11,714 stories by "Trav S.D."
Having had numerous occasions to mention British-American actor Reginald Owen (1887-1972) on this site, we thought that more than ample time had elapsed to make it requisite for us to sketch…
I have long been intrigued by, and resistent to, the exclusion of John Huston (1906-1987) by the auteur theorists (Bazin, Truffaut, Sarris, etc) from their sacrosanct canon of cinematic sain…
Here's a gent you surely know without knowing: Joseph Calleia (Joseph Alexander Caesar Herstall Vincent Calleja, 1897-1975). Calleia was never a top star, but he played some key roles in …
I am certain that it was her performance as "the Countess" in WC Fields' You're Telling Me (1934) that made me first sit up and take notice of the gorgeous Adrienne Ames (Ruth Adrienne McClu…
True comedy film auteurs have been so rare since the 1930s (NOT hyperbole) that the loss of any one of them, be it through their own misdeeds or some other cause, can only be regarded as a m…
Beyond the fact that he existed, and what his act consisted of, little is known of Major Zamora. He was a Little Person, who claimed to be "Triple Jointed". His height was 32 inches and his …
For half a tic I thought I'd already done something on The Amazing Blondini (Michael Costello, 1922-1996), but that's just because his stage is an ingenious mash-up of Blondin and Houdini. B…
Yes, it's true! Actor, writer and comedian Taylor Negron (Brad Stephen Negron, 1957-2015) came to one my shows. It was Dick Zigun's Dead End Dummy at Coney Island, USA, in October, 2014. He …
A few fleeting fragments on the equally fleeting career of Bonnie (sometimes Bonny) Bonnell (Marion Wright Bonnell, 1905-1964). Bonnell is best (I think we can get away with saying exclusive…
Today we sprinkle a little Holy Water on comedian Pat Cooper (Pasquale Caputo, b. 1929). I've seen it expressed that Cooper "often" uses his Italian American identity in his act. That's pret…
A rare but deserved plug for a book besides ones of my own this morning and that's Steve Massa's Slapstick Divas: The Women of Silent Comedy, the most authoritive and wide-ranging resource o…
I am a huge fan of midwestern authors and poets from a century and more ago, guys like Theodore Dreiser, Frank Norris, Sherwood Anderson, Edgar Lee Masters, Vachel Lindsay, George Ade, and o…
Of all the priceless lives lost to the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, on my personal short list of those whose deaths were a blow to American film culture was writer-director Colin Higgins (194…
According to the old vaudeville quip, the Irish gave the Scots bagpipes for a joke " and the Scots never got the joke. I am a Stewart and was raised to love the sound of pipes, but I can mor…
Before Willie Tyler and Lester, ventriloquism-loving black audiences had another such act they could appreciate, Stu Gilliam (1933-2013) and his partner Oscar. But you had to be there " afte…
Thanks be to my intrepid wife who introduced me to British drag star Danny La Rue (Daniel Patrick Carroll, 1927-2009). Sh'd come across a reference to La Rue in a mystery novel she was readi…
Around the time I was in Junior High School, circa 1977, I bought a paperback copy of Paul Gallico's 1969 The Poseidon Adventure. The 1972 film adaptation was (and remains) one of my favorit…
Were she still alive today Janet Margolin (1943-1993) would be nearly 80 years old, but there's no doubt in my mind she would still be beautiful. What's especially interesting to me is that …
I was born in the town with the oldest continuously operating carousel in the U.S. (the Flying Horses of Watch Hill, Rhode Island, est 1876, above), and so you might say I have been remiss i…
Today we report the death of Jacov Moshe Maza (b. 1928), better known to the world as Jackie Mason. Mason was a last link in two very long lines. One: he was a FIFTH generation rabbi. Two: h…
The versatile Arthur Lubin (Arthur Lubovsky, 1898-1995) made a success in theatre, movies and television, as an actor, director, and producer. While no relation to the early screen mogul Sig…
When working on Rose's Royal Midgets and Other Little People in Vaudeville I came within a whisker of including mention of a couple of troupes for whom I'd seen lots of pictorial references.…
I'm pretty certain I have never heard a better named for a British-born Jewish guy than Montague Glass (1877-1934). Glass was the son of an English linen merchant; the family moved to New Yo…
Just a few words of acknowledgement for a character we New York City vaudeville fans are especially fond of, Timothy "Big Tim" Sullivan (1862-1913). The son of Irish immigrants, Sullivan gre…
Actress Florence Vidor (Florence Cobb, 1895-1977) was a player in the movie game a scant decade and a half, though that was longer than the marriage to the man whose name she bore, film dire…
