Saturday, March 7, 2026
A few fragments on silent screen star Virginia Pearson (1886-1958). Travalanche readers may consider her especially notable for a trio important supporting parts she played in 1925: as the c…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:01PMMarch 7 has been designated by somebody as National Cereal Day — but isn’t EVERY day National Cereal Day for most of us? After all, the King of the Quotidian, Jerry Seinfeld is surely th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:54AMSinger, impressionist, comedienne, and “pantomimist” Barbara Heller (Barbara Jean Thompson, 1926-1995) Vintage show biz fans may know her as a regular on Jackie Gleason’s variety show …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:42AMFriday, March 6, 2026
Today’s new Travalanche posts for March 6, 2026 are about an important upcoming Marx Brothers event, the recent panel about The Comics vs. The Fascists, the many incarnations of Star Searc…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:31PMSome synchronicity afoot — I’ve posted a half dozen comics related posts over the past week (sometimes weeks pass between posts on that topic); purely by coincidence it is also Will Eisn…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:24PMHere’s a timely bit of info — the Marx Brothers Council Podcast, the show I was on most recently just a week ago, and co-hosted by Noah Diamond of Pintele, has announced their first ever…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:24PMMarch 6 was the birthday of the late great Ed McMahon but we’ve already done a dedicated post on his life and career, so I thought I would do one that focuses on the best known project of …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12PMHere’s an illustration of how vaudeville entertainment evolved into contemporary show business in some quarters without a break. James Robert “Bob” Wills (1905-1975) is generally conce…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:54AMWe honor Monty O’Grady (1916-2000) here today more for quantity than his quality. Not that he’s bad — it’s just that most of his nearly 500 screen credits were as a crowd extra. O’…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMThursday, March 5, 2026
Today’s new Travalanche post for March 5, 2026 is about Noah Diamond’s Pintele Earlier Travalanche posts for March 5 (in no particular order) include ones on: The Much Mourned Catherine …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:18PMNoah Diamond’s long awaited podcast series Pintele launched three weeks ago. I’ve listened to all four of the projected seven episodes that have been released so far within minutes after…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:06PMWednesday, March 4, 2026
I’ve hated sports all my life, but that’s not true of 95% of the other straight males, so there have been times when I have had to grin and bear it. That was especially true in childhood…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:31PMToday’s new Travalanche posts for March 3, 2026 are about Disney animator Ward Kimball, cartoonist Milt Gross, character actor Wallace Howe; Singing Cowgirl Dorothy Page, stage and screen …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:31PMUnlike so many friends, colleagues, peers, etc, your correspondent never could whip himself into a dither about any particular Golden Age animator. I obviously love old cartoons — anyone w…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:18PMThis post is about the cartoonist Milt Gross (1895-1953), not the sportswriter Milton Gross (1912-1973). How that must have confused people back in the day, since they both worked for newspa…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:06PMDorothy Page (Dorothy Lillian Stofflett, 1904-1961) enjoyed but a brief minute in the spotlight, but it’s more than many get to experience! Page’s career came about as a result of her wi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:42AMStuart Walker (1888-1941) was an estimable figure: a director, producer, and writer of both stage and screen. Today he is perhaps best known for having directed the horror classic Werewolf o…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:42AMAccording to IMDB today would the 150th birthday of character actor Wallace Howe (Orlando Wallace Howe); although some other sources give 1878 as the birth year. Howe’s nearly 150 screen c…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:31AMTuesday, March 3, 2026
Today’s new Travalanche posts for March 3, 2026 are about Diana Barrymore, Lee Radziwill, Frankie “Half Pint” Jaxon, and Josh Alan Friedman’s new novel All Roads Lead to Great Neck.…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:24PMYesterday I got word that a new novel by Josh Alan Friedman called All Roads Lead to Great Neck has just dropped. As a citizen of that well-heeled and neurotic metropolis, and a booster of i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:12AM“Style” is not my style, so you’ll find what you may consider an appalling absence of references to fashion or decor in this brief post about the late Lee Radziwill (Caroline Lee Bouvi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:12AMMarch 3 was the birthday of the doomed Diana Barrymore (1921-1960). Barrymore was the daughter of John Barrymore and Michael Strange (Blanche Oelrichs), who split up when the child was four…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:01AMMarch 3 was the birthday of the amazing Frankie “Half Pint” Jaxon, though posterity seems uncertain whether the year was 1895, 1896, or 1897. Jaxon was a singer, musician, female imperso…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:54AMMonday, March 2, 2026
Today’s new Travalanche post for March 2, 2026 is about blues singer Bessie Brown. Earlier Travalanche posts for March 2 (in no particular order) include ones on: Dr. Seuss Tom Wolfe Lou R…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:36AMMarch 2 was the birthday of The Original Bessie Brown (1890-1955). The adjective (which she applied to herself) was and is to differentiate herself from another woman of the same name who pe…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:18AMSunday, March 1, 2026
Today’s new Travalanche post for March 1, 2026 is about Robert Grossman and his graphic novel Life on the Moon. Also, Happy Women’s History Month! Read 2,000 posts about female subjects …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:01PMLast night, those with telescopes could look at the night sky just after sunset and enjoy a rare spectacle of six of our solar system’s satellites all stacked up in a row like a parade of …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:48PMSaturday, February 28, 2026
Today’s new Travalanche post for February 28, 2026 are about gangster Bugsy Siegel, Sam the Sham and The Pharaohs, and silent comedian Sid Smith. Also Meet the Sword Swallowers of Travalan…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:06PMThis post is cooked up in the spirit of my earlier one on Al Capone. Gangsters and organized crime and the lore that goes with them aren’t what get me up in the morning, though I do enjoy …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:54PMToday we celebrate that unlikely rock and roll giant, Domingo Samudio (b. 1937), better known as Sam the Sham, of Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs. It’s likely that a majority of our readers …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:42AMFebruary 28 was the birthday of silent screen comedian Sidney “Sid” Smith (1892-1928). The title of this post is to differentiate its subject from the cartoonist, creator of the comic st…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:36AM 
