Saturday, April 26, 2025
April 26 being the birthday of Anita Loos, I thought I would take the opportunity to look at her best known work, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which turns 100 years old this coming November. I …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:48AMFriday, April 25, 2025
When I first heard there was an actor named Walt Whitman (1849-1928) my first take was “You can’t do that!” But of course he could. After all: a) it was his real name; and b) at the ti…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:12PMNew York hot jazz lovers! I’m already booked tomorrow so I’m telling YOU so you can attend this for me! My friends from Archeophone Records Richard Martin and Meagan Hennessy will be at …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:06PMPenguins International tells us its World Penguin Day — and who are we to squawk? We observe the day with this honor roll of penguin related characters from pop culture. We were surprised …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:06PMIt’s quite true — there once was a director and producer named Orville O. Dull (Orvid Oscar Dull, 1888-1978). The jokes just write themselves, and I’m shocked that Bob and Ray didn’t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:03AMThursday, April 24, 2025
Cindy Adams (b. 1930) turns 95 years old today — which means that she has never been young the entire time she has turned out her New York Post column. She started it in 1979 when she was …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:12AMReuben “Rube” Bloom (1902-1976) was a writer of rags and tin pan alley songs, a band leader, accompanist, and on occasion a singer. His name was pronounced “Ruby” by some back in the…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AMWednesday, April 23, 2025
Today is Yom HaShoah, Israel’s official Holocaust Remembrance Day. It takes place on the 27th day of Nisan (sundown April 23 into April 24). This is distinct from International Holocaust R…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:06PMApril 23 being World Book Day, it seemed the ideal time to let you know about the upcoming Coney Island Book Fair, taking place at Coney Island USA on May 10! All hail Lady Aye (Ilyse Carter…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AMTuesday, April 22, 2025
Thanks Eve Golden and Mel Newhouse for calling my attention to Sylvia Lewis (b. 1931), whom I’d certainly seen onscreen many a time without connecting all the dots. Her most prominent cred…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:24AMMonday, April 21, 2025
The recent world takeover by billionaires has inspired nothing so much in me as a desire to rub elbows at the People’s Playground, Birthplace of the Nickel Hot Dog. So look for me at Coney…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:12PMWe’ve known she’s been in hospice for weeks but I’ve been dreading this day for years, not because I obsess about Rochelle Denton, whom I’m mourning the loss of today, but because I�…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:03PMWow, are the stars ever crazily aligned today. Massachusetts and a few other states celebrate Patriots Day today, a holiday that commemorates what would be called the Birth of America if we …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:42AMSunday, April 20, 2025
What a cluster of symbolically weighted days we are in the midst of. The Revolutionary anniversaries of April 18 (Paul Revere’s Ride) and April 19 (Lexington and Concord) combined with yes…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:32AMJohnny 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, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:24AMThis 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 …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:24AMBorn 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 th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:06AMSaturday, April 19, 2025
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 an…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:36AMFriday, April 18, 2025
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 L…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:48AMThursday, April 17, 2025
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, g…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMOlivia 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 t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:48AMWednesday, April 16, 2025
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 birth…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:54AMAn 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 sin…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:42AMTuesday, April 15, 2025
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 thea…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:03PMThe 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, somethi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:03PMThe 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 m…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:03AMMonday, April 14, 2025
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 conce…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12PMYeah, 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…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:12PMSome 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 …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:01AMSunday, April 13, 2025
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 …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:32PMThis 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 Kin…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:06AM 
