Friday, August 8, 2025
My old friend and sometime editor Scott Stiffler made an announcement this week that ought to be of interest to many of our readers. In just about two months (October 7) he is launching an a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:32PMI was already interested in actor Adam Roarke (Richard Jordan Gerler, 1937-1996) on his own account, but learning about his show biz parents absolutely sealed the deal for his inclusion in t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:24AMThursday, August 7, 2025
I’ve wanted to crow my enthusiasm for Verna Bloom (1938-2019) here for some time. Hers wasn’t a household name, but she gave so many incredible performances in enough important American …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:03PMWe continue our series of posts observing the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution with this acknowledgment of the natal day of General Nathanael Greene (1742-1786). Greene was reput…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:48AMAugust 7 was the birthday of opera singer and actress Ida Grace Brooks Hunt (1878-1929) — and if that isn’t a Gilded Age millionaire sounding name I’ll eat my top hat. Hunt’s main cl…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:48AMI surely became aware of Irene Purcell (1896-1972) because she appears in The Passionate Plumber (1932) with Buster Keaton, Jimmy Durante, and Polly Moran. Purcell’s movie career only last…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:48AMWednesday, August 6, 2025
A few words on jazz singer, activist, and occasional actress Abbey Lincoln (Anna Marie Wooldridge, 1930-2010). First, what a crazy-good stage name, right? I just like the sound of it, period…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:24PMIn honor of Lucille Ball’s birthday, a handy dandy finding aid for the many Travalanche posts relevant to the ribald red-head: My original 2013 biographical post on Lucy’s career and her…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:24PMThose who think Travalanche is a blog about obscure character actors have not been paying very close attention to what’s written here. There are scores of content areas here, and if there …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12PMAugust 6 was the birthday of Andy Warhol, Lucille Ball, Paul Bartel, Leo Carrillo, Louella Parsons, Robert Mitchum, Hoot Gibson, Hannah Chaplin (Charlie’s mother), Bunny Breckenridge, Will…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:48AMTuesday, August 5, 2025
Loni Anderson (1945-2025) would be turning 80 years ago today, but as you surely have heard by now she passed away a couple of days ago of an “acute, prolonged” yet undisclosed illness. …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:36AMMonday, August 4, 2025
August 4 is a very musical day, insomuch as it is the birthday of Louis Armstrong, Abe Lyman, Helen Kane, and Sir Harry Lauder. And today we add another, ragtime revivalist Johnny Maddox (19…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:24PMA good time was had by sprawl at Coney Island Vaudeville this past Friday night. All thanks to Coney Island USA for the generous hosting as well as that sweet prime time slot! It was easily …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:18PMFor International Owl Awareness Day (August 4), we add to our growing store of animal themed posts with a survey of famous owl mascots and screen characters. The association of owls with wis…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:48AMSunday, August 3, 2025
When two guys have names so similar, and work in the same industry, and have the same birthday, I’m sorry, but they’re going to have to share a blogpost. That’s just how it is. They ar…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AMThe Eton Boys, a.k.a. The Four Eton Boys were a nostalgia act in vaudeville, radio, and films from the 1920s to the early ’40s. Basically, they were what we are accustomed to calling a bar…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AMFriday, August 1, 2025
August 1 is the birthday of British scholar and author Montague Rhodes (M.R.) James (1862-1936). James’s primary work was as a Cambridge scholar whose academic specialty was the Medieval p…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:18AMThursday, July 31, 2025
In the unlikely event that you missed the memo, this handy reminder that my American Vaudeville Theatre, in collaboration with Surf Reality’s Radical Vaudeville is coming to Coney Island U…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:36PMLonesome Luke’s Lively Life: Hal Roach, Harold Lloyd and the Rolin Film Co. by Steve Massa. We’ve had over 50 occasions to mention silent comedy educator, preservationist, scholar, prese…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:24AMWednesday, July 30, 2025
Dutch Giant Carel Struycken (b. 1948) was born on July 30. Some might object to my describing him this way, and might prefer me to refer to him as “a very tall actor”, or “an actor of …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:42AMJuly 30 is the birthday of Lisa Kudrow. Kudrow was one of the first contemporary Hollywood stars I have written about on this largely antiquarian blog, and remains one of the few who has ins…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:42AMJuly 30 was the birthday of stage and screen actor Holmes Herbert (Horace Edward Jenner, 1882-1956), sometimes billed as Holmes E. Herbert, H.E. Herbert, H.J. Herbert, anything one hopes, ex…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:32AMTuesday, July 29, 2025
Forgive the barebones nature of this post but I only just got tipped off that the 2023 documentary Shari and Lamb Chop is playing at the Quad in New York through Thursday. So this is not a r…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:12PMIt’s not a coincidence that we announced a Thelma Todd Celebration just a few days ago — that regularly-held event takes place every few years around the time of the late actress’s bir…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMOn July 28, 1945, a U.S. B-25 bomber accidentally smashed into the Empire State Building, killing 14 people and injuring another 24 (the headline above says 13 dead, but another body was fou…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMBorn of a July 29, children’s author Ruth Plumly Thompson (1891-1976), best known as the second and most prolific of the Royal Historians of Oz. The Philadelphia writer had published one b…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMMonday, July 28, 2025
Two months ago, the world lost journalist, musician, and film-maker Sacha Jenkins to a rare neurodegenerative disorder. Jenkins was especially associated with hip hop culture and graffiti a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:02AMBritish friends — I have multiple reasons for recommending this show in Edinburgh Fringe. A) My wife Carolyn Raship designed the poster art (below); B) The play itself, The Marriage of Ali…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:02AMSunday, July 27, 2025
Just a few words in memory of comedy magician Johnny Thompson, a.k.a. The Great Tomsoni (1934-2019). When we call Thompson a comedy magician, we don’t mean like Carl Ballantine, whose rout…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:48PMI’m sorely tempted to hold this post for the bicentennial of the birth of John Vorhis (1829-1932), but for the fact that it is altogether likely that Travalanche will be on a slab itself b…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:36PMThe name may elude you, but the young man it belonged to, Ross Alexander (Ross Alexander Smith, 1907-1937) was technically a leading man at the time of his untimely death, though he was more…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AM 
