Johnny 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, which is today. I’…

This 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 he not passed away b…

Born 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 the Pittsburgh area, e…

Well, I wish I was on Lexington Green today watching the re-enactors re-create what happened there 250 years ago, but c’est la guerre. I do have my “eyes on the ground” in Lexington and Concord today thou…

A quarter of a millennium ago, on April 18, 1775, occurred Paul Revere’s famous ride to alert the slumbering Minutemen to an eminent crackdown by British leaders on the rebel Patriots at Lexington and Concord…

April 17 was the baptismal day of Jacobean playwright John Ford (1586-ca. 1639). That’s my copy of his collected plays above. (If you’re looking for the director of Hollywood westerns, go here.) John Ford�…

Olivia Hussey (1951-2024) would be turning 74 today; we lost her back in December. We tend to think of this actress in only one role because she was so iconic in it, but she actually had a terrific career acros…

April 16 is kind of a comedy holy day ’round here. It’s the anniversary of the release date of Laurel and Hardy’s The Music Box and Way Out West and Chaplin’s The Cure, and the birthday of Three Stooges…

An atypical post today, for it concerns an artist who was ambivalent about show business. Many of us are. For me it’s a love/hate thing. I hope I convey what I love about it here every single day, but I certa…

I found this picture of Eve Golden (reclining) from the Digital Transgender Archive. It shows her in an off-Broadway play in 1981. Eve hasn’t acted in some time, but she manifests the theatrical wherever she …

The title of this post could take you down any number of legitimate paths — a playhouse named after the great Italian polymath, say, or biographical stage works about him. Instead, something still more german…

The title of today’s post is meant to differentiate its subject from the motion picture composer, although this John Williams (Hugh Ernest Leo Williams, 1903-1983) had a famous classical musical connection, t…

I know this isn’t a very round anniversary, but ten years ago (at the 150th), Travalanche hadn’t much expanded beyond vaudeville and silent film comedy as far as subject matter was concerned. I have of cour…

Yeah, I said! Just got the word from Feedspot that Travalanche ranks #57 of all New York City based blogs and websites, which I call not too shabby given that the list is topped by the likes of ILoveNewYork, Th…

Some attention paid today to Hollywood screen actress Claire Windsor (Clara Viola Cronk, 1892-1972). Windsor was a major star of the 1920s and early ’30s, encompassing the late silent and early talkie periods…

This International Romani Day we thought we’d give you a head’s up about a new film that focuses on Charlie Chaplin’s Romani heritage and how it influenced his art. It’s directed by the great comedian�…

This is the second time I’m felt the need to single out Bill Maher for conspicuous bad-acting. (The first was about five years ago). Now that he’s been to the White House to kiss the King’s ass, he’s go…

This will make an interesting companion piece to yesterday’s post, which concerned major players in the birthing of jazz. The music has no end, one hopes, but today’s post discusses a major figure of “lat…

And just what do I mean by a very vaudeville kind of day? Well it’s National Barber Shop Quartet Day, as well as the birthday of Nick LaRocca of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, not to mention the birthdays …

We choose the birthday of Dominic “Nick” LaRocca (1889-1961) for this tribute to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (original rendered as the Original Dixieland Jass Band). This seminal quintet did not origin…

April 9, 1813 was the date upon which Moll Pitcher (Mary Diamond) transitioned from this Mortal Plane into the Great Beyond. In modern parlance, Moll can best be described as a celebrity psychic. She was a high…

April 9 is the birthday of singer and actress Paula Stewart (Dorothy Paula Zürndorfer, b. 1929) Stewart is very much still with us — I’ve even had the pleasure of interacting with her online! I am normall…

Happy National Banjo Day! As I wrote in No Applause, this quintessentially American instrument originated in Africa, made its way here through the cultured of enslaved black people, and then into white culture …

The name Victor Shertzinger (1888-1941) has not withstood the test of time but once you learn of his accomplishments you may wonder why it hasn’t. He was not only a movie director, but also a movie composer, …

As you might have guessed, western star Neal Hart (1879-1949) was a cousin of the much bigger western star William S. Hart. Less predictably, he was born on Staten Island! According to his dossier, Hart had act…

A belated centennial celebration and obituary for the late star Margia Dean (Marguerite Louise Skliris, 1922-2023). 101 at the time of her passing! I see dozens of articles idiotically parroting that her “gre…

Today, a tribute to Danny Wells (Jack Westelman, 1941-2013), a distinctive and memorable comedy character actor who was fairly ubiquitous on television when I was a kid in the ’70s. Tall and lean, I would put…

I was already planning a paean to the nation’s libraries for National Library Week, which starts today, but this year in particular invests our message of advocacy with an element of urgency. But first the pr…

