Wednesday, July 9, 2025
Irish playwright Conor McPherson is always having a moment — he’s been having a moment for the last 30+ years. But 2025, which is only half over, has been extraordinary with FOUR shows h…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:32AMJester Hairston (1901-2000) had two strong careers in two entirely different but overlapping cultural disciplines. Arguably his contributions to music were of greater significance, but we’…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:24AMTuesday, July 8, 2025
The second Tuesday in July is Cow Appreciation Day. Remember to tip your cows! (Just kidding, cow tipping is cruel). As we have done with many another critter, we observe the day with a litt…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:18AMVaudeville makes strange bedfellows, and one of the unlooked for outcomes of the publication of my book No Applause 20 years ago, was encountering all sorts of people who assumed (on the bas…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:06AMMonday, July 7, 2025
Now that the Fourth of July holiday (along with the political trauma that preceded it) are out of the way, I am pleased to announce a project designed to ease your worried mind! Friday, Augu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:02PMCecil Lean (1878-1935) and his two wives (in succession, of course) were major stars of their day, headliners in vaudeville and musical comedy stars of Broadway and nationwide tours, yet one…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:36AMSunday, July 6, 2025
So…I love the ones who stay in the fray. I was delighted a couple of days ago when my old friend Lizzie West dropped a new track with a Fourth of July theme, for I’ve missed her, and she…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:42PMSure, we know July 6 is the birthday of Annette Kellerman, Bill Haley, Pat Paulsen, Merv Griffin, Sebastian Cabot, William Schallert, Janet Leigh, Sylvester Stallone, Vince McMahon, Joe Keat…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:24AMSaturday, July 5, 2025
P.T. Barnum’s birthday is always a big day for me, a kind of semi-holiday riding on the coat-tails of the Glorious Fourth, the day before. To a considerable extent, Barnum invented modern …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:36AMFriday, July 4, 2025
This is taken from a book project I’ve been working on for a number of years. I’ve tailored this section for the present moment and the 50th anniversary of the events described. Be warne…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:06PMOn this, the morning after the passage of legislation that may well end the nation founded 249 years ago today, I definitely have some better warranted remarks waiting in the wings. But I am…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:36PMI seldom share media clips on Travalanche any more, both because I got frustrated with the links dying (I don’t have the bandwidth for that kind of maintenance, this is a very large websit…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:32AMThursday, July 3, 2025
There’s a logic, if a tortured one, for my scheduling this post for today. Jaws turned 50 this year, and of course that movie has a big Fourth of July weekend scene. But I’ve already wri…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:48PMJuly 2 was the birthday of Leonard Landy (1933-2017), one of the later and lesser Little Rascals. Landy appeared in 21 Our Gang shorts between 1938 and 1941, starting at the age of five and …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:32AMJulie Klausner is most definitely not a part of show business past — she’s out there in the fray thrashing around right now, same as always. But, like us (that’s the Royal “we”), s…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:18AMOriginally posted in 2011. Born today in 1825, George L. Fox comes way too early to have been in vaudeville as we usually think of it, but he is a crucial figure in American variety histor…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:54AMIn the context of my current spate of posts celebrating the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, I had an internal debate about whether of no I should include the painter John Singl…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:54AMWednesday, July 2, 2025
So here’s a real true story. In my kidhood, I was a huge HUGE fan of Star Trek, the version now usually asterisked, of necessity, as The Original Series. It was one of the many things my b…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:48PMSurely you know that face! Barbara Colby (1939-1975) was a ubiquitous character actress in the early to mid 1970s. I am just the right age to have seen almost all of her work, and to recall …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:36AMCountry and rockabilly singer/songwriter Marvin Rainwater (1925-2013) was born 100 years ago today. I first learned about Rainwater when I looked into that Paul Revere and the Raiders song �…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:24AMTuesday, July 1, 2025
Pamela Anderson (b. 1967) is younger than me so you can see why I’ve been in no rush to include a post about her in my blog on tradition show biz. But her recent film The Last Showgirl (20…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:48PMJuly 1, 1985 saw the debut of the Nickelodeon network’s programming initiative Nick at Night. The revolutionary concept of this nightly block in Nickelodeon’s schedule was “television …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:32AMDeborah Harry (Angela Trimble, b. 1945) turns 80 years old today — yet another sign post on the road ahead en route to The Twilight Zone. I’m one of the millions who worship her. I have …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:32AMBe careful what you wish for — you just may get it! In my 2013 post on Dan Aykroyd I had suggested just this kind of show for the comedian, whose interest in bizarrerie has been well known…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:18AMMonday, June 30, 2025
For the last day of Pride Month — a few fragments on Harry Caro (1899-1963), who billed himself in show business as the He/She (hermaphrodite) Albert/Alberta. Scant info is available on th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:06PMWell, there you have it: Pride Month concludes with the birthday of John Gay (1685-1732). Today, Gay is known for but one of his many works for the stage and the page, The Beggar’s Opera (…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:32AMSunday, June 29, 2025
It just so happens that June 29 is the anniversary of Jayne Mansfield’s fatal 1967 car crash. My 2013 article on Mansfield is one of my top posts, the fifth highest in popularity out of 9,…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:06PMToday is Pride Day in NYC — I was going to march in the parade this afternoon with the Lambs, but a hot tooth is keeping me anchored to the domicile. In lieu, I offer this plug for Zachary…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:54AMYou surely have your own ways of observing the Fourth of July but we wanted to make you aware of some other activities happening in the NYC area beyond the usual parades, cook-outs, firework…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:42AMSaturday, June 28, 2025
It’s been a while since we’ve done a new post on a Saint-based or seasonal Feast Day within the Pagan-Christian cultural continuum. (Previous examples: St. John, St. George, St. Bartholo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:02AMSeveral great comedians were born on June 28: Mel Brooks, Gilda Radner, John Byner. But we’ve already written about them so today we treat of someone frankly less hilarious: stand-up comed…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:42AM 
