11,723 stories by "Trav S.D."
Just got word that Connie Sawyer (Rose Cohen, 1912-2018) passed on January 21 at the age of 105. She was America’s oldest working actress, as well as the oldest member of both the Scre…
The Weaver Brothers and Elviry were one of vaudeville’s more successful hillbilly acts. The performers were the genuine article. Leon a.k.a.“Abner” Weaver (1885-1962) and F…
It’s the late Norm Prescott’s birthday and so it seems high time I blogged a little appreciation for the company he ran with Lou Scheimer and Hal Sutherland, Filmation Associates…
Jans and Harold were a popular vaudeville team from 1922 through 1935, whose unique act was a combination of peppy comedy crosstalk, song and dance. The team consisted of  Harold Whale…
Our Accidental President gives his State of the Union Address tonight, perhaps more accurately titled, “The 1,002nd Arabian Night: A Wonder Tale from Russia.” On behalf of the Ma…
At the age of 11, Jeanne Devereaux (Jean Helman, 1912-2011) became an international ballet star. Born in St. Louis, she was given the responsibility at a young age to help support her family…
January 29 is the birthday of the celebrated film director Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947) The son of a Berlin clothing manufacturer, Lubitsch went into theatre as a young man, initially as an ac…
Ziegfeld star Vera Maxwell (1892-1950) has unfortunately been eclipsed in the public’s mind by another dancer by the same name who came slightly later and lived much longer (1901-1995)…
For some reason I have no desire to know, January 28 has been designated National Kazoo Day. While the kazoo may be associated with vaudeville and vaudeville music in the popular mind…
Cartoonist Mort Walker just passed away at age 94. I was surprised to hear he was still around, as I think it’s been a good long while he was directly responsible for turning out his c…
I’ve been attending Off-Off Broadway theatre for over 30 years, and covering it as a critic/arts journalist for almost 20. When you’ve seen a lot of water flow under the bridge, …
According to sources, today has been designated “National Spouse Day”, which not only seems redundant, but possibly excessive and even cruel. It’s single people who need a …
Happy Australia Day! We’re truly sorry that our embarrassment of a President yelled at and hung up on your Prime Minister as one of his first official acts, Australia. The American peo…
Milwaukee native Ben Bard (Benjamin Greenberg, 1893-1974) had one of show business’s most eclectic careers, with successes both in and out of the spotlight. As a teenager, billed as B.…
It’s Robert Burns’ birthday. I was going to tape myself reading “Ode to a Hagis” ( a real poem, btw) but instead there’s this, which has nothing to do with Robe…
Today being the birthday of the late Dean Jones (1931-2015) I thought it only fitting to talk about a sit-com he starred in that I learned about only yesterday, which happened to be Marvin K…
Ernest Borgnine (1917-2012), had an exceedingly rare career trajectory: he had an excellent (Oscar winning) film career, then a hit tv show, then he returned to a great movie career pretty m…
Just a few words to hopefully illuminate the memory of Estelle Winwood (1883-1984 — yes she was 101 when she died). Most of us know her chiefly from when she was already ANCIENT! She i…
For almost 70 years, Marvin Kaplan (1927-2016) was a familiar face and voice to American audiences, so perfect as a Marvin that his characters were often named Marvin, or something lateral l…
One of the glories of Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) is that the starring super-trio contains both Tura Santana AND Haji. In a Hollywood movie at that time, and f…
There are many 19th century actors I wish I could go back in time to see. Benoît-Constant Coquelin (1841-1909) is one of the few non-English speakers to make the list. Coquelin was…
Theodore Kosloff (Fyodor Mikhailovich Koslov, 1882-1956) had an exceedingly rare career trajectory…from international ballet star to Broadway choreographer to silent movie star to danc…
Stage and screen performer June Knight was born Margaret Rose Valliquietto on January 22, 1913 in Los Angeles, California. Plagued by an almost unbelievable string of childhood diseases incl…
January 21 is the birthday of Aristotelis “Telly” Savalas (1922-1994). It is hard to describe what a phenomenon his hit tv series Kojack was in the 1970s. It was not just an …
Just a quick shout out to honor the natal day of actor Henry James Montague (Henry John Mann, 1843-1878). Montagu came to our attention through that eerie, ghostly portrait above, which hang…
