Wednesday, August 2, 2023
The sad news about the passing of Paul Reubens (PeeWee Herman) sent me into a tailspin of of genuine grief and I don’t mind admitting it because it seems like everyone I know felt the same…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:37PMTuesday, August 1, 2023
In light of our recent post concerning the joys of the Garden State, we must stipulate that we haven’t suddenly become obsessed with New Jersey, we just coincidentally happen to have some …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:04AMMonday, July 31, 2023
July 31 was the birthday of the pioneering showman Hachaliah Bailey (1775-1845). We’re guilty of having been neglectful of this important show biz founder. By rights, he should have been o…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:13AMSunday, July 30, 2023
Arnold Schwarzenegger (b. 1947) turns 76 today; we observed the occasion earlier this week by watching the new Netflix “documentary” series Arnold (2023). The quotes are because the seri…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:43PMSaturday, July 29, 2023
What to do for International Tiger Day (July 29)? I already connected you with all my posts on big cat trainers in my World Lion Day post. (It’s fairly unheard of for a tiger tamer not to …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:49AMBorn of a July 29, midwestern humorist, poet, novelist, playwright and newspaperman Don Marquis (1878-1937). Hailing from Walnut, Illinois (two hours west of Chicago), Marquis’s career inc…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:37AMFriday, July 28, 2023
Shame on me for not letting you know about this sooner (I don’t know what I was thinking) but technically there’s still some time for New Yorkers to get their butts up to the mountains t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:25PMJust a head’s up for New Yorkers that a great documentary short by Gary Beeber entitled The Savior of Coney Island will be showing tonight (July 28, 8pm) as part of the outdoor Art of Broo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:37AMBlanche Mehaffey (1908-1968) lived in a time of Blanches: Blanche Sweet, Blanche Ring, Blanche Merrill, Blanche Payson, Blanche Bates, Blanche Walsh, and her own mother, the Cincinnati sopra…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:37AMThursday, July 27, 2023
July 27 is not only National Walk on Stilts Day, it also happens to be National New Jersey Day. I love that it’s not just “New Jersey Day” — the added qualifier is a suggestion that …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:43PMJuly 27 is National Walk on Stilts Day! There’s not tons to be said on the topic; you may be astonished to learn that there’s anything to be said at all. But we’ve had occasion to refe…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:07AMWednesday, July 26, 2023
A head’s up about Undercrank Productions’ latest restored silent film release, featuring two Tom Mix pictures Sky High (1922) and The Big Diamond Robbery (1929). As we wrote in our post …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:37PMBorn this day, 80 years ago, Sir Michael “Mick” Jagger (b.1943), front man for The Rolling Stones, and a thing or two besides. Some may be surprised to learn he is that old, as he never …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:13AMTuesday, July 25, 2023
At the age of 45, silent screen actor J. Warren Kerrigan (1879-1947), star of such major features as The Covered Wagon (1923), The Girl of the Golden West (1923), and the original screen ver…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:13AMMonday, July 24, 2023
I was so sad to learn just now that my new friend Mari Lyn Henry passed away last month. It was just about a year ago that I spent the loveliest time at Mari Lyn’s apartment listening to h…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:04PMAlan Curtis (Harold Ueberroth, 1909-1953) was well on the way to some kind of lasting stardom when a bad reaction to a routine kidney operation took him at age 43. Despite a somewhat forgett…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:25AMSunday, July 23, 2023
July 23 marks the beginning of the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week this year, an annual tradition since 1988. I have always been shocked at how successful this promotional campaign has been…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:33AMSaturday, July 22, 2023
Vivian Martin (1893-1987) was a Broadway actress and movie star of the silent era, one of the many rivals to Mary Pickford as a sweet screen damsel, and a for a time the wife of actor Willia…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:43AMFriday, July 21, 2023
July 21 was the natal day of stage and screen actress Gladys Hulette (1896-1991) — the same birthday as my beautiful wife. not to mention Chauncey Olcott; Don Knotts; Joe Laurie Jr; Little…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:43AMThursday, July 20, 2023
The final screen credit of Verna Felton (1890-1966), as Winifred the Elephant in Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book (1967) makes a good touchstone for exploring the rest of her career. She spec…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:49AMWednesday, July 19, 2023
Well, it’s a big day, and I really ought to be focusing on tonight’s show at QED or the Tom Carvel documentary podcast I’m in that dropped this morning, but old habits die hard so I th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:13AMTuesday, July 18, 2023
Within a span of hours, two press releases have hit my inbox concerning the departures of two of my favorite indie theatre artistic directors, Alex Roe of Metropolitan Playhouse, and Kristin…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:37PMI first became aware of Billy Sullivan (William Arthur Sullivan, 1891-1946) through my investigation of boxing movies in this post. His association with the genre, and the fact that he was f…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:07AMMonday, July 17, 2023
Happy National Tattoo Day! We thought this a suitable day to share a finding aid to our little tattoo section of Travalanche, for we do indeed have one, with about 15 posts. None precisely t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:19AMI contemplated writing about a much more famous Canadian actor this morning, one who’d certainly attract more clicks, but that’s not how we roll on Travalanche. Mission first, clicks sec…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:07AMSunday, July 16, 2023
My reasons for ssssssselecting Sssssss (1973) to write about today are ssssssseveral: Sssssss is also one of those movies that, when I talk to people of about my own age, most of them seem t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:25AMSaturday, July 15, 2023
Unlike nearly everyone else of my acquaintance, I’ve been mum on the topic of the writers’ (and now actors’) strike for a variety of reasons. One is that, given my long-standing and ce…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:49AMFriday, July 14, 2023
We just word on the passing a couple of days ago of ventriloquist, voice-over artist, announcer, children’s host, and actor Jimmy Weldon (1923-2023), just two months shy of his centennial …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:13PMHow lucky was French actress Annabella (Suzanne Georgette Charpentier, 1907-1996) to be born on Bastille Day? It’s kind of like George M. Cohan being born on the 4th of July. And that’s …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:43PMBorn today, the much-missed ice cream entrepreneur Tom Carvel (Athanasios Karvelas, 1906-1990). Those of a certain age RELISHED (and I mean ALL of us) Carvel’s voice-overs in his own TV an…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:25AMJuly 14 isn’t only Bastille Day, it’s now also Non-Binary Peoples Day, and so today we use the occasion to celebrate Tre’vell Anderson, founder of Slayzhon, podcaster, former Editor-At…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:19AM 
