Friday, April 4, 2025
John Brown (1904-1957) was a beloved comedy character actor in his own time, and a bit of a legend in the biz, though his name has gone unremembered, largely one imagines because he shares i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AMThursday, April 3, 2025
So…the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution is coming up in just a couple of weeks. Remember? The war started at Lexington and Concord, over a year before the signing of the Declar…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:06PMThe Jan and Dean saga deserves remembrance, not just because their binary star rates a bona fide place of significance in the pop firmament, but because theirs is a good yarn, with the same …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:36AMWednesday, April 2, 2025
I just learned from researching my new post on Hans Christian Andersen that (on account of his birthday) April 2 is celebrated as International Children’s Book Day. In honor of the day, I …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:12PMHans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was born 220 years ago today, and died 150 years ago this year — now would seem a propitious time to add him to our annals. I love the photo above! “A…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:48AMI think it would be really funny if some terrible and yet physically rambunctious actor claimed to have studied at HB Studio, but the H.B. turned out to stand not for Herbert Berghof, but fo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:42AMTuesday, April 1, 2025
Denise Nickerson (1957-2019), or, as some clever soul might contract it, “D’ickerson”, is surely best known as the child actress who played Violet Beauregarde, the obnoxious gum-chewin…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:36AMApril Fool’s Day birth notwithstanding Robert Pirosh (1910-1989) may have been the least characteristic and least-suited writer the Marx Brothers ever had. A former advertising copywriter,…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:18AMBorn 150 years ago this day: British mystery author Edgar Wallace (1875-1932). In America, Wallace is known for writing of the first draft of the original King Kong (1933), and dying before …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:12AMThanks Eve Golden, as always, for the intel that actress Sian Barbara Allen (1946-2025) has passed away. Allen was an obscure figure to be sure, but I had actually taken note of her before a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12AMMonday, March 31, 2025
I don’t know if it’s true that, as they say, the Scots are gifted with the Second Sight, but they are definitely lovers of the lore informing us that such things exist in the world. I kn…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:06PMYes! Herb Alpert (b. 1935) lives! Over the course of my moderately long life, I have done a complete 180 about-face on my feelings about Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass. When I was a kid i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:06AMSunday, March 30, 2025
Just a little trifle in celebration of National Doctor’s Day. Having already done a post on comedy doctors a couple of years ago, I thought of this new one over the course of writing about…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:18PMPeople of generations older than mine would be nonplussed to learn how little Frankie Laine (1913-2007) is remembered, and even more so to learn what he is remembered for, among those who do…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12PMMarch 30 was the birthday of Ethel Owen (Ethel Waite, 1893-1997), best known for playing Ralph Kramden’s bossy, meddlesome mother-in-law on The Honeymooners. Originally from Chicago, Owen …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AMSaturday, March 29, 2025
I’m pleased to report that I’ve got a piece in the upcoming April issue of Sideshow Gazette. In the article I had the privilege of interviewing Mr. David Geary (late of the New York Time…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:12PMFew things made by humans have given me as much pleasure as the Comedy Central show Strangers with Candy (1999-2000), which I am astounded to realize is now a quarter century in the rear vie…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:06PMFriday, March 28, 2025
In my recent conversation with the Flexitoon folks last week, Craig and Olga mentioned Foodini and Pinhead as being a major influence. I’d heard the reference at least once before; the sho…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12PMIn a span of two months at the end of 1942 the theatrical world lost five actresses known for playing older female characters: Marie Tempest, May Robson, Edna May Oliver, Laura Hope Crews, a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:54AMThursday, March 27, 2025
And by “double header” I mean that this year World Theatre Day falls on MLB opening day! Hence this picture of “Ya Gotta Have Heart” from Damn Yankees, a number I have to admit I rea…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:36PMWednesday, March 26, 2025
Every so often you stumble across a piece of intel about a movie you thought was perfect that suggests a way in which it might have been better. The factoid I learned today is that Sterling …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMTuesday, March 25, 2025
Many factors at work in the genesis of today’s post. 1) The recent release of what are purported last remaining “JFK files” by the Trump administration; 2) Today is the most commonly g…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:42PMMarch 25, 1911 was the date of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. We marked the centennial a few years ago here on Travalanche, along with the fact that there was an off-Broadway play up …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:12AMMonday, March 24, 2025
What a fascinating specimen was Wordsworth Donisthorpe (1847-1914). He was a man of too many parts to name. We’ll naturally lead with talk of his work as a pioneer of cinema, but he was al…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:36AMSunday, March 23, 2025
Thanks friend Henry Bial for putting me wise to the existence of Lorenzo Fuller (1919-2011). Henry’s a University of Kansas prof; Fuller was a native Kansan and a KU alum, and they are rig…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:03PMThis vintage Currier and Ives print is the most commonly circulated image of Patrick Henry’s famous speech before the Second Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775. It was created well afte…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:24AMSaturday, March 22, 2025
When Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021) passed away a few years ago and the entire theatrical world went into a mass keening we marked the occasion with held tongue. I find the reverence the world…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:24PMFriday, March 21, 2025
I don’t really need to rationalize the reasons why profiles of poets are a content stream on Travalanche, though it has has theatre and show business at its core. But I will. All poetry wa…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:32PMToday is the birthday of the great showman Flo Ziegfeld! I thought I would use the occasion of to present you without a little finding aid to help you navigate our several post about the gre…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:18PMMarch 21 is World Puppetry Day and that seemed like the perfect time to realize my long standing ambition to get the full skinny on a pair of impressive folks I met about a year ago at Marxf…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AMThursday, March 20, 2025
Spike Lee (b. 1957) has been a public figure for nearly 40 years now, at least since his first feature She’s Gotta Have It (1986), and he’s been making movies for longer than that. I was…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:12AM 
