11,708 stories by "Trav S.D."
A celebration today of burlesque dancer and actress Angelique Pettyjohn (Dorothy Lee Perrins, 1943-1992). Most of Angelique's screen roles echoed her live performing career as an exotic danc…
I'd certainly heard about New York's famous Stork Club all my life, but learned more than I ever knew I had any use for in the year 2000, when I was working at the New-York Historical Societ…
Let's establish one thing coming out of the starting gate: Mickey Spillane (Frank Morrison Spillane, 1918-2006) was not a good writer. You may see him in Hemingway-esque photographic poses, …
Director Frank Borzage (1894-1962) may be best known to classic film buffs for his sound films, such as the Oscar winning Bad Girl (1931) with Sally Eilers, A Farewell to Arms (1932), the Jo…
Last month I contemplated doing some sort of Black History listicle showcasing black artists who meant a lot to me personally. But I quickly gave it up as a bad job, because it was silly and…
Today is the natal day of the unfortunate Lou Costello. It is one of my chief joys in my life to bait his admirers here on Travalanche and watch them blow their stacks, and toward that end t…
Born this day the Wild West showman, music hall performer, actor, aeronaut, and hoaxer Samuel Franklin Cody (Samuel Franklin Cowdery, 1867-1913). What an American moniker, eh? The first name…
Actor Dean Stockwell (1936-2021) passed away about a year and a half ago, and I contemplated a post on him at that time, as I considered doing a piece on him long before that, but my good fr…
Paula Prentiss (b. 1938) is often Paired with Popular People (the latter of the day is P, apparently). Chief among them, of course actor Richard Benjamin, to whom she has been married for ov…
I launched Travalanche on a leap year day, February 29, 2008, with an introductory post about myself. But my first "real" post was a few days later, on March 3. Thus today is the 15 annivers…
I came across this photo of Sholem Aleichem (Solomon Rabinovich, 1859-1916) months ago and held on to it 'til now because I was kind of awestruck by how contemporary he looks. It's not just …
March 1 was the DOB of stand-up comedian and comic actor Jackie Gayle (Jack Potovsky, 1926-2002). Originally from Flatbush, Brooklyn, Gayle started out as a drummer in burlesque bands when s…
Well, you were going to be hearing more from me at some point this year on the topic of Buster Keaton anyway, as 2023 is the centennial anniversary of his first two features Three Ages and O…
In 1950, Merv Griffin had a hit with a novelty song called "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts". Then he went on to accomplish a lot of different other things, and on the whole he is rememb…
Okay, this isn't a blog about "what's going on" in Brooklyn or anywhere else (and please don't use this post to assume that it is one going forward) but a handful of announcements by friends…
Today appears to be an old time Broadway double-header (we just posted about actress Christie MacDonald). Rida Johnson Young (Rida Louise Johnson, 1876-1926) was a major playwright, libretti…
Musical comedy star Christie MacDonald (1875-1962) may be most interesting to modern readers with respect to her private life. Her first husband was stage and screen actor William Jefferson …
Just the briefest of acknowledgements of the 20th century broadcasting giant David Sarnoff (1891-1971). He's top of mind at the moment as I'm in the middle of working on my book Vaudevill…
Thanks a thousand times to the the Facebook friend who called my attention to Jennifer Coolidge's acceptance speech for her well deserved SAG award for her work on White Lotus. It had me baw…
Far be it from us to endorse and advocate the deadly habit of tobacco smoking, but also far be it from me to whitewash history. When I was a kid, "old Jewish comedians with cigars" was a thi…
This is my eighth post about comedian Jackie Gleason (1916-87), including an overview of his entire career, a piece on The Honeymooners, a look at his movies of the '60s, ones dedicated to t…
This tribute to lovely Hollywood actress Diane Baker (b. 1938) will be little more than a mash note, but can you blame me? Though she had studied serious acting, I think of Baker as one of t…
Today would have been George Harrison's 80th birthday, and I've realized that out of my 50 or so Beatle related posts, Harrison is the one who has gotten the least attention here. At some lo…
Mothers-in-law are famous fodder for Borscht Belt jokes, but I had exceedingly good luck with both of mine. Ironically I lost my second one first, just when I was getting to know her, but af…
I'm pretty sure I learned about impressionist Arthur Blake (1914-1985) by virtue of the fact that he was performing at the Cocoanut Grove on the night of the famous 1942 fire. He is not to b…
