All stories by Trav S.D. on BroadwayStars

Monday, February 24, 2025

Richard Thorpe: Efficient to a Fault by Trav S.D.

Though he directed nearly 200 movies, some of them enduringly famous, we have had but one occasion to mention director Richard Thorpe (1896-1991) thus far on Travalanche. He was the second d…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:12AM
Sunday, February 23, 2025

Peter Fonda: The Other Captain America by Trav S.D.

“I dig my father. I wish he could open his eyes and dig me.” — Peter Fonda (1940-2019). It seems significant that Peter Fonda came into the world at around the same time audiences were…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AM

60 Years Ago Today: The Death of Stan Laurel by Trav S.D.

February 23, 1965 was the day on which Stan Laurel (Stanley Jefferson, b. 1890), best known as one half of the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy, made his way toward the Pearly Gates. In a way…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AM
Saturday, February 22, 2025

R.I.P. Lynne Marie Stewart by Trav S.D.

Thanks Eve Golden, Daughter of Three Gods (Hermes, Aphrodite, and Thanatos) for relating the sad news of the passing Lynne Marie Stewart (1946-2025), best known as Miss Yvonne (The Most Beau…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:48PM

Timely News for World Sword Swallowers Day by Trav S.D.

World Sword Swallowers Day happens every year for the last Saturday in February. It falls a little early this year. We hope you will use the opportunity to peruse the Travalanche Sword Swall…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:48PM

The Edward Gorey Centennial by Trav S.D.

Born 100 years ago today: illustrator, author, designer Edward Gorey (1925-2000). While primarily celebrated for his book illustrations, Gorey did cross over into stage and screen success br…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:32AM
Friday, February 21, 2025

The Sam Peckinpah Centennial by Trav S.D.

Born 100 years ago today, Hollywood’s original poet of violence, Sam Peckinpah (1922-1984). I reckon it was always forgone that Peckinpah would not live to see this day. The man consumed v…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:06PM

A Century of The New Yorker by Trav S.D.

Founded 100 years ago today, that seminal American organ of taste, craft, wisdom, and discernment (and almost always several good laughs), The New Yorker. The New Yorker was the innovative b…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:42AM

Happy International Tourist Guide Day by Trav S.D.

February 21 is International Tourist Guide Day, sponsored by the World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations. As it happens, I had the great honor to be invited to speak to their local af…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:32AM
Thursday, February 20, 2025

Huffy Buffy Sainte-Marie, Is She Cree, or What’s It To Be? by Trav S.D.

Singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie (b. 1941) was back in the news just a couple of weeks ago, and I bet she’s glad that we’re living under a tsunami of catastrophic headlines, for hers…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:18PM

Of John Charles Daly and “What’s My Line?” by Trav S.D.

Having frequently come across clips of the original CBS broadcasts of the game show What’s My Line?, which ran from 1950 through 1967, I grew curious about its host John Charles Daly (1914…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:54AM
Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Jackie Curtis: Pioneer Without a Frontier by Trav S.D.

There are a number of people on my calendar to write about today; with the government currently attempting to erase LGBT community, trans people in particular, I figure I’d better go with …

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:48AM
Tuesday, February 18, 2025

A Salute to Chester Clute by Trav S.D.

February 18 is the birthday of Billy DeWolf, Adolphe Menjou, “Little Angie” Rossitto, Hugo Haas, Allan Melvin, Edward Arnold, George Givot, George Kennedy, George Kirby, Jerry Fujikawa, …

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:12AM
Monday, February 17, 2025

The Vanishing Arthur Kennedy by Trav S.D.

Few are the American actors as significant and solid yet as unknown and forgotten as Arthur Kennedy (1914-1990). Kennedy’s chief claim to enduring fame is his having created key roles in t…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:02AM
Sunday, February 16, 2025

Obscene Beauty (A 2020 Documentary I’m Kind of In) by Trav S.D.

Back in 2016, some P.A. on a documentary asked me if they could use a clip from one of my old vaudeville shows at Surf Reality circa 1998 in a new film about burlesque, and I said yeah and p…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12PM
Saturday, February 15, 2025

Whither Wendest Thou, Wisconsin? by Trav S.D.

