Monday, October 14, 2024
That’s Jimmy Durante — of course, I’m going to give him pride of place among Italian Americans in show business. He’s kind of the “Adam” of it all, a musician, a singer, a comedi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:48PMOriginally posted on my other blog the Trav-a-log, the contents of which I am in the process of transplanting here, so that it will all live in one place! In 1492 most well educated people i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:32AMSunday, October 13, 2024
Jack MacGowran (1918-1973) was what it’s all about: a muse for many of the best creative minds of the 20th century, an indispensible character actor, and a career most of us would die for,…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:36AMSaturday, October 12, 2024
It’s National Farmers Day. For the occasion, I am restoring a post I published here in 2017, then moved over to Medium when I did a big purge of all the non-show biz related posts on Trava…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:42AMBorn 100 years ago today, actress Randy Stuart (Elizabeth “Betty Jane” Shaubell, 1924-1996). Stuart started out with her parents in a small time vaudeville act that toured the South and …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:42AMFriday, October 11, 2024
How perfect is it that the International Day of the Girl Child falls on the birthday Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)? She’s one of my top female heroes; we’ve needed her or someone like he…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:06AMThursday, October 10, 2024
When I say I mourn Steve Gordon (1938-1982) I don’t mean to imply that I knew him or that he only recently died. The writer/director passed away over 40 years ago, worlds away from my litt…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:18PMMy word but there were a lot of Alices running around a century and more ago! I’ve always been interested in the phenomenon because it was my mother’s middle name, after her aunt, who he…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:02AMAn experiment in media in honor of the birthday of the great actress Helen Hayes in further exploration of the legacy of her friend and “Boswell”, Mari Lyn Henry. The audio is not optima…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:02AMBorn 100 years ago today, the one and only writer/actor/producer/director Edward D. Wood, Jr! We are a huge fan of his oeuvre, and have been for well over 30 years. (As it happens, it is als…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:48AMWednesday, October 9, 2024
Above please note my first edition copy of a Pultitzer Prize winning autobiography from around a century ago The Americanization of Edward Bok. I acquired and read this now highly obscure bo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:06PMHere’s one I learned about by way of Eve Golden’s “Youtube Theatre” column at the Los Angeles Daily Mirror. When I refer to Judy Tyler (Judith Mae Hess, 1932-1957) as the “Girl Jam…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:06PMTuesday, October 8, 2024
Well, I’ve written about many of the classic, old time gossip columnists here (Walter Winchell, Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, Earl Wilson, Dorothy Kilgallen, etc) so why stop at the later…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AMToday, a salute to an actor whose career is an illustration of the vagaries of fate when it comes to the breaks it dispenses to actors, Kirk Alyn (John Feggo, Jr., 1910-1999). A New Jersey n…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:12AMMonday, October 7, 2024
October 7 will always be remembered for the atrocity that happened in Israel a year ago, but it has another humanitarian significance as well, for it was the birthday of legendary labor acti…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:36PMOctober 7 was the birthday of Alfredo Codona (1893-1937), the most celebrated (and later mourned) member of an international, multi-generational dynasty of showfolk. Originally spelled Codon…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AMSunday, October 6, 2024
The second act of Mitchell Leisen (1898-1972) has arrived posthumously, but to misappropriate an attrocious line of Robin Williams, beter latent than never? Numerous in-depth articles about …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:32AMSaturday, October 5, 2024
Previously posted on Travalachance and restored for National Rhode Island Day and the Halloween season. Today we continue our series of Rhode Island Day/ Halloween posts by relating some de…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:54PMYes, yes, I know the title sounds like a Michael Feinstein song (people are forever explaining my own damn jokes and literary devices back to me, as though the very productions of my own min…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:54PMAnd now, since it’s both National Rhode Island Day as well as the Halloween season, news of a spooky film set on a small island in the smallest state. I caught The Block Island Sound (2021…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:32AMFriday, October 4, 2024
Ecstatic to report that I am finally realizing my long-cherished goal of doing a book event at Atomic Books in Baltimore this October 26, 2024, at 7pm. I first visited that cool emporium abo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:32AMThursday, October 3, 2024
October 3 is the birthday of the grea drag star, singer, performance, actor Joey Arias. Born in Fayetteville, N.C. (recently hard hit by Hurricane Helene) Arias moved to L.A. with his family…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:36AMWednesday, October 2, 2024
Thanks, Bob Greenberg for the very good idea to do a solo post on Bud Abbott (William Alexander Abbott, 1897-1974). The reasons for doing one (and doing one now) are multiple: 1) the many po…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:06PMTuesday, October 1, 2024
100 years ago this day and this month: the birth of Surrealism (a few years longer if you count Apollinaire’s coinage of the term in 1917). Yvan Goll published an obscure Surrealist Manif…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:54PM’tis the season for spooky, and I’m way into it this year, so expect plenty of horror and horror/comedy content here throughout the Halloween month. First out of the gate is a thing I ha…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:24PMToday marks the 100th birthday of former American President Jimmy Carter (b. 1924). Apart from Gerald Ford, who scarcely counts, Carter is the first President whose tenure I remember from so…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:06AMMonday, September 30, 2024
Born 100 years today, Truman Streckfus Persons (1924-1984), better known to most as Truman Capote. Mid 20th century fiction is far from my main jam, but writers of that era did leave footpri…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:36AMSunday, September 29, 2024
I briefly considered holding this piece until Andrew Dice Clay (Andrew Clay Silverstein, b. 1957) passed away so I could call it “The Diceman Goeth”, but if the 45th President is any exa…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:12PMSaturday, September 28, 2024
Tomorrow, September 29 (2024, for those of you who don’t look at the dates of things, after all this post won’t always be new) is National Silent Movie Day! Lots of exciting things are h…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12PMHaving paid tribute to David Sarnoff and the founding of the NBC empire, in the name of equal time today we give a respectful nod to William S. Paley, honcho of CBS (1901-1990). Paley’s mi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:48AMFriday, September 27, 2024
September 27, 1954 marked the premiere of NBC’s The Tonight Show. That is a startling statistic. Several related superlatives amplify the impressiveness: it is the world’s longest runnin…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AM 
