11,712 stories by "Trav S.D."
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the premier of One Terrible Day, the very first short in Hal Roach's Our Gang series, which later became known as the Little Rascals. Why aren't Spanky, …
Robert Wise (1914-2005) is one of those major Hollywood directors who seems rarely mentioned in discussions of "Greats" but when you do an inventory of his body of work, you are astounded to…
…Or 2,000 years ago, depending on your point of view. September 9, 1972 saw the debut of the Hanna-Barbera animated show The Roman Holidays. The title is obvious a play on the 1953 romanti…
A little thing on Truman Virgil "Pinky" Tomlin (1907-1987), a nationally known pop culture figure for decades, who has since swallowed up by the sink hole of history. Born in Arkansas, raise…
Good looks and good luck were to be the portion of actor Neil Hamilton (1899-1984), whose best known credit is likely known to you anyway so let's just save it 'til the end as an aid to real…
There are other photos I might have chosen to illustrate this post on Hillary Brooke (Beatrice Sofia Mathilda Peterson, 1914-1999), but this one nails that same quality of projected superior…
Tom Murray (1874-1935) appeared in fewer than two dozen films, most of them silent comedies, but some of them are so significant that we understate to say that he rates attention here. Murra…
When I see that someone has a surname that I recognize from my family tree I immediately do a bit of research to see if if we're related. Make no mistake; we're all related. That's not just …
The screen career of Kathleen Burke (1913-1980) was short, but notable, especially for lovers of classic horror and mystery. Burke had done some radio and modeling in Chicago when she was pi…
Ventriloquists, much like clowns, feature in horror as well as comedy, for they are not just funny, but more than a little uncanny and strange. Accordingly TCM has programmed an interesting …
I'm with Burt Mustin in that Brady Bunch episode; why the movies ever romanticized a bloody scoundrel like Jesse James (1847-1882) is beyond me. Well, no, it's not beyond me, I understand wh…
Today a post in honor of an important man in Broadway/ musical comedy history, playwright and lyricist C.M.S. McLellan (Charles Morton Stewart McLellan, 1865-1916), who often wrote under the…
There's no question mark at the end of the title of this post because: asked and answered. It's no news bulletin that America's dream factory is also its cesspool. For every triumph of art a…
I have had occasion to mention various versions of The Spoilers 25 times here on Travalanche, so I thought it might be fitting today to pay homage to the author of that oft-remade tale, and …
As Travalanche subscribers know (because they just read my post about him) today is the birth date of the late Sanford Meisner (1905-1997), which I quite consciously chose as the day to post…
August 31 was the DOB of actor, director, and teacher Sanford "Sandy" Meisner (1905-1997). Today Meisner is best remembered for the latter reputation, for he was doing that at Neighborhood P…
And how will you be celebrating Mary Shelley's birthday (1797-1851)? Having already written quite an extensive post on the influential author a couple of years ago, I thought this year I wou…
I love and hate it when this happens " exploration of the life of an interesting person uncovers a warren of their fascinating relatives and associates. Love it because it's a gold mine. Hat…
August 29 was the birthday of Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982) as well as the date of her death. There are times when I must seem to run the risk of falling prey to the cult of numerology here. Th…
A theme begins to emerge on Travalanche this week which I was about to call coincidental, though it surely isn't, for undoubtedly it's more a reflection on the predilections of the author of…
Like all the other opera singers on Travalanche, we treat of Alice Zeppilli (1885-1969) today strictly because she played vaudeville. After World War One, throughout the 1920s, as she was wi…
Paul Reubens a.k.a. Pee-wee Herman (b. 1952) turns 70 years old today. I realized that just in the nick of time when I was posting about Tim Burton a couple of days back and decided that my …
I first became aware of screen dancer Joyzelle Joyner (1905-1980) from her performance in the early talkie comedy short The Night Court (1927) directed by Bryan Foy for Vitaphone and starrin…
According to at least one source I've come across, in addition to being National Dog Day, August 26 is National Mountain Lion Day. The American Mountain Lion goes by many names: cougar, puma…
Happy National Dog Day! Having already done posts on Lassie, Rin Tin Tin (here and here), Madame Strakai's Dogs, Al Mardo's Do Nothing Dog, Don the Talking Dog, Rosina Cassell's Chihuahuas, …
