Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Well, my talk at the Great Neck Historical Society about the Marx Brothers in Great Neck was many months ago but I only just noticed that the show we made out of it for our local public acce…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:18PMHaving mentioned Bugs Bunny some 50 times on Travalanche, I wanted to finally do a post on the rascally rabbit for Bugs Bunny Day (April 30, in honor of the anniversary of his appearance, so…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:18PMWell now. We certainly live in interesting times. The world seems to have slipped its moral gears. I can remember a time when there were certain political facts that seemed as well establish…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:02AMTuesday, April 29, 2025
Third time’s a charm and this is my third piece on Dead Outlaw which, just opened at the Longacre Theatre. The first one, on the off-Broadway opening and some background on the show, is he…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:36PMIt’s true! I’ve been fans of them both for about 40 years, and never knew until recently that Nora Dunn (b. 1952) and Kevin Dunn (b. 1956) are sister and brother. And of course once you …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:36PMIt’s odd that most Americans don’t know the name Rafael Sabatini (1875-1950), given that plenty of people (movie fans at any rate) know several of his works, as they often have been adap…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AMOriginally posted on Travalanche in 2010. Updated for this bicentennial occasion. William Henry Lane (a.k.a Master Juba) came along way too early to be in my “Stars of Vaudeville” series…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AMUnless time has embellished memory, I’m pretty sure I met German-American actress Dolly Haas (1910-1994) in the early ’90s, not long before she died. It would have been on the same occas…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:03AMMonday, April 28, 2025
We were privileged yesterday to attend the 2025 edition of Cabaret in Captivity: Songs and Sketches from Terezin, now in its 12th year. I saw it for the first time and reviewed it here back …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:54PMWe may soon reach the point where posts about The Great Gatsby will require their own section here on Travalanche, which is funny because it is not my favorite novel by a long way. I certain…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:24AM100 years ago today (April 28, 1925), Ralph Spence’s spook comedy The Gorilla opened on Broadway. We’ve come absurdly close to writing about this semi-classic on Travalanche in the past.…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:12AMToday is the office pub date of Lisa Stein Haven’s new book Early Buster Keaton: From the Vaudeville Stage to Comique Films: 1899-1920. This book is of especial interest to this reader as …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:12AMSunday, April 27, 2025
April 27 was the birthday of stage actor Dan Marble (1810-1849). Marble was one of the great “stage Yankees” like Ezra Kendall, John E. Owens, Cal Stewart, Charles Mathews, James Hackett…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:12AMSam Patch (1807-1829) was America’s first daredevil. A little math will tip you off that he died young, as all the best (yet worst) daredevils do, and yet his memory lived long. He became …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:54AMSaturday, April 26, 2025
April 26 being the birthday of Anita Loos, I thought I would take the opportunity to look at her best known work, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which turns 100 years old this coming November. I …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:48AMFriday, April 25, 2025
When I first heard there was an actor named Walt Whitman (1849-1928) my first take was “You can’t do that!” But of course he could. After all: a) it was his real name; and b) at the ti…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:12PMNew York hot jazz lovers! I’m already booked tomorrow so I’m telling YOU so you can attend this for me! My friends from Archeophone Records Richard Martin and Meagan Hennessy will be at …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:06PMPenguins International tells us its World Penguin Day — and who are we to squawk? We observe the day with this honor roll of penguin related characters from pop culture. We were surprised …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:06PMIt’s quite true — there once was a director and producer named Orville O. Dull (Orvid Oscar Dull, 1888-1978). The jokes just write themselves, and I’m shocked that Bob and Ray didn’t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:03AMThursday, April 24, 2025
Cindy Adams (b. 1930) turns 95 years old today — which means that she has never been young the entire time she has turned out her New York Post column. She started it in 1979 when she was …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:12AMReuben “Rube” Bloom (1902-1976) was a writer of rags and tin pan alley songs, a band leader, accompanist, and on occasion a singer. His name was pronounced “Ruby” by some back in the…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AMWednesday, April 23, 2025
Today is Yom HaShoah, Israel’s official Holocaust Remembrance Day. It takes place on the 27th day of Nisan (sundown April 23 into April 24). This is distinct from International Holocaust R…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:06PMApril 23 being World Book Day, it seemed the ideal time to let you know about the upcoming Coney Island Book Fair, taking place at Coney Island USA on May 10! All hail Lady Aye (Ilyse Carter…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AMTuesday, April 22, 2025
Thanks Eve Golden and Mel Newhouse for calling my attention to Sylvia Lewis (b. 1931), whom I’d certainly seen onscreen many a time without connecting all the dots. Her most prominent cred…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:24AMMonday, April 21, 2025
The recent world takeover by billionaires has inspired nothing so much in me as a desire to rub elbows at the People’s Playground, Birthplace of the Nickel Hot Dog. So look for me at Coney…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:12PMWe’ve known she’s been in hospice for weeks but I’ve been dreading this day for years, not because I obsess about Rochelle Denton, whom I’m mourning the loss of today, but because I�…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:03PMWow, are the stars ever crazily aligned today. Massachusetts and a few other states celebrate Patriots Day today, a holiday that commemorates what would be called the Birth of America if we …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:42AMSunday, April 20, 2025
What a cluster of symbolically weighted days we are in the midst of. The Revolutionary anniversaries of April 18 (Paul Revere’s Ride) and April 19 (Lexington and Concord) combined with yes…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:32AMJohnny Tillotson (1938-2025) passed away back on April 1 — but that’s kind of a fraught date on which to announce anything, so I figured I’d leave this little tribute to his birthday, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:24AMThis would appear to be a rare case of Travalanche scooping both Wikipedia and IMDB. Today would have been the 92nd birthday of character actor Monte Landis (Monte Landstein, 1933-2024) had …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:24AMBorn 100 years ago today, magician Harry Albacker (1925-1994) — his oft-told tale that he was born on Halloween, 1926, right after Houdini died, was a show biz fib. A lifelong native of th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:06AM 
