11,723 stories by "Trav S.D."
This one goes out to Adam Gertsacov, a good friend to the author of this blog decades before it was even a twinkle in my eye, and the principle and only instigator of the Acme Miniature Circ…
A tribute today to stage and screen actress Marjorie Rambeau (1889-1970). Rambeau was a direct descendant of Peter Gunnarsson Rambo (1611-1698), the “Father” of the short lived N…
You remember MarxFest (2014), our festival celebrating the Marx Brothers. You remember Fields Fest (2016) our festival celebrating W.C. Fields. Well, as every comedy fan knows, everything go…
I can’t have been any older than 13 when it hit me that Hogan’s Heroes (1965-1971), which I’d been watching in reruns all my life, was some weird, fucked-up shit. A prison …
This one goes out to pal Lauren Milburger, co-producer and co-host of The Fordcast: A Harrison Ford Podcast and sometime contributor to Travalanche. Like most living breathing humans, I̵…
A shout-out today to vaudeville singer and actress Elsie Baker (1883-1971). An oft-quoted legend states that Baker’s first stage performance was at age 10 months, which suggests that h…
I’ve saved this post about the ’60s pop band The Cowsills for months so that it would publish on the birthday of its most unique member, Barbara Cowsill (1928-1985), the mother o…
Proof that Mummenschanz is a tabula rasa (and that I was highly caffeinated as I wrote this): the many cosmic attributes I projected onto the mime troupe in this Chelsea Now review, which I …
Born July 10, 1925, Mildred Kornman is the little sister of Mary Kornman, one of the principal stars of Hal Roach’s Our Gang series during its silent period. Mildred appeared as a non-…
Lillian Shaw (ca. 1886-1978) was too important a stage star in her day to be as forgotten as she is now, even among theater buffs. As her outline emerges she seems to have had an act you mig…
The Four Mortons were an Irish family act in big time vaudeville, not unlike the Four Cohans or the Three Keatons. The team consisted of the parents, Sam and Kate (“Kitty”), the …
Some tidbits today on William and Joe Mandel. The brothers’ original last name was Manetti. They started out as an acrobatic duo, but gradually morphed into a comedy crosstalk and knoc…
July 6 was the natal day of the late comedian Pat Paulsen (1927-1997). Paulsen was famous for his dry-as-a-bone, almost funereal deadpan, just this side of Eeyore, but this was on top of ano…
I saved this post about the cheesy made-for-tv movie Smash-Up on Interstate 5 for today because it is set on July 4. I watched the film when it premiered in December, 1976 as part of the ori…
An Independence Day post concerning a brief anomalous short-lived experiment on ABC. The Young Rebels (1969-70) was one of those shows that must have sounded like a brilliant idea-stroke at …
A tribute today to the fabulous sensation La Sylphe (Edith Lambelle Langerfeld, 1883-1968). The daughter of wealthy German-American inventor Arthur Langerfeld, La Sylphe began to dance serio…
50 years ago, from May 30 to October 14, 1968, the Beatles were in the midst of recording the White Album. The album was released in November, but rather than wait until then, and having no …
Well, it’s Canada Day! And it’s made me crazy watching our remedial pseudo-President do dirt to America’s closest neighbor and best ally of late, so I thought I’d aug…
I’m a little astonished I haven’t yet done a post on stage and screen star Glenda Farrell (1904-1971). I’ve meant to for years, and hers is the kind of background we specia…
A tribute today to the mentalist known as Alexander (Claude Alexander Conlin, 1880-1954), billed sometimes as The Crystal Seer, sometimes as The Man Who Knows. Originally from Alexandria, So…
Thank you, Meg Farrell, for calling my attention to the fact that one of the five fatalities in the Capital Gazette massacre, Wendi Winters, was part of the Travalanche family. She’d w…
Jackie Lynn Taylor (Jacqueline Taylor, 1925-2014) was a child actress and local television personality. She is best known for appearing in several Our Gang shorts, usually playing a characte…
The great stage actor Otis Skinner (1858-194) was a proud son of New England. The son of Universalist minister Charles Skinner, he grew up in Cambridge and Hartford, and was clearly raised t…
A tribute today today to a performer I’ve seen billed many different ways: “Ferry”, “William Ferry”, or “Will Ferry”, “The Frog Man”, &#…
Tonight! A launch event for Jo Weldon’s long awaited book Fierce: The History of Leopard Print! Jo is of course best known as “Jo Boobs” one of the reigning queens, founder…
