Sunday, January 21, 2024
The long life of Sid Raymond (Raymond Silverstein, 1909-2006) brought old time show biz awfully close to our time. In his early years, Raymond had worked as a tummler in Catskills resort hot…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:36AMSaturday, January 20, 2024
January 20 is David Lynch’s birthday. To date, our only dedicated post on this great director focused on The Elephant Man (1980), for the obvious reason that our jumping off point with the…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:32PMFriday, January 19, 2024
Quite coincidentally, three slim and tasteful tomes have made their way to my mailbox (the real one, not the virtual) within the space of a week, so I thought it made sense to bundle them to…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:54AMThursday, January 18, 2024
This one goes out to friend Bob Berger, who told me not long ago that he was the great-nephew of the famous star of New York’s Yiddish Theatre scene, Seymour Rexite (Shayele Rechtzeit, 19…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:36AMWednesday, January 17, 2024
Benjamin West’s 1816 portrait of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) is misleading in one significant way beyond the fact that we can assume that Ben’s experiments were not guided by cherubim.…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:18PMTuesday, January 16, 2024
The British-Canadian poet Robert W. Service (1874-1958) was born this day 150 years ago. I’m quite certain I posted on him here many years ago, but later trashed it in a one-time frenzy a …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:48AMBorn 100 years ago today, the multi-talented voice-over actor, children’s entertainer and three or four other things, Allen Swift (Ira Stadlen, 1924-2010). The name may not ring an immedia…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:42AMMonday, January 15, 2024
Back in the late 20th century, though there were more important things to worry about, I was nonetheless dismissive of Liz Taylor’s designation of Michael Jackson as “King of Pop”, for…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:54AMSunday, January 14, 2024
Born 100 years ago today: actor Guy Williams (Armando Joseph Catalano, 1924-1989) Our previous excuse for a post about Guy Williams was pretty much all about Lost in Space, so I thought toda…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:54PMJust got the bulletin about the passing away yesterday of Joyce Randolph (Joyce Serola, b. 1924), best known as the actress who played Trixie on The Honeymooners, both as a series of sketche…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:54PMSaturday, January 13, 2024
January 13 is the birthday of the great Julia Louis-Dreyfus (b. 1961). JLD has been a star now over 40 years, which is particularly painful for me to say because I’m only four years younge…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:18PMFriday, January 12, 2024
A post this morning on an important but forgotten figure from vaudeville, Broadway and Hollywood history Jack McGowan (John Wesley McGowan, 1894-1977) While I’ve long known about some of t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:06PMI’m very sorry to hear of the passing away of author David J. Skal (1952-2024). When I signed with FSG to write my first book, one of the first things my visionary editor Denise Oswald did…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMThursday, January 11, 2024
A gent named Mark Thompson took the color pix I share below; I borrowed them from his spread on the RI Memories website, which I feel okay doing since I also link you to the full page here.�…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:42PMThe title of this post is a little bit of a “gotcha” for Coney Island fans. The fact is, Coney Island’s Luna Park was so culturally influential that scores of amusement parks all over …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:12PMToday’s homily (an occasional one here) concerns the truth that Hollywood is not necessarily the be-all and end-all for all performers. Case in point: singer-actor George Houston (1896-194…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:02AMWednesday, January 10, 2024
Our salute to Sal Mineo (1939-1976) contains what may amount to revelations to some. He departed this life during a lull in his career that I feel confident would not have been permanent. Bu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:02PMElaine Devry, sometimes billed as Elaine Davis or Elaine Curtis, passed away back in September, and her life and career were interesting in several respects so I made a note to schedule a po…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:12AMTuesday, January 9, 2024
I imagine I first knew about Fernando Lamas (Fernando Álvaro Lamas y de Santos, 1915-1982) by way of his being kidded on Saturday Night Live — no less than twice. The first occasion was t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AMThe Torn Page space in Chelsea is one of my favorite NYC venues. It’s located in the actual west side town house of the late Rip Torn and Geraldine Page! Tony Torn has directed a terrific …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:54AMMonday, January 8, 2024
Having already written posts about Chico’s sole progeny Maxine, and two of Groucho’s children, Arthur and Miriam, it seems equitable that this January 8 we pay birthday tribute to Harpo�…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:32AMSunday, January 7, 2024
No sooner did Funhouse Philosophers (Dick Zigun’s company) and Bread and Puppet Theater close their wonderful shows at Theater for the New City than we received all manner of additional bu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12PMHere’s an extraordinary fact: the screen career of Terry Moore (Helen Luella Koford, b. 1929) which began in 1940, remains technically open ended. Moore’s professional credits stretch ou…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:54AMSaturday, January 6, 2024
The above image is Olga Georges-Picot (1940-1997) as the Countess Alexandrovna in Woody Allen’s Love and Death (1974), probably her best known role to readers of this blog. She was hired t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:12AMFriday, January 5, 2024
Exciting news for lovers of clown, mime, and all physical and movement-based theatre: PhysFestNYC, a new 10 day physical theatre festival produced at the Stella Adler Center for the Arts by …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:48AMJanuary 5 was the birthday of newspaperman Herbert Bayard Swope (1882-1958). You’d be correct in noticing that it’s unusual for us to give attention to a straight news journalist on this…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:42AMThursday, January 4, 2024
Marla English (1936-2012) only racked up 18 screen credits in a film career lasting just just over two years, but she left an imprint. The model and beauty pageant winner was still a teenage…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:48AMWednesday, January 3, 2024
Just learned from Jeff Lewonczyk’s heartfelt memoriam that an important member of the indie theatre community, photographer Ken Stein has been taken by cancer. Jeff’s tribute is definiti…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:02PMIn anticipation of your inevitable question, yes, Josephine Hull (Josephine Sherwood, 1877-1957) WAS related to Henry Hull, she was his sister-in-law. There were three thespian Hull brothers…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:48AMTuesday, January 2, 2024
Not that Roger Miller (1936-1992) did anything in particular so awful that I know of that requires redemption. His worst sin perhaps was allowing himself to be goofy for the amusement of aud…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:36AMMonday, January 1, 2024
Even among Little People actors, Verne Troyer (1969-1918) ranked as extraordinary. Standing 2′ 8″ (two and 2/3 feet) he made actors like Billy Barty or Michael Dunn seem unremarkable. He…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:06PM 
