Friday, August 30, 2024
Today is a banner day for lovers of early American jazz — it’s the release date for Archeophone Record’s epic new box set Centennial: King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. The centenary it…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:36AMThursday, August 29, 2024
August 29 was the birthday of exotic dancer Carol Doda (1937-2015). And learning about her has provided delights beyond the obvious. To wit: I had long wondered about when American culture t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12PMI think we can go ahead and call my old friends of The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus a New York institution by now. Among their many programs and activities (their Open Stage Variety Show, the F…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12PMDon’t get the wrong idea! I almost never take requests on this blog, maybe one time in a thousand. The fuel that this blog runs on is its author’s own whims. Has to come from me. In fact…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:32AMBorn 100 years ago today, blues, jazz and pop vocalist Dinah Washington (Ruth Lee Jones, 1924-1963). Washington started out singing and playing piano with gospel choirs in her native Tuscalo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:32AMWednesday, August 28, 2024
This one comes with a trigger warning, because the story gets pretty dark. In fact it approaches maximum darkness. I’ve occasionally gone there in my writing, though not so often on this b…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMTuesday, August 27, 2024
Harry Hill (1827-1896) died of an August 27. The exact date of birth is not known; he was not of the class that kept careful track of such things. Hill was born in the vicinity of Epsom Down…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMMonday, August 26, 2024
August is both Women’s Equality Day and the birthday of writer Zona Gale (1874-1938). Today happens to be the 150th anniversary of her birth. As Gale was a suffragist and a feminist, the a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:12PMToday a long overdue tribute to that leader among the New Vaudevillians, Avner the Eccentric (Avner the Eccentric, b. 1948). I’m quite certain I first learned about Avner from the 1988 boo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:02AMSunday, August 25, 2024
Almost everything about the real Van Johnson (Charles Van Dell Johnson, 1911-2008) is more interesting than his movie career. I’ve long wanted to give Van Johnson a nod here because he was…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:36AMThe heyday of Durward Kirby (1911-2000) was just a hair before my time. I heard the name as a point of cultural reference on TV shows like Rocky and Bullwinkle and Phyllis and Bewitched when…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:24AMSaturday, August 24, 2024
It’s a squeaker. I love Hacks, too, for example. I’m bound to throw in my two cents about that show, too, at some point. But if there is one program (do we say “television” any more?…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:18PMJack Collins (1918-2005), not to be confused with Jack Rollins, or a Tom Collins, was not a household name, but he was definitely a household face. People my age will know him as Mike’s bo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:12AMOur Parade of Roses growses: to Jack Rose, Harry Rose, Billy Rose, Ike Rose, Julian Rose, Broadway Danny Rose, and Max Rose, we now add Fred Rose (1898-1954). Fred Rose is basically the miss…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:03AMFriday, August 23, 2024
August 23 was Gene Kelly’s birthday; as my previous post on him was a bit perfunctory (it deals mainly with his family vaudeville act The Five Kellys), I thought I’d expand his footprint…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:48PMThursday, August 22, 2024
Tribute today to character actor Jay Novello (Michael Romero, 1904-1982). No relation to either Ivor Novello or Don Novello (since he was, as we say, a Romero), one could be forgiven for mix…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:12AMWednesday, August 21, 2024
Born on August 21, Olive Blakeney (1894-1959), best known for playing Mrs. Aldrich in the Aldrich Family comedies (1942-44). Blakeney was a native of Newport, Kentucky; she received her thea…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:12AMTuesday, August 20, 2024
A brief squint today at the life of stage and screen actress Virginia Hammond (Louise Shumate, 1893-1972). Hammond was born into an old Virginia Huguenot family; the original spelling of Shu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:32PMMonday, August 19, 2024
Born 100 years ago today, the great actor William Marshall (1924-2003), best known for three pretty outre roles, that of Dr. Richard Daystrom in the 1968 Star Trek episode “The Ultimate Co…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AMSunday, August 18, 2024
Born of August 18, Tin Pan Alley songwriter Al Piantadosi (John Alberto Piantadosi, 1882-1955). Al Piantadosi’s early career reminds me a lot of those of Irving Berlin and Jimmy Durante; a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:08AMSaturday, August 17, 2024
Yesterday was National Roller Coaster Day, and as luck would have it I had several Coney Island appointments planned that day, so I thought I would film a little greeting from the foot of th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:50PMThis year marks the 60th anniversary of the seminal sixties rock band The Fugs. Today happens to be the birthday of one of its two main founders Ed Sanders (b. 1939) and we just passed the 1…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:12AMFriday, August 16, 2024
Bernarr MacFadden (Bernard McFadden, 1868-1955) was at least twice as interesting as the most interesting person you can think of. Fame and accomplishment in one field (physical culture) led…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:13AMHow perfect that the birthday of Hal Foster (1892-1982), creator of Prince Valiant, falls the day after that of Sir Walter Scott? (I wonder if Foster got Scott’s books as birthday presents…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:34AMThursday, August 15, 2024
For many of you, perhaps most, the topic of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) will be deemed the ultimate snooze. There’s nothing for it, he was important. If he has fallen out of failure as li…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AMThe story of showgirl and stripper Honey Harlow (Harriett Jolliff, 1927-2005) is usually told from the perspective of her husband, comedian Lenny Bruce; today we place the focus primarily on…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:59AMWednesday, August 14, 2024
Good news — even to me! It seems the audiobook version of my 2013 book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube has been out for two weeks, and nobody to…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:24PMBorn of an August 14, the great Jazz Age figure known as Bricktop (Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith, 1894-1984). Bricktop was a queer woman of color. Two colors, not just bl…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:03AMBorn of an August 14, John Henry “Doc” Holliday (1851-1887): gunfighter, gambler, dentist, and TB sufferer. Holliday was a classically educated son of Georgia, who got his dentistry degr…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:24AMBorn this day in 1946, Melinda Marx. Groucho’s youngest child was briefly the most public of her generation of Marxes, by virtue of the fact that she was a performer who appeared in films …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:01AMTuesday, August 13, 2024
Something unprecedented happened this past weekend — I lucked into one of the hottest tickets in town. Also unprecedented: that I would want one the hottest tickets in town. But in this ca…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:13AM 
