11,710 stories by "Trav S.D."
When I was a kid in the '70s, Arlene Francis (Arlene Francis Kazanijan, 1907-2001), was still a going concern, one of those omnipresent celebrities you saw on game shows, talk shows on the l…
Can I help it if we're in the midst of a particularly good crop of vaudeville and classic comedy related centennial anniversaries? Well I can't just ignore them. In November and December I'l…
I don't know if character actor Dan Tobin (1910-1982) always went by "Gentleman Dan", but no less austere a platform than FindaGrave.com styles him that way. It's an apparent reference to To…
I really love the image of the periodical above, it reminds me of a joke of my friend Scott Stiffler, whom I first knew as a comedian before he became a Chelsea based local news editor. He h…
Evelyn Venable (1913-1993) is one of those actresses whose work you likely know without knowing that you know it. Her obscurity can not be chalked up to being a bit player, or even a support…
I've come to regard The Love Boat as the Noah's Ark of celebrities " every species represented, and always in pairs. (Sure, Yogi's Ark is also a Noah's Ark of celebrities but only the Hanna-…
On account of his superlative, highly unique fiction, we tend to regard Nathanael West (Nathan Weinstein, 1903-1940) as a literary figure as opposed to a theatrical or show biz one, but his …
For years I have taken good care to qualify my boast that I have ALMOST written about every cast member of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), because there's always someone else. This m…
Scratch beneath the surface of almost anybody in show business and you'll usually find a more fascinating person than Hollywood presents. I'm assuming its because the town is focused on prom…
Many impulses contributed to the creation of this post: the approach of Halloween, our snowballing Francophilia, the fact that this year marks the 60th anniversary of the closing of the orig…
Jack Arnold (Jack Arnold Waks, 1916-1992) is typically celebrated as a director of '50s sci-fi and horror classics ('tis the season), though his accomplishments range across all genres, and …
Pamela Tiffin (1941-2020) passed away a few months ago, but I thought I'd leave a tribute for this birthday benchmark she never made it to. I think of Tiffin was one of the "'60s youth gener…
Jacques Inaudi (Giacomo Inaudi, 1867-1950) was an internationally known math prodigy from Northern Italy. Studied and written about by major scientists, his fame brought him to the attention…
Louise Closser Hale (1872-1933) was an early 20th century Renaissance woman: actress of stage and screen, magazine editor, author of numerous works of fiction and non-fiction, and playwright…
This somewhat impulsive post arises from the fact that we re-watched Martin Scorsese's Casino (1995) last night and were reminded of the unusually large number of comedians there are through…
It is my enthusiastic honor to point you to a piece I wrote on another website today. The omnivorous and multi-mediumistic Heather Quinlan is curating a wonderful series on HiLoBrow.com call…
Having had a recent occasion to mention Clifford Essex (1869-1946), we thought his contributions to the variety arts sufficient to merit a brief entry of his own here. Essex was basically th…
Born on October 10, 2022: Lee and Lyn Wilde: The Wilde Twins. Singers, movies actresses, and pin-up models, the sisters were most active during the 1940s. The girls grew up in East St. Louis…
October 5 was World Teachers Day, so we compose this belated tribute to someone to whom I owe a lot. I've been wanting to look him up lately, as I've recently picked up a thread that started…
Most who remember actor Robert Warwick (Robert Bien, 1878-1964) probably know him best as a supporting player of the sound era. His over 250 credits include nearly all of the Preston Sturges…
Years ago I went on a purge, ruthlessly removing scores, probably hundreds of obsolete and/or underperforming posts from Travalanche. My piece on the interesting figure Paschal Beverly Rando…
Don't answer that! The question is both rhetorical and a joking reference to Atlas Shrugged. Al Alt (Alexander Alt, 1897-1992) was a comedian of the silent and early sound eras, who worked b…
We were saddened just now to hear about the passing of comedian/performance artist Judy Tenuta (b. 1949), a supreme example of the neo-vaudeville style that played a huge part in the stand-u…
Robert Z. Leonard (1889-1968) managed to direct some of the best known and loved classics of the studio era, without achieving lasting fame himself, a factor clearly of the anonymous Hollywo…
If you're like me, and I know that you are, you've spent a lifetime mixing up Britt Ekland (b. 1942) with Anita Ekberg (1931-2015) and Elke Sommer (b. 1940). Why not Ursula Andress (b. 1936)…
