Sunday, January 7, 2024
No sooner did Funhouse Philosophers (Dick Zigun’s company) and Bread and Puppet Theater close their wonderful shows at Theater for the New City than we received all manner of additional bu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12PMHere’s an extraordinary fact: the screen career of Terry Moore (Helen Luella Koford, b. 1929) which began in 1940, remains technically open ended. Moore’s professional credits stretch ou…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:54AMSaturday, January 6, 2024
The above image is Olga Georges-Picot (1940-1997) as the Countess Alexandrovna in Woody Allen’s Love and Death (1974), probably her best known role to readers of this blog. She was hired t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:12AMFriday, January 5, 2024
Exciting news for lovers of clown, mime, and all physical and movement-based theatre: PhysFestNYC, a new 10 day physical theatre festival produced at the Stella Adler Center for the Arts by …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:48AMJanuary 5 was the birthday of newspaperman Herbert Bayard Swope (1882-1958). You’d be correct in noticing that it’s unusual for us to give attention to a straight news journalist on this…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:42AMThursday, January 4, 2024
Marla English (1936-2012) only racked up 18 screen credits in a film career lasting just just over two years, but she left an imprint. The model and beauty pageant winner was still a teenage…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:48AMWednesday, January 3, 2024
Just learned from Jeff Lewonczyk’s heartfelt memoriam that an important member of the indie theatre community, photographer Ken Stein has been taken by cancer. Jeff’s tribute is definiti…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:02PMIn anticipation of your inevitable question, yes, Josephine Hull (Josephine Sherwood, 1877-1957) WAS related to Henry Hull, she was his sister-in-law. There were three thespian Hull brothers…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:48AMTuesday, January 2, 2024
Not that Roger Miller (1936-1992) did anything in particular so awful that I know of that requires redemption. His worst sin perhaps was allowing himself to be goofy for the amusement of aud…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:36AMMonday, January 1, 2024
Even among Little People actors, Verne Troyer (1969-1918) ranked as extraordinary. Standing 2′ 8″ (two and 2/3 feet) he made actors like Billy Barty or Michael Dunn seem unremarkable. He…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:06PMMickey Mouse is always in the news, but in recent weeks that truth has stepped up a notch in light of a timely development: as of today, the earliest versions of Mickey have lapsed into the …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:48AMSunday, December 31, 2023
We had no sooner gotten wind of the death of Maurice Hines and were mulling some sort of comment on the sad event (and–Ye Gods–its 20 years since we lost Gregory) than the news arrived t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:54AMPeggy Davis (Mary Margaret Laird, 1899-1931) left behind few fans but many questions when she drove her car off a 600 foot cliff at the age of 31. The Birmingham, Alabama native had been sin…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:48AMToday’s post concerns Everett Marshall (1901-1965) the star of musicals, not Everett Marshall the professional wrestler, who was almost exactly the same age. Originally from Lawrence, Mass…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:32AMSaturday, December 30, 2023
The stage and screen couple of Joe Bologna (1934-2017) and Renée Taylor (Renée Adorée Wexler, b. 1933) are top of mind at the moment, as they were in the movie Tango Shalom (2021) with my…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:36PMFriday, December 29, 2023
Ya see what I did there? 23 — it’s just like the chromosomes! As we are wont to do this time of year, we take a look back on what we’ve accomplished during the preceding twelvemonth. D…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:06PMDecember 29 was the birthday of the late Mary Tyler Moore (1936-2017). When Moore passed away (yipes, seven years ago) I dashed off a tribute that was grief-stricken and glowing but a little…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12PMThursday, December 28, 2023
Today marks the 100th anniversary of Woodrow Wilson’s last birthday (he passed away in February, 1924). We’ve previously done posts on Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosev…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:36AMWednesday, December 27, 2023
Very sad to be the bearer of the news that Tommy Smothers has left us at the age of 86. He embodied so much that I love. Springing out of the culture of the folk music revival of the ’50s …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:18PMA salute today to German-Jewish comedic actor Sig Arno (Siegfried Aron, 1895-1975). Originally from Hamburg, Arno started out as a stage comedian and began appearing in silent films as early…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:02AMTuesday, December 26, 2023
Released this day in 1973: William Peter Blatty‘s The Exorcist, directed by William Friedkin. An unholy spectacle for Boxing Day! I was 8 when this groundbreaking movie came out; it’s di…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:02AMMonday, December 25, 2023
The Sting was released this day in 1973 — 50 years ago. I had just turned 8 when the film came out. It was definitely one of the key films in that heavy period of Hollywood nostalgia of th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:24AMEarle Foxe (1891-1873) made his mark in two completely different callings. Originally from Oxford, Ohio, he followed his older cousin Robert T. Haines into the acting trade, gaining his firs…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:18AMSunday, December 24, 2023
Today marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of George Martin Lane (1823-1897), a Harvard Latin Scholar who wound up playing an unlikely and small role in pop culture. A Boston native, Lan…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:32AMSaturday, December 23, 2023
As we reported back on St. Nicholas Day, today marks the 200th anniversary of the first publication of the Clement Clarke Moore poem A Visit from St, Nicholas, or ‘Twas the Night Before …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:48AMThe above photo depicts Harry Shearer (b. 1943) as I first became aware of him, as a cast member of Saturday Night Live, as a replacement for the void left by John Belushi when he left to be…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:42AMWe are delighted to be in receipt of the 11th hour news that New York’s Film Forum will be presenting Charlie Chaplin features all week, beginning today with a newly restored print of A Wo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:36AMFriday, December 22, 2023
December 22, 1949 is a cherished date, or ought to be, for fans of classic comedy, vaudeville, and Buster Keaton. It was on that date that Buster made his television debut on The Ed Wynn Sho…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:32AMDecember 21 is the birthday of talk tv pioneer Phil Donahue (b.1935). How perfect that this guy with the wintery hair was born of a winter solstice. This won’t be a celebration, per se, be…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:18AMThursday, December 21, 2023
We are delighted to discover this morning that, in addition to being the Winter Solstice, December 21 was the birthday of British author Anthony Powell (1905-2000). I first learned of this a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:24AMWednesday, December 20, 2023
What follows was adapted from a talk I cooked up in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the epic comedy movie It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (November 7) as well as the centennial anni…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:06PM 
