Monday, April 1, 2024
There’s something highly appropriate about Edmond Rostand (1868-1918), having been born of an April Fool’s Day, given the holiday’s history in his native country and Rostand’s reviva…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:42PMSunday, March 31, 2024
March 31 was the birthday of blues piano player Big Maceo Merriweather (1905-1953), and 2024 (as I write this) marks the centennial year of when he moved from his native Georgia up to Detroi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:42AMSaturday, March 30, 2024
A decade has passed since my initial stab at a post on Warren Beatty (b. 1937). It is focused on one of his more obscure movies, Mickey One (1965) mostly because this blog was narrowly focus…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:06PMGreta Thyssen (1927-2018) lived at the center of a Venn Diagram that included the overlapping categories of a) Hollywood blonde bombshells of the Marilyn Monroe / Jayne Mansfield/ Mamie Van …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:24AMFriday, March 29, 2024
Good Friday seems the ideal time for this post, and though there’s still a good deal of uncertainty around the topic, I’m going to forge ahead anyway. It concerns a different long-haired…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:18PMBorn this day, King of the Hillbilly Piano Players Aubrey Wilson “Moon” Mullican (1909-1967). Fittingly, in some years, his birthday falls on World Piano Day. Mullican is one of those mu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:54AMThursday, March 28, 2024
Yes, it’s true — it’s MLB opening day…and shaping up to be a rain day here in NYC. But it seemed like a good time to let you know about an upcoming new biography of pro baseballer an…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:01PMMarch 28 was the birthday of Jimmie Dodd (1910-1964), a.k.a. Jimmie from The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-1959). Don’t get any funny ideas! I’m about a decade too young to have watched this c…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:22AMWednesday, March 27, 2024
Singer Sarah Vaughan (1924-1990) was born 100 years ago today. Vaughan is often characterized on the short list of great 20th century jazz and blues singers, along with Billie Holiday, Ella …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:34AMTuesday, March 26, 2024
I had no fewer than FIVE show biz people I might have written about today, and got perhaps a third of the way though a post on one of them, but it has been like pulling teeth. When that happ…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:24PMMonday, March 25, 2024
This exceedingly rust-colored creature is Belgian-born actress, singer, model, and dancer Monique Van Vooren (1927-2020). Van Vooren first came to my notice in her over-the-top performance a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:12AMSunday, March 24, 2024
For the birthday of slapstick screen comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, a little aid to navigating his posts on Travalanche: People Main Biographical Post on Arbuckle Minta Durfee (wife) …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:32PMBorn 150 years ago today: the great Harry Houdini! Houdini’s the only magician to whom I’ve devoted an entire section on Travalanche. We thought we would observe this benchmark birthday …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AMThanks, Matthew Coniam, of The Marx Brothers Council Podcast and The Annotated Marx Brothers, who made me aware of Charlotte Mineau (1886-1979). I’d noticed her in Monkey Business (1931) a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:18AMSaturday, March 23, 2024
We celebrate World Bear Day by bestowing upon the ursines similar attention to that which we have directed toward dogs, cats, rabbits, horses, mules, birds, ducks, lions, tigers, elephants, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:32AMPaul Valentine (William Daixel, 1919-2006) comes to our attention (just barely) because he plays one of the principals in the late Marx Brothers movie Love Happy (1950). Unfortunately, after…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:32AMFriday, March 22, 2024
What with today being Chico Marx’s birthday, and Marxfest looming (less than two months away), we thought we would get all our chicks in a row to assist your investigation of this intrigui…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:48AMMarch 22, by some mysterious decree, has been designated International Taxi Drivers Day, the ideal time, it would appear, to introduce Hal Roach’s “Taxi Boys” comedies. The Taxi Boys w…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:48AMThursday, March 21, 2024
The word “more” appears in our title on account of the previous post, which promoted an April 13 burlesque tribute to Flo Ziegfeld. Here are four other related events happening prior to …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:18PMToday is the birthday of the great showman Flo Ziegfeld — seemed like the proper time to let you know about The Ziegfeld Girls Revue, playing at the The Green Room 42 (and livestreaming) o…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:12AMWednesday, March 20, 2024
#botd Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), who, as depicted above, could easily have been cast as a member of The Three Keatons. Ibsen’s name is often paired with Chekhov’s but…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:02PMOnly recently did I conclude that I was a fan of director Edmund Goulding (1891-1959), having passed that crucial moment when I was realized that several movies I like had a key artist in co…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:42AMTuesday, March 19, 2024
March 19, 1974 marked the endpoint of the lifespan of character actor Edward Platt (b. 1916). Readers of a certain age know Platt primarily from one particular role, so much so that they are…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:06AMMonday, March 18, 2024
Who are the stars of Marxfest, the Marx Brothers festival taking place in NYC just two months from now? Well, I’ll tell yer! And in my patented, condensed, prioritized way, for the conveni…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:42PMConcert Lecture: A Salute to the Remarkable Molly Piconat the Museum at Eldridge StreetTuesday, March 19 | 6PM ET In conjunction with the exhibition On the Lower East Side: Twenty-Eight Rema…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:12AMSunday, March 17, 2024
Malachy McCourt (1931-2024) passed away just a week ago; it made sense to me save a little send-off to him for today, St. Patrick’s Day. Malachy was not as well known internationally as hi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:54PMJohn Sebastian (b.1944) turns 80 years old today. Sebastian grew up in Greenwich Village — what was it like having a birthday there on St. Patrick’s Day, I’d like to know? Well, this i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:36PMSaturday, March 16, 2024
Be prepared, readers! The Jerry Lewis centennial approaches; there will be many more posts about the divisive comedian over the next couple of years. I have even been telling friends that I�…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:24AM90 years ago today (March 16, 1934) saw the release of The Gold Ghost, the first of Buster Keaton’s sixteen short subject comedies for Educational Pictures. The years of Keaton’s talkie …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:24AMFriday, March 15, 2024
Know thou of the Giant Shoe Museum at Pike Place Market in Seattle? Its mandate is not shoes as big as houses (although that’s entirely possible), but shoes worn by pituitary giants, inclu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:54PMThursday, March 14, 2024
March 14 was the birthday of Joseph Anthony Spah (1905-86), professionally known as “Ben Dova”. Spah was 17 when he immigrated to the U.S. from his native Alsace-Lorraine in 1922. A circ…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AM 