You don’t know with what pleasure I rode through New York on buses and trains this past Tuesday (April 1), conspicuously reading Zeppo: The Reluctant Marx Brother in hopes that some stranger would call me out…

I got a pleasant surprise (well…pleasant, but not a surprise) this morning when I grabbed a copy of the Queens Gazette and saw that my profile/interview had dropped. It was a few days too late to hype my even…

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 it with a man of unde…

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 Declaration of Independenc…

The 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 kind of compelling s…

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 have created this li…

Hans 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! “Action” photos of t…

I 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 for Hard Boiled Hagger…

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-chewing child who turns in…

April 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, as well as a gradua…

Born 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 he could take it any…

Thanks 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 and made a point of r…

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 know, because I’m on…

Yes! 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 in the ’70s, his mu…

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 certain poets and a…

People 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 recall him. To be p…

March 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 began her career in …

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 Times), whose father was…

Few 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 view mirror, not counti…

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 show had also been an i…

In 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, and, finally, today�…

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 really, really love. It…

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 Hayden (1916-1986) h…

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 given date for the bi…

March 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 about it at the time…

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 also a barrister, poli…

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 rightly proud of the as…

This 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 after the event of cours…

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 has for Sondheim un…

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 was originally perform…

Today 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 great impresario. Our e…

March 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 Marxfest 2024: Craig Mari…

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 just recalling how …

Just thought I’d give you a heads up about some film screenings in New York that got ME excited, at any rate: Tomorrow, March 20, 2015 at 7:30pm: Ben Model (preservationist, author, presenter, and accompanist…

Well, it’s National Poultry Day, and I’m getting mighty sick of talk of the price of eggs, so I thought I’d skip the hens and give a shout-out to the place of roosters in pop culture. Chickens were origin…

Today is actually Brad Dourif’s 75th birthday, but we’re coming up on 50 years since he first came to widespread public attention as Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). I was sorely te…

His full name was Maurice Oscar Louis Mouvet (1889-1927), though professionally he was usually known simply as “Maurice”. Though he was an international trendsetter for nearly two decades his name has been …

No one is quite certain of the birth date of Clara Morris, although IBDB informs us with great assurance that it was March 17, 1848, so we go with that — with the caveat that others tell us the true date may …

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Given the importance of the Irish to the history of vaudeville, I annually feel I don’t do enough to celebrate this day, and perhaps someday I’ll get it together. It honestly warr…

March 16 was the birthday of singer/guitarist Corinna Mura (Corrina Wall, 1910-1965). Mura’s career was brief but fascinating. Through only one quarter Spanish she made a career as a “Latin American” chan…

Ford Dabney (1883-1958) was an African American composer, pianist, and bandleader of the ragtime and early jazz eras, best known for writing the tune to the song “Shine” a.k.a. “That’s Why They Call Me …

Quincy Jones (1933-2024) would have been 92 today; he passed away with much accompanying fanfare back in November. I saved this appreciation for today so it wouldn’t get lost in the flurry of tributes. Most o…

Oh, the Duke ain’t Dead! Don’t ya fret on that score. It’s just that the 50th anniversary year of Saturday Night Live seemed the appropriate time to remember her peak years, when she was a cast member on …

I wish to God this were not a timely story, but we are never masters of our own chronologies. In the interest of dramatic reveal, I will make you wait a bit for the astounding parts. William Dudley Pelley (1890…

We all return to Clay. And by that I mean Clay M. Greene (1850-1933), playwright, critic, journalist, film-maker, and man of business. The phrase also happens to apply to Greene’s life. A contemporary of the …

March 11 is the birthday of downtown impresario Robert Prichard, co-founder and bull goose looney of the much missed performance space known as Surf Reality (or, by the full title, Surf Reality’s House of Urb…

Today happens to be a notable comedy history day for two reasons: 1) it is the centennial anniversary of the released of the Buster Keaton comedy Seven Chances (1925). But I wrote about that movie back in 2014,…

Had she lived a bit longer, Luba Lisa (Luba Lisa Gootnick, 1941-1972) would almost certainly be well known and associated with the other show bizzy chicks of her generation: Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Liza…

This one is strictly for New York area hardcore comedy freaks. Tomorrow, March 11, 2025, at 7:30pm — a rare chance to see what many feel is the comedy to end all comedies, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1…

Actor Stuart Holmes (Joseph Liebschen, 1884-1971) may have appeared in as many as 600 movies from the years 1909 through 1964. Throughout his career he was mostly a supporting player, often known for playing �…

This one goes out to all W.C. Fields fans, silent movie fans, circus fans, and fans of the Borough of Queens and its history! I sure hope that covers everyone! My old friends at the Greater Astoria Historical S…

First off, that’s not a typo: Sue Ane Langdon (b. 1936) spells the second part of her first name with a single “n” — as in “Nything to stand out in show business.” In her heyday, she was mostly know…