West Sunset Blvd in West Hollywood, on the storied Sunset Strip between Beverly Hills and Los Angeles, there lies a venue whose history tracks nearly a century of American popular cu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:33AM[SHARE]Saturday, February 6, 2021
Steven Keats (1945-1994) was a ubiquitous presence on screens big and small when I was a kid in the '70s. My clearest association is the campy 1977 scifi movie The Last Dinosaur with Richard…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:48PM[SHARE]Today we bow our heads in memory of the screen star Ramon Novarro (José Ramón Gil Samaniego, 1899-1968). Novarro was a scion of a large, aristocratic Mexican family (a second cousin of D…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:36AM[SHARE]Friday, February 5, 2021
Nigel Bruce (William Nigel Ernie Bruce, 1895-1953), known as "Willie" to his friends, is most widely remembered for playing Dr. Watson to Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes in 15 films from 19…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:18AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
