Sunday, May 22, 2022
This is our fourth post on Richard Benjamin (b. 1938) and he’s mentioned in 15 others on Travalanche, but we swear we’re not obsessed with him. It just so happens that we’ve written ab…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:36AMToday marks the 100th birthday of famed television producer Quinn Martin (Irving Martin Cohn, 1922-1987). Back in the day the brand “A Quinn Martin Production” was advertised as a mark o…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:18AMSaturday, May 21, 2022
Continuing what amounts to a random little mini-series on original Saturday Night Live staff that has included Gary Weiss and Alan Zweibel in recent days, today a nod to the unique comedy te…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:36AMFriday, May 20, 2022
Millions have laughed at the comedy of Alan Zweibel (b. 1950) without ever knowing his name. Zweibel is a practitioner of the humble, thankless craft of comedy writing, one who commendably f…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:54PMAn overdue look today at Stanley Fields (Walter Agnew, 1883-1941). A Greek American from Alleghany, Pennsylvania (catch that surname), he had the bad instincts to adopt a sort of forgettable…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:54PMWe’ve had many an occasion to mention Warner Brothers cartoons here over the years, as of course we would. They are the favorite Golden Era animation studio of most cartoon buffs, includin…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:42AMThursday, May 19, 2022
Thus far we have written about nearly three dozen persons of gigantic physical stature on Travalanche, but somehow we have heretofore omitted two of the best-known of their number in the wor…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:42AMWednesday, May 18, 2022
The date of birth of Robert Morse (1931-2022) falling less than a month after that of his passing, we resolved to wait until today to send him off. Whether or not his spirit will return to e…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:03PMIt’s hard to think of anyone so important to American history yet as obscure as John Pintard (1759-1844). I only know about him because he founded New York’s oldest museum and library, t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:03PMTuesday, May 17, 2022
Today we celebrate songwriter and scriptwriter of stage and screen Bob Merrill (Henry Robert Merrill Levan (1921-1998), not to be confused with operatic tenor Robert Merrill (1917-2004) or c…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:12AMMonday, May 16, 2022
Brief mention this morning of John W. Vogel (1863-1951). Born in Chillicothe, Ohio just months after the Emancipation Proclamation, Vogel was to succeed J.H. Haverly as America’s pre-emine…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AMToday we invite you to join our friends of the British Music Hall Society in celebrating British Music Hall & Variety Day. How can you do this? Why, you could share your favorite relevan…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AMSunday, May 15, 2022
Happy Ride a Unicycle Day, which also happens to be Day One of National Unicycle Week (May 15-22, 2022). Don’t believe me? Looka here. “Ride a unicycle”? Easier said than done, right? …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:18AMSaturday, May 14, 2022
I am amused by an internet reference which claims that Barbara “Bobo” Lewis (1926-1998) is best known for her role as Midge Smoot on Shining Time Station (1989-1995), and for the precise…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AMFriday, May 13, 2022
I am so bummed! I was very much looking forward to checking out the Omnium Circus at the Queens Theatre tomorrow, but I am still out of circulation due to the Covid bug. I had planned to rev…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:12AMMay 13 was the natal day of William Shakespeare “W.S.” Berger (1878-1972). Berger was not a professional entertainer. In fact, he spent his entire working life at the Cambridge Tile Comp…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:07AMThursday, May 12, 2022
When I was in my late teens, going through an extended patch of misery that lasted several years, a birthday gift from my sister made everything worse. It was kindly intended, of course, by …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:24AMThe visage of Lionel Belmore (1867-1953) is one you have surely seen in supporting roles in dozens of classic Hollywood films. Today we are apt to associate him with horror, although that wa…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:18AMWednesday, May 11, 2022
When I see a name like Allen McQuhae (Charles Allen McQuhae, 1890-1960), I discern with amusement the inadequacy of the Latin Alphabet in attempting to service Gaelic consonants and vowels. …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:24AMTuesday, May 10, 2022
Recently cloistered in a sick bed, I found myself binging the first couple of seasons of Saturday Night Live and was delighted to discover that I didn’t know them nearly as well as I thoug…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18PMI’m fairly certain that I first learned about Frank Garcia (1927-1993) from either Torkova or Richard Cohn during our recent conversations about old time NYC magic shops for my Chelsea Com…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:54PMI had intended to blog about the Astor Place Riot today, it being the 173rd anniversary of that looney event, when nativist supporters of actor Edwin Forrest did battle in the streets of New…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:33AMSaturday, May 7, 2022
Briefest of posts this morning on a notable though forgotten supporting actor of the silent era, Malcolm Waite (1892-1949). I’ve not yet stumbled upon what Waite’s pre-movie experience w…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AMFriday, May 6, 2022
We don’t mean to pigeonhole the three estimable McCutcheon Brothers with the title of this post (although they are closely identified with their region), but to separate them from two othe…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:48PMThursday, May 5, 2022
When I was down in Nashville 20 years ago covering the local scene for American Theatre magazine, I came across a surprising monument: a plaque near the Tennessee statehouse commemorating th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:03AMOf course, to remember Richard “Dick” Schaal (1928-2014) you’d have to register who he was. I recall him well from the MTM shows of the ’70s, a comic actor with rugged good looks, ma…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMWednesday, May 4, 2022
Today we treat of the great character actor Howard Da Silva (Howard Greenblatt, 1909-1986), whose stout visage and booming voice were so memorable as the bartender in Lost Weekend (1945), Be…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:12PMTuesday, May 3, 2022
So authentic did Beulah Bondi (1889-1981) seem in her often unsophisticated, homely, and rustic characters that it might surprise you to learn that she possessed a master’s degree! Granted…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:48AMMonday, May 2, 2022
There are three fairly discrete phases to the show biz career of multi-talented Lorenzo Music (Gerald Music, 1937-2001): variety/entertainment phase; sit-com phase; and voice-over phase, all…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:42AMSunday, May 1, 2022
Happy May Day! In America, May 1 is at best a proto-holiday, identified with two things: 1) International Workers Day, with all of its leftist associations; and 2) the traditional English Pa…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:18PMSaturday, April 30, 2022
The 60 year professional career of character actor Dick Elliott (1886-1961) may be neatly divided into two distinct halves: 1) the first three decades, about which very little is known, but …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:54AM 
