Wednesday, February 1, 2023
The headline is a trick question. Everyone who lived between 1880 and 1946 was a racist by our standards, so of course W.C. Fields was. His professional friendship with Bert Williams, and a …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:24PMBlack History Month is when I typically have done posts honoring black performers for whom I don’t know the birthdate, of which there have been a relatively high percentage. Case in point,…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:42PMTuesday, January 31, 2023
Cindy Williams (1947-2023) passed away about a week ago (Jan. 25) but somehow the news didn’t get out until last night. Of the two Laverne and Shirley stars, Williams was far and away my f…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:54PMSeems late in the game to be adding Isham Jones (1894-1956) to our roster of successful vaudeville veterans (he’s the 1,790th figure we’ve added to the series) but while I really do love…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:06AMMonday, January 30, 2023
To be of my age and of my proclivities is to have been influenced by West Coast-based RE/Search Publications (est, 1980). This underground publishing house put out high end periodicals on a …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:36PMSunday, January 29, 2023
It’s superficial of me, I know, but I became much more interested in, and approving of Victor Mature (1913-1999) once I learned he was half Italian. His father, Marcello Maturi was a Kentu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:48PMWe have accumulated over 100 posts on Travalanche about quintessential classic comedian W.C. Fields (1880-1946), so many that long ago we bundled them all into their own section. Starting wi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AMSaturday, January 28, 2023
Our principal reason for celebrating Dorothy Donnelly (1875-1928) may differ from many other folks’, for she was the woman who wrote to book and lyrics to Poppy (1923), the hit Broadway sh…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:03AMFriday, January 27, 2023
January 27, 1888 was the birthdate of Harry Frankel, better known to audiences as Singin’ Sam, The Barbasol Man. Born in Springfield, Ohio (hometown of Clark and McCullough), Frankel was r…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:24PMToday (January 27) is Holocaust Remembrance Day and as it happens I have timely related news to report: friend Edward Einhorn of Untitled Theatre Company #61 is reviving their historical rev…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:24PMThursday, January 26, 2023
Haha, don’t worry she’s not dead, she’s only turning 65! The title of this post has more to do with the fact that Ellen ended her long-running talk show a few months ago, and the monst…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:06PMBorn 100 years ago today, the minor midcentury star Anne Jeffreys (Anne Jeffreys Carmichael, 1923-2017). Jeffreys was an operatically trained Southern belle from Goldsboro, North Carolina, w…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMWednesday, January 25, 2023
Born 200 years ago today: one horse circus pioneer, impresario, clown, comedian and star Dan Rice (1823-1900) Dan Rice was one of the most important show business figures of the 19th century…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:02AMTuesday, January 24, 2023
Today would have been the 80th birthday of Hollywood actress Sharon Tate (1943-1969). The circumstances of Tate’s death possess layers of wrongness: 1) that she died at all; that she died …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:03AMI was running around from pillar to post yesterday so couldn’t respond as immediately as I would have liked to the sad news of the passing of the great stage star Everett Quinton (b. 1952)…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:02AMMonday, January 23, 2023
I’d long known about Danny Arnold (Arnold Rothmann, 1925-95) as the genius creator/producer of Barney Miller and Fish, but was delighted to learn that he had a background in variety entert…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:32AMSunday, January 22, 2023
I celebrated Jim Jarmusch’s 70th birthday today by watching the one movie of his I hadn’t yet seen, The Limits of Control (2009). To my delight, it stars Isaach de Bankolé, whom I had c…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:18PMWe are well past the centennial of the birth of Soviet film-maker and theorist Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) but this year marks the centennial of something he gave birth to. I had occasion …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMRoshanara (Olive Craddock, 1894-1926) is today remembered as the more authentic competitor to Ruth St. Denis in the presentation of South Asian dances to Western audiences. While St. Denis i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:48AMSaturday, January 21, 2023
A story of strange bedfellows today, and not the first we’ve encountered in our exploration of vaudeville’s annals. And apparently content ones! We begin with Emma Haig (1898-1939), a di…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:03PMThe fame of vaudeville performer Gus Visser (1894-1967) is ironically perhaps greater now than it was in his own day. This is because footage of Visser’s hilarious act wound up in the PBS …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:03PMSorry for the last minute bulletin, but I only just learned about this yesterday. Tonight and tomorrow, New Yorkers, MOMA will be screening a restored version of The Unknown (1927), includin…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:03PMFriday, January 20, 2023
Opening today (January 20, 2023) at New York’s Film Forum, and running through February 2, a screening series entitled Written and Directed by Preston Sturges. I have already written exten…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:02PMDavid Crosby (1941-2023) has just passed away at the age of 81. Few thought he would make it to this age! I was a fan of The John Larroquette Show (1993-94), on which Crosby was stunt cast i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:42AMA century ago this year, George Burns teamed with Gracie Allen and made their debut in a vaudeville house somewhere in New Jersey. Nowhere that I’ve been able to find (and I and others hav…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:42AMThursday, January 19, 2023
The amazing director Richard Lester (Richard Lester Liebman, b. 1932) is still with us, though he hasn’t directed for 30 years, and his career hasn’t been honestly vital for 40. The reas…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12PMWednesday, January 18, 2023
We’ve had numerous occasion to mention author A.A. Milne (Alan Alexander Milne, 1882-1956) on this blog, and as often as not, the references were NOT to his most famous creation Winnie-the…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:12PMTuesday, January 17, 2023
When I graduated from high school, my aunt/godmother gave me an incredibly thoughtful gift: a paperback copy of An Actor Prepares by Konstantin Stanislavski (Konstantin Stanislavski Alekseye…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:02PMMonday, January 16, 2023
News travels so quickly nowadays — apparently the great Italian star Gina Lollobrigida (1927-1923) died TODAY at age 95 and the press release is already out. Usually, you know, it’s a fe…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:42AMVaudeville was all about the Big Finish; the best shows and the best acts all ended on a spectacular, climactic note because audience reaction was everything. Frank Bacon’s (1864-1922) was…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:36AMSunday, January 15, 2023
January 15 was the birthday of the father of modern drumming Gene Krupa (1909-1973) and this year will also mark 50 years since he shuffled off this mortal snare. Krupa remains one of the mo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:42AM 
