Sunday, March 3, 2024
Today, a brief remembrance of character actor Harold J. Stone (1913-2005). I associate Stone with crook and thug characters but he also played doctors, generals, and other rough-hewn authori…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:32AMSaturday, March 2, 2024
Like our recent post about Lucy and Desi bio-pics, this post arises out of the quality time I spent with this entertaining couple and their various shows during the Covid lockdown (in partic…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:48AMFriday, March 1, 2024
People just a shade younger than me have an entirely different mental association with Alan Thicke (Alan Jeffrey, 1947-2016). To them, he is the dad on the TV sitcom Growing Pains (1985-1992…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:48AMThursday, February 29, 2024
February 29, 2008 was the day Travalanche was launched, making this erstwhile offspring of mine 16 years old, but having had only four birthdays. A Leap Year Baby. I launched the blog while …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:24PMIt isn’t often (once every four years, in fact) that we get to add a new Leap Year Baby to Travalanche. Thus far, out of thousands of bios here, we’ve only got Dinah Shore, William Wellm…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMWednesday, February 28, 2024
The sordid tragedy of Dorothy Stratten (1960-80) has been rehashed countless times over the past four decades. I find it less compelling for the horrific story itself than for its resonances…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMTuesday, February 27, 2024
There’s an actor and an opera star I could be writing about this morning, but I just can’t get myself worked up about them, whereas there’s much more to be said on the topic of John St…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:18PMMonday, February 26, 2024
This post will lap around the edges of carnival, though nothing really connects its constituent parts beyond a name. February 26 was the birthday of the intriguing French figure Camille Flam…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:48AMA few words on Billy “Zoot” Reed (1913-1974) and Billy Reed’s Little Club (1947-1965). I first learned about this long gone Manhattan institution in writing about the magician Harry Lo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:42AMSunday, February 25, 2024
Notes on stage and screen actress Lucille Ward (1880-1952). A native of Dayton, Ohio the first years of the 20th century saw Ward touring with vaudeville and stock companies, and appearing i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMSaturday, February 24, 2024
February 24 was the natal day of William M. Ruthrauff (1881-1969), inventor of Pepsodent. At least, he’s the inventor according to this excellent article at the Made in Chicago Museum. The…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:06AMFebruary 24 was the birthday of “Chrome Dome Frome” a.k.a. Texaco Star Theatre’s Second Best Milton, Milton Frome (1908-1989). (No one ever called him those things, I just thought them…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:36AMFriday, February 23, 2024
Born 150 years ago today May Davis Wait (1874-1956). Just over a century ago, Wait’s husband, a sometime cough syrup manufacturer name Pearle, invented Jell-O; May’s the one who named it…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AMThursday, February 22, 2024
February 22 is the birthday of respected veteran character actor James Hong (b. 1929). He’s 95 as I pen this, and still toiling at what he loves, which is pretty incredible. Hong’s fathe…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:24AMWednesday, February 21, 2024
Hello, you must be going! The long-awaited return of Marxfest will take place over two glorious weekends in NYC, packed with once-in-a-lifetime events calculated to thrill the obsessive Marx…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:48AMIt amuses me especially to title this post “the OTHER Charles King” since it’s likely that precious few readers have ever heard of the first one we wrote about here. As it happens, tod…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:36AMTuesday, February 20, 2024
Gloria Vanderbilt (1924-2019) was born 100 years ago today. Hers is a name that has meant something different to every American generation. Contemporary people may or may not recognize her a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:42AMMonday, February 19, 2024
Happy Presidents Day! Young people may not know this, but ostensibly this is not a day for ALL the Presidents, just Washington and Lincoln. We used to celebrate them each as separate holiday…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:32AMIt is our pleasure this morning to tell you about Early American Renaissance Man William Dunlap (1766-1839). Dunlap’s most significant contributions were in the theatre, but he was also a …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:32AMA few words on the brief career of Hope Hampton (Mae Elizabeth Hampton,1897-1982). Hampton was a Philadelphia beauty pageant queen who was spotted by pioneering producer Jules Brulatour whil…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:24AMSunday, February 18, 2024
Though we have been writing about lots of corporate brands of late, we regret to advise that today’s post is not about the pizza chain. Nor even the 1931 gangster movie with Edward G. Robi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:12AMSaturday, February 17, 2024
For a goodly stretch there, when I was about 20 years old, my very favorite movie in all the world was Roger Corman’s original 1960 Little Shop of Horrors (which is one of the many reasons…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMFriday, February 16, 2024
On this day in 2011, Professor Hokum W. Jeebs (Robert Stabile, b. 1951) breathed his last. This is a story of the New Vaudeville, but sounds for all the world like something from the Very Ol…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:42AMThursday, February 15, 2024
150 years ago today: the birth of Polar Explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922). It gives me particular pleasure to write about him on the day after Valentine’s Day, for Shackleton was …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:24AMWednesday, February 14, 2024
And though it is Jack Benny’s birthday, and I am developing a longish piece about Benny’s movies, the precipitating cause of this post is that February 14 ALSO happens to be the birthday…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:12AMSomething appropriate there is about the fact that National Ferris Wheel Day and Valentine’s Day are one and the same. I can’t think of a more romantic date activity than a ride on one o…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:02AMTuesday, February 13, 2024
According to the master calendar that makes this blog happen, there are numerous new people I could be writing about on this Fat Tuesday — but I find I want to talk some more about George …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:06AMMonday, February 12, 2024
I say “the other” because the better known David Steinberg was a Canadian stand-up comedian who was popular in the 1970s. The one who concerns us today was David J. Steinberg (1965-2010)…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:36AMI’ve little original to say upon the the topic, but I cannot let it go unobserved: today marks 100 years since George Gershwin premiered his Rhapsody in Blue at Aeolian Hall in New York (F…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:24AMSunday, February 11, 2024
The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company was incorporated on this day in 1890. I’m not here to celebrate or endorse their product, but RJR did leave a camel print in the shifting sands of show bu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:42AMSaturday, February 10, 2024
Harry Beaumont (1888-1966) is not regarded today as a great cinematic auteur, and perhaps he shouldn’t be in terms of such matter as camera placement, shot composition, and so forth (and t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:02PM 
