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…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:36AMFriday, 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 resour…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:03AMThursday, 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 08:54AMWednesday, 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 09:06AMTuesday, 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 m…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:12AMBefore 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 — af…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:06AMMonday, 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 rea…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:32PMAround 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 favor…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AMSunday, 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 t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:18PMI 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 10:06AMToday 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 07:54AMThe 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 07:54AMSaturday, 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 referen…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:48AMFriday, July 23, 2021
I’m pretty certain I have never heard a better named for a British-born Jewish guy than Montague Glass (1877-1934). Glass was the son of an English linen merchant; the family moved to New …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:36PMJust a few words of acknowledgement for a character we New York City vaudeville fans are especially fond of, Timothy “Big Tim” Sullivan (1862-1913). The son of Irish immigrants, Sullivan…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:18PMActress Florence Vidor (Florence Cobb, 1895-1977) was a player in the movie game a scant decade and a half, though that was longer than the marriage to the man whose name she bore, film dire…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:18PMThursday, July 22, 2021
The actor Phillips Holmes (1907-1942), both of whose names are so infuriating in the possessive case, came by them honesly, being as he was the son of the actors Edna Phillips and Taylor Hol…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:18PMWednesday, July 21, 2021
Ordinarily, little people are photographed from head to toe so you can get the full effect of their remarkable size. But I kind of love this framing of the likeness of Berlin-born Henrietta …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:18PMTuesday, July 20, 2021
The career of Natalie Wood (Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko, 1938-1981) may be divided into four phases: childhood (1943-1955), which includes such films as The Moon is Down (1943), Tomorrow i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:03AMMonday, July 19, 2021
It’s a surety I have nothing to teach classic animation nerds about the art and story of Fleischer Studios (1921-1942). But I’ve mentioned that outfit on Travalanche on many occasions an…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:24PMSunday, July 18, 2021
Most people who know the name Richard Dix (Ernst Brimmer, 1893-1949) today probably know it from a single quip spoken by David Huddleston in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles. Dix was indeed ass…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:03AMI was reminded of the existence of Sid Gould (Sydney Greenfader, 1912-1996) during our recent Covid quarantine binging of The Love Boat. He had a recurring role as a waiter on about a half d…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:48AMI knew a Fred Sullivan years ago; he’s a longtime (decades long) company member of Trinity Rep in Providence, where I studied, as well as Boston’s Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. (I am…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:36AMSaturday, July 17, 2021
O, if only Acquanetta (1921-2004) had been in vaudeville or burlesque. She had that genius for hype and camp and self-creation. Her real name seems to have been Mildred Davenport but everyth…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:36PMErle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970) was one productive S.O.B. Originally a practicing lawyer, he went on to write hundreds of legal dramas and mystery novels and short stories, as well as trave…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AMFriday, July 16, 2021
Stanley Clements (Stanislaw Klimowicz, 1926-1981) is best known to classic comedy fans as “Stash” and “Duke” from the East Side Kids and Bowery Boys franchises, but he’s one of the…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:54AMThursday, July 15, 2021
We have our finger in many pies here at Travalanche so sometimes we miss major news (e.g. departures from the mortal plane) by people we care about. Thus it is with Don B. Wilmeth, whom we j…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:33PMWednesday, July 14, 2021
Today a salute to George Tobias (1901-1980) best remembered for his role as Abner Kravitz, long-suffering neighbor of the Stevens family on the TV sitcom Bewitched (1964-1971). Kravitz was s…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AMTuesday, July 13, 2021
Today, a smattering of applause for classic cinema’s second favorite ice skating movie star, Vera Ralston (Věra Helena Hrubá, ca. 1920-2003) The first is of course Sonja Henie. So don’…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AMMost of us remember Sidney Blackmer (1895-1973) as Roman Castavet, the nice elderly friend who helps Mia Farrow in her lonely, terrifying predicament in Rosemary’s Baby (1968). Unlike many…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AM 
