11,723 stories by "Trav S.D."
Symona Boniface (1894-1950) was a bit player in films who enjoyed larger supporting parts in comedy shorts, in particular those of Three Stooges. She has been called the equivalent of the St…
New York born Robert Emmett Keane (1883-1981) started out in vaudeville. This review of a 1913 performance at Keith's Union Square describes him doing songs and patter as "The American Engli…
Violet MacMIllan (1887-1955) was a teenager in Grand Rapids who entered show business by way of a "Cinderella Girl" contest to discover the girl with the tiniest foot. By 1904 (age 17), she …
I first learned about Canada Lee (1907-52) from Denise Oswald, my editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux. One of the books ahead of mine in the FSG pipeline was Mona Z. Smith's Becoming Somet…
If Charlotte Henry (1914-1980) seemed to have appeared from out of nowhere, she nearly did. A child model from Brooklyn, at age 14 she was cast in a Broadway production called Courage in 192…
Edwin Carewe (Jay Fox, 1883-1940) is arguably the most significant and important Native American film director to come out of Hollywood: 58 films to his credit over a 20 year span (1914-1934…
Billy Williams (Richard Isaac Banks, 1878-1915) was an Australian star of music hall, starting from around the turn of the last century. Originally from Melbourne, Williams arrived in the UK…
Juanita Hansen (1895-1961) was a local Los Angeles kid (originally from Iowa), who lucked out one day when she was cast in a supporting part in L. Frank Baum's movie version of The Patchwork…
 These TV Guide ads are from the 1970 debut screening of Horton Hears a Who " which I watched! ("Boil that dust speck, boil that dust speck!) I also watched the premiers of The Cat in…
Having now already written about all of the other original Not Ready for Prime Time Players, completion mania demands that I give attention to Laraine Newman (b. 1952). Not that it's a chore…
Gorgeous, vivacious Lona Andre (Launa Anderson, 1915-1992) had a career that was all over the map, in parts big and small,in major and minor films. She is striking and memorable almost every…
Ron Howard's birthday's a good time as any to do an overdue appreciation of a major pop culture phenomenon of my youth, and a follow up of sorts to this recent piece about Jazz Age nostalgia…
The fact that it is National Pig Day called to mind the fact that I haven't properly memorialized the late Ricky Jay, who passed away back in November. His passing happened so suddenly and u…
It's Women's History Month! And the best way possible for fans of silent comedy to celebrate and observe it this year is to get the new Alice Howell Collection from my good friends at Underc…
Funny (though sad) to find Sanford and Son news trending this morning (Nathaniel Taylor, who played Lamont's friend Rollo, has died, according to several sources). Today I'm scheduled to wri…
Eccentric comedian Frank Libuse (Frank Belohlavek, 1887-1985) born in Chicago on a first of March. Libuse worked vaudeville in the late '20s and early '30s as a spontaneous, improvisational …
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. I had initially intended this post for August 1, the birthday of Geoffrey Holder (1930-2014). 6′ 7″ Holder is well know…
Topeka-born Hale Hamilton (1880-1942) was said to have studied for the law before going on the stage in his native Kansas. His Broadway career began in 1901 with Don Caesar's Return with …
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. The name Oscar Micheaux (1884-1951) is a holy one among fans of African American cinema. Not unlike his opposite number among white…
It's the birthday of the Man in Black today, Johnny Cash (1932-2003). Cash is one of those figures too large for a single post, I think, at last, in the short term. I recently did this appre…
 This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. February 26 was the birthday of Antoine "Fats" Domino (1928-2017). It always seemed like Fats' association with rock and ro…
Two anecdotes about the late Tony Randall (1920-2004), one of which illustrates how much he was loved by all, one how much he was loved by me. I was in his elf-like presence exactly twice. T…
February 26 is the birthday of cartoonist Rudolph Dirks (1877-1968), papa of The Katzenjammer Kids. Dirks was a German immigrant who settled with his family in Chicago. By the 1890s he…
Hal Fimberg (1907-1974) is today best known for having created and co-written the Our Man Flint series of James Bond parodies starring James Coburn (1966-1967). But that was just the climax …
Joan Castle (1916-2009) started her career in New York as one of Gus Edwards' stable of performing kiddies in vaudeville in the 1920s. Her first film was a bit part in the Fox comedy short M…
