11,723 stories by "Trav S.D."
A salute today to an important Dead End Kid/ East Side Kid/ Bowery Boy, David Gorcey (1921-1984). The son of character actor Bernard Gorcey, David started out as a child actor, appearing in …
Ben Lyon (1901-1979) was a major star of the silent and Pre-code eras who is chiefly interesting now in relationship to, and collaboration with, several important women. For real! Born in At…
Another post in observance of Black History Month. It’s interesting and instructive that Beulah has dropped out of the public consciousness as a cultural signifier for racist stereotyp…
Happy birthday to Arthur Sheekman (1901-1978), best known to many of us a F.O.G. (Friend of Groucho), but in the end he had much more going for him than that. Sheekman was a popular Chicago …
Theatre is ephemeral. We often think of architecture as it’s opposite, the most enduing form of human expression, but here is a reminder that it, too, is temporary at best. I’d l…
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. It’s the birthday of Charles Correll (1890-1972), not exactly a hero to people of color, but it is the second day of Black Hi…
It continues to be Black History Month; it’s not just February 1! So we find it excellent that Film Forum is choosing to screen these two Godfrey Cambridge comedies for their Far Out i…
Bon Anniversaire to comic character Gus “Pop” Leonard (Amédée Théodore Gaston Lerond, 1859-1939). Born in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France, he immigrated to San Franc…
I am devastated. Word has reached me that mentor and friend Ron Hutchinson, director of the Vitaphone Project has passed away. No one was more generous or helpful to me in the creation of my…
This is a post in celebration of Black History Month. Fortuitous, is it not, that Robert Earl Jones (1910-2006) was born this month? For not only was Jones an important early African Ame…
The peak of Peggy Ann Garner’s career was in 1945 when at age 12 she gave memorable performances in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (one of the saddest movies ever) and Junior Miss (a light-h…
Joey Bishop (Joseph Abraham Gottlieb, 1918-2007) was born on this day. Bishop was primarily a nightclub and television comic, although he also dabbled in acting in his own sitcom and a handf…
Arthur Douglas Hotaling (1873-1938) was a prolific comedy director during the silent era. He used more variations on his given name professionally than a check kiter (although some may have …
You can be forgiven for scowling, Frank Albertson. It’s the anniversary of your birth, yet the occasion finds me as speechless as Harpo, with who you co-starred, so to speak, in Room S…
Today is the birthday of the late Farrah Fawcett (1947-2009). When the world first knew her of course, she was billed as Farrah Fawcett-Majors, and she was show business royalty, for she was…
Today is the birthday of James Joyce (1882-1941)…which puts me in mind of a little anecdote I came across recently in The Groucho Letters. The correspondence is with New York Post writ…
Herbie Faye (1899-1980) was an old time vaudeville and burlesque comic, who later became a familiar character actor in films and television. In 1928 he hired a then-unknown Phil Silvers to s…
Rhode Island born William “Billy” Costello (1898-1971) started out in vaudeville under the moniker “Red Pepper Sam”, playing the uke, singing and scatting. In his …
Great news, people who are parents of children, and children who are children of parents, and people who are no longer children, but do or do not have parents (and who happen to live in or n…
February 1 is the birthday of Clark Gable (1901-1960). Gable’s career was broad-ranging and diverse, but, as I’ve done with several other male stars in the past, today I thou…
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. Another fortuitous Black History Month birthday, that of Garret Morris, born 1937. Being of a certain age, I have an unfortunate te…
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. It is our good luck that the birthday of Sherman Hemsley (1938-2012) falls on February 1, the first day of Black History Month. A P…
Before I came upon the caption, I imagined the girls in this photo were lining up for an audition or a dance class (most of them seem to be turning out one foot in a classic dance position),…
The very title of this post betrays my age and my perspective in considering the career of broadcast personality Garry Moore (Thomas Garrison Morfit, 1915-1993). As a kid I knew him exclusiv…
This post will be less any kind of deep history lesson than a brief exercise in advocacy. You must know this show! I’ve long realized I should do a post about The Colgate Comedy Hour, …