February 15 being National Wisconsin Day, we now add it to the small number of American states to which we are paying tributes in a series, making a sort of midwestern trilogy with our two r…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:12AM
Friday, February 14, 2025

On Carl Thomas Anderson and “Henry”: Life Begins at 67 by Trav S.D.

Comic strip artist Carl Thomas Anderson (1865-1948) was born of a Valentine’s Day, just like Jack Benny, Gregory Hines, and tellingly, Teller of Penn and Teller. Teller is just as silent a…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:02AM
Thursday, February 13, 2025

Susan Oliver: The Green Eyed, Green Skinned Girl by Trav S.D.

The big year for Susan Oliver (Charlotte Gercke, 1932-1990) was 1964: in that one year she was the female lead in Jerry Lewis’s The Disorderly Orderly, the Hank Williams bio-pic Your Cheat…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:02AM
Wednesday, February 12, 2025

The Waldmans and Blue-O-Logy by Trav S.D.

This ad was the best image I could find recording the existence of vaudeville harmonica player Ted Waldman (1899-1987), who was born of a February 12. You can see him and his brother Al ment…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:24PM

The Cocoanuts: Public Domained, Restored, and “3-D”d by Trav S.D.

Four Marxes, Three Dimensions

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:24PM
Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Chad Morgan: The Sheik of Scrubby Creek by Trav S.D.

Australian country singer Chad Morgan (1933-2025) passed away last month, and thanks Eve Golden for my belated introduction to him. Australian country music is very much a thing, and it make…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:02AM
Monday, February 10, 2025

On Filmdom’s F*cked Up Farrow Family by Trav S.D.

Mia Farrow’s birthday is February 9; February 10 was the birthday of her father, the less remembered writer and director John Farrow (1904-1963). John Farrow’s self-reported early life s…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:42PM
Sunday, February 9, 2025

On Goffin and King by Trav S.D.

I apologize in advance because for the rest of the day and surely for several days afterward your head will be full of the songs of Gerry Goffin (1939-2014) and Carole King (b. 1942) — I m…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:32AM
Saturday, February 8, 2025

All I Owe, I Owe Ioway by Trav S.D.

This one goes to my favorite Iowan, Lynn Berg! It’s National Iowa Day. In writing this blog, I’ve been aggregating things I like about this state for years, believe it or not. As a membe…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:48AM
Friday, February 7, 2025

It’s Getting Tired, Mildred (and the Genealogy of the Soap Opera) by Trav S.D.

This is a public apology — published permanently into the public record for all to see. Ten years ago a very good friend launched a monthly theatrical series and cast it with about two doz…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:06PM

Archeophone Takes Home Two Grammys! by Trav S.D.

We are kvelling big time for our friends Rich Martin and Meagan Hennessey of Archeophone Records, for chalking up two Grammy Awards for the album I told you about last August Centennial: Kin…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:48AM
Thursday, February 6, 2025

The Fabrication of Fabian by Trav S.D.

February 6 is the birthday of singer and actor Fabian Forte (b.1943), known to audiences of his own day merely as Fabian. Fabian lives at the center of a Venn Diagram including two sets of m…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:42AM
Wednesday, February 5, 2025

It Happened at The Palace: A New Book By Stewart F. Lane! by Trav S.D.

I’m always late to the party! Somehow I never got word that Stewart F. Lane, visionary Broadway producer, author of Black Broadway: African Americans on the Great White Way (2015), and par…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:06AM

“Turn On” Was NOT the Worst TV Program of All Time by Trav S.D.

February 5, 1969 was the air date of the one and only broadcast episode of the TV comedy sketch show Turn On. Turn On has become legendary as the shortest-lived tv series ever, because not o…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:02AM
Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Norman Wisdom: The Successful Failure by Trav S.D.

Though he was a major star in Great Britain, here in the States movie lovers are apt to know Norman Wisdom (1915-2010) from just one film, The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1967). Born right…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:12AM
Monday, February 3, 2025

On “Saturday Night” and “The People’s Joker”: A Tale of Two Revolutions by Trav S.D.

I was raised to believe that the good guy in any David vs. Goliath scenario was David. Intrinsically. As far as I know, that used to be the American Way. Until a few decades ago, most of our…

SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:06PM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Nov 17, 2024: Elf - Marquis Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 17, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre