11,723 stories by "Trav S.D."
Sam Rice (George O’Hanlon, 1874-1946) was not the only guy to use the handle “King of Burlesque” but his choice to do so revealed a becoming Moxie. Rice produced full on bu…
Rounding out the final day of this year’s Fire Prevention Week, we thought we’d take a look at five major blazes that afflicted P.T. Barnum over his long career as an impresario.…
The great Polish-American actress Helena Modjeska (Jadwiga Benda,1840-1909) was born on this day. Born in Krakow, there is murkiness in Modjeska’s early background, especially with reg…
“Good things cometh to he who waiteth as long as he hustleth while he waiteth.” — P.G.; Lowery African American bandmaster,musician and impresario Perry G. Lowery (1869-194…
Confession: I never understood what all the fuss was about Helen Hayes (1900-1993). But then again I only ever saw her on film and television, never in the theatre where her reputation for g…
Big doings at one of my favorite NYC theatre companies, the Irish Repertory Theatre lately. I’ve loved everything I’ve ever seen at that theatre. More importantly (and this can&#…
Child star (then former child star) Johnny Downs (1913-1994) had a truly interesting if minor career on stage and screen, one that was ironically much better than those of better known colle…
Thank you, Great Neck Record, for this terrific article on your new adopted son:Â http://greatneckrecord.com/local-historian-brings-vaudeville-to-life/ As I wrote here when we moved here s…
The name “Bostock” is one that turns up often in show business annals in the context of menageries of trained animals. For Americans, the crucial figure is Frank Charles Bostock …
I was going to post this short listicle during November, Native American Heritage Month, but realized this morning that since it’s REALLY about Italians, and this is Columbus Day, and …
Just a few words of tribute to honor the late Scott Wilson, who passed away from leukemia this past weekend at age 76. I was a big fan of his quiet understated acting. He was one of those ch…
Fire Prevention Week begins today. Any study of history is to become aware of the frequency and the severity of fires in human existence prior to modern regulations and fire prevention metho…
Today is Buster Keaton’s birthday. See my biographical article on the great silent comedian’s early years here and the Buster Keaton section of Travalanche, containing c…
I had originally scheduled this post for tomorrow, A Star is Born’s announced U.S. release date. But it already seems to be playing here in New York as of today, and critical word is a…
A brief nod to Borscht Belt comedian Jan Murray (Murray Janofsky, 1916-2006), whose birthday is today. Murray was a frequent television presence when I was a kid — the kind of entertai…
The great Italian actress Eleonora Duse (1859-1924) was born this calendar day. Often spoke of in terms of rivalry with Sarah Bernhardt, in reality Duse was considered by many, including Geo…
Twitter has declared it National Boyfriends Day, and so this post on a minor series of comedy shorts from the early ’30s. The Boyfriends was a talkie comedy series produced by Hal Roac…
Strange but true: Coco the Clown shared a birthday with Toto the Clown, October 2. At least the elder Coco did. There were at least two, a father and a son, who used that handle. The father,…
As we’ve already announced, we are thrilled to be playing the title character in Edward Einhorn’s The Resistible Rise of J.R. Brinkley, October 12-28. October happens to be a for…
Having done posts on the stars in favorite movies like The Wizard of Oz and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, it occurred to me that I was well on the way to doing as much for another f…
Buon compleanno, Joe Kirk (Ignazio Curcuruto, 1903-1975)! The son of Sicilian immigrants, Kirk started out as a vaudeville comedian and emcee in the 1930s. His most fortuitous career move, h…
Just a quick note on Alice Joyce (1890-1955), “The Madonna of the Screen”. Joyce’s film career worked in round numbers, stretching from 1910 through 1930 and consisting mos…
Today we pay tribute to Kenny Baker (1912-1985) and by that we mean neither the little person who played R2D2 in Star Wars (as most of our friends probably would) nor the fiddler who pla…
True fans of the tv series M*A*S*H will understand why I chose the birthday of Larry Linville (1939-2000), and not that of, say, Larry Gelbart or Alan Alda, on which to post a tribute to …
A tribute today today to impresario Nils T. Granlund (1890-1957), once a player in the realms of Broadway, vaudeville, nightclubs, radio, and movies, and with experience in print journalism …
