Thursday, February 16, 2023
Just a brief roll on the snare for Sanford Augustus “Gus” Moeller (1878-1960). When I was a kid I was in a regional drum and bugle corps with my brother (a trumpet player) and learned wh…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:33AMWednesday, February 15, 2023
Having investigated many pulp and mystery authors here before, it’s likely that I would have written about Sax Rohmer (Arthur Henry “Sarsfield” Ward, 1883-1959) anyway, but we had ad…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:34AMTuesday, February 14, 2023
As we promised here back on George Burns’ birthday, the multi-talented Burns and Allen maven Lauren Milberger and myself have recorded a special podcast conversation in celebration of the …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:21PMWe begin this Valentine’s Day with a salute to BlackJewLove! Back in October, I reported on the sad passing of Naimah Hassan, one half of the truth telling comedy duo of Epstein and Hassan…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:30AMMonday, February 13, 2023
By my house is a wooded area where I do my walking when the weather is good. It’s a nice little amenity my community offers but it does have this one little quirk. It seems like every time…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:21PMI only just got the memo that Richard J. Anobile (1947-1923) passed away a few days ago. Classic comedy fans all know Anobile’s name for a couple of reasons. The broader reason is that he …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:59AMWe became curious about Hazel Howell (1898-1965) after enjoying her prominent turn in Laurel and Hardy’s The Music Box (1932), her last proper screen role. Surprisingly, she was apparently…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:23AMSunday, February 12, 2023
Born 100 years ago today, Italian designer, director and politician Franco Zeffirelli (1923-2019). When Zeffirelli passed, only four years ago, it dawned on me that his hit 1968 screen adapt…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:34AMSaturday, February 11, 2023
Strange but true, but I learned about American music hall sharpshooter Ira Paine (1837-1889) from researching the famed Folies Bergère in Paris. Born in Hebronville, Massachustetts, Paine w…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:47AMWhen I was a kid I associated the name Sidney Sheldon (Sidney Schechtel, 1917-2007) exclusively with cheesy paperback novels my mother read, and the soapy TV movies they made out of them. At…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:13AMFriday, February 10, 2023
I’d been planning a post on Burt Bacharach (1928-2023) for his birthday in May but his passing on February 8 makes an appreciation here and now more urgent. I’ll be frank with you in a w…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:56AMThursday, February 9, 2023
I can’t recall how I first learned about Soviet theatre visionary Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874-1940) as a young person. Perhaps by way of Brecht? For quite a while I was enthralled with readin…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:32PMDo you ever have those moments (I frequently do) when you catch an actor you haven’t seen in a while in a film or a tv show, and then the next day they die? It’s coincidence, but creates…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:41AMWednesday, February 8, 2023
February 8 is National Molasses Day! And you mightn’t think that that blog would have anything to say on this topic, but there you’d be wrong. For molasses happens to be the stuff of com…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:10PMAlejandro Rey (1930-1987) was likely the first Latin-American screen actor I was ever aware of. The handsome Argentine played Carlos on The Flying Nun and is by no means to be confused with …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:34AMFebruary 8, 1973 was the air date of the pilot of an interesting TV variety experiment called The NBC Follies. The show was subsequently picked up and ran for a single season, from September…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:53AMTuesday, February 7, 2023
When Wilbur Sweatman (1882-1961) played big time vaudeville in the early nineteen tens, for his big finish he played three clarinets simultaneously. He was one of the very few African Americ…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:01AMWell, here’s a new slice of information about which I was not previously aware. I’d long been aware that America had Yiddish and Italian vaudeville circuits for immigrant audiences where…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:25AMMonday, February 6, 2023
I’ve seldom ventured to write appreciations of set designers on this blog, it falling outside my purview and expertise. Among the few have been Tony Walton, and Erté, But the death today …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:54PMCelebration today of nonagenarian sex symbol Mamie Van Doren (Joan Lucille Olander, b. 1931). She shared a birthday with Zsa Zsa Gabor! Van Doren is best remembered for being third in rank a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:27AMSunday, February 5, 2023
In the spirit of our recent post on Marion Meade, we thought you’d use the occasion of Leslie Zemeckis’s natal day for a brief appreciation of, like, everything she’s ever done (with f…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:39AMThough Monta Bell (1891-1958) was a protege of Charlie Chaplin and even worked with the Marx Brothers, we are late in treating of him, as his comic movies were more in the sophisticated trad…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:11AMSaturday, February 4, 2023
A century ago (1923) Moscow Art Theatre veterans (and refugees from the USSR) Richard Boleslawski (Bolesław Ryszard Srzednicki, 1889-1937) and Maria Ouspenskaya founded the American Laborat…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:15AMAlbert “Bert” Coote (1867-1938) was the son of Robert Coote (1834-1888) a popular British music composer. Bert first went onstage himself at age five, appearing throughout his childhood …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:40AMFriday, February 3, 2023
Unthinkably, blasphemously, through some apparent pact with Satan, film-maker, author, fabulist and provocateur Kenneth Anger (Kenneth Anglemyer, b. 1927) still lives. At the time of the pre…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:11AMThursday, February 2, 2023
Oh, don’t you fret, I’ll be getting in your face plenty about my own books and other projects as this year progresses, but short term, three people close to me have their own tomes to pr…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:00AMWednesday, February 1, 2023
The headline is a trick question. Everyone who lived between 1880 and 1946 was a racist by our standards, so of course W.C. Fields was. His professional friendship with Bert Williams, and a …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:46PMBlack History Month is when I typically have done posts honoring black performers for whom I don’t know the birthdate, of which there have been a relatively high percentage. Case in point,…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:03AMTuesday, January 31, 2023
Cindy Williams (1947-2023) passed away about a week ago (Jan. 25) but somehow the news didn’t get out until last night. Of the two Laverne and Shirley stars, Williams was far and away my f…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:45AMSeems late in the game to be adding Isham Jones (1894-1956) to our roster of successful vaudeville veterans (he’s the 1,790th figure we’ve added to the series) but while I really do love…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:43AMMonday, January 30, 2023
To be of my age and of my proclivities is to have been influenced by West Coast-based RE/Search Publications (est, 1980). This underground publishing house put out high end periodicals on a …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:22AM 
