Sunday, July 27, 2025
The 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 09:54AMSaturday, July 26, 2025
Today’s peculiar portmanteau-post arises from the coincidence of the birthdays of George Bernard Shaw and Stanley Kubrick, and the 250th anniversary of The American Revolution, and my atte…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AMFriday, July 25, 2025
July 29 (this coming Tuesday) marks the birthday of every comedy nerd’s favorite heartthrob Thelma Todd. As they have done most years for the better part of three decades this weekend (Jul…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:54PMWe have Kevin Fitzpatrick, Shepherd of The Lambs to thank for the present post, for he pointed me in the direction of painter Lee Lash (1864-1935). Lash had studied in Paris to be a proper f…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AMI was delighted to learn just now that the guy who played General Henry Knox (1750-1806) in the HBO mini-series John Adams was none other than Del Pentecost, who played the title character i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:12AMThursday, July 24, 2025
We are thrilled to be participating yet again in another Hilobrow.com “…Your Enthusiam” guest-blogging series. I believe the original impulse for the name of this series of series came…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:36PMThe title of this post is a rhetorical question. It does not imply that I am asking YOU or ANYONE what the answer is. Three time Emmy winning TV star Michael Richards (b. 1949) set his caree…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:32AMWednesday, July 23, 2025
I have been a fan of comedy character actress Edie McClurg (b. 1945) for just about the entirety of her half century career. Though I surely saw her very first TV performances dating to back…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:32AMTuesday, July 22, 2025
As is not uncommon, we got a flurry of obit notices yesterday from the The Dark Angel known as Eve Golden. The one that hurt the most was Malcolm-Jamal Warner the likeable Theo Huxtable from…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:06PMI promise that we are not becoming a poetry blog. It’s just that the birthday of Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) comes immediately after that of Hart Crane. And her contribution seems especially …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMMonday, July 21, 2025
July 21 was the birthday of the enigmatic midwestern poet Hart Crane (1899-1932). Little known fact: Crane’s father invented Life Savers! Not the flotation device, the candy! He was was a …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:36AMSunday, July 20, 2025
July 20, 1925 was the date of birth of the influential anti-colonialist thinker Frantz Fanon. As should be apparent by now, I am attracted to observing these big, round anniversaries. Still,…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:54AMSaturday, July 19, 2025
As promised earlier this morning, our second grim show biz post in a row. This one concerns stage and screen actress Isabel Jewell (1907-1972). Jewell had scads of good supporting parts in H…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:36AMThe first of a couple of grim posts scheduled for today, this one on silent screen actress Florence Deshon (Florence Danks, 1893-1922). Deshon was born in Tacoma, Washington to a couple of u…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:32AMFriday, July 18, 2025
Of the so-called New Journalists thus far I have written about Truman Capote and Norman Mailer, and just a little about Tom Wolfe (more on him to follow). My wife is the in-house expert on, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:42PMJuly 18 was the birthday of Red Skelton, Lupe Velez, Dave Chasen, Monty Banks, Jane Frazee, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Dion DiMucci, and the Unsinkable Molly Brown, among many others we’ve wri…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:18AMThursday, July 17, 2025
Here’s a post that links our ongoing series honoring the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution with our core content stream of vaudeville. It concerns a grandfather and a grandson, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:24AMWednesday, July 16, 2025
We seldom talk about food on this blog, and in the opinion of my wife, today we won’t be doing that either. But the humble hot dog has such a close association with Coney Island, one of ou…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:48PMToday is World P.R. Day and believe it or not I have a post for that, too. These days P.R. has bad P.R. of all things, largely the fault of an industry which has done too much work on behalf…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:48PMTuesday, July 15, 2025
Born 100 years ago today, documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker (Donn Alan Pennebaker, 1925-2019). Like most moderately well-educated Americans of my age, I have seen most of Pennebaker’s …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AMThe death of Hugh “Bud” Ernst (1910-1950) is often told, for it made all the papers, but we’ll add as much about his life as we can, for it was also interesting. Ernst was an aviator, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:06AMSince we have written about so many other members of the Ed Wood stock company, we thought it only fitting to do something on James “Duke” Moore (1913-1976), whose only credits were in W…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:03AMMonday, July 14, 2025
Born this day in 1945 comic actress Leigh French. Born in Kentucky, a former member of The Committee (based in San Francisco and L.A.), French specialized in three types of characters: hillb…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:36PMI originally intended this post for last year, it being the 50th anniversary of the ascension of Gerald R. Ford (Leslie Lynch King, 1913-2006) to the U.S. Presidency. But I didn’t get to i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:32PMNever would I have dreamt, once upon a time, that Travalanche would grow to such an extent that a second post on comedian Ken Murray (1903-1988) would be warranted. But at the moment I happe…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:18AMJuly 14 is…yes, Bastille Day and World Chimpanzee Day, I know, but it is also World Orca Day. We used to call them “killer whales” but people objected to the false, negative impression…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AMSunday, July 13, 2025
Of course, all life stories have a downer ending, insomuch as they, well, end. We regret that this is our third tale in one day with a premature finish however. In addition to Danitra Vance …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:42PMBy a happy accident I find myself about my second LaMaMa alum of the day, actor, playwright, and director Seth Allen (1971-1986). (The accident is that he and and Danitra Vance share a July …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:32PMTo my mind, the history of Saturday Night Live is largely a chronicle of mismanaged talent and squandered opportunities. The list of comedy geniuses the show has hired, then didn’t know wh…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AMSaturday, July 12, 2025
Time was when a Saturday showing of Three Stooges shorts was just Life on Earth. Nowaday it’s sumpn I gotta tell ya about! Here are some good reasons to catch That Slapstick Show at QED to…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:42AMIt may be a rash boast, but I feel there must be few readers as constitutionally capable of appreciating the life and career of author/critic John Lahr (b. 1941) as this correspondent. My co…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:32AM 
