11,726 stories by "Trav S.D."
We’ll be blogging about comedian W.C. Fields all through November and December as part of our tribute to the comedian called Fields Fest.  For a full list upcoming live Fields Fe…
We’ll be blogging about comedian W.C. Fields all through November and December as part of our tribute to the comedian called Fields Fest.  For a full list upcoming live Fields Fe…
We’ll be blogging about comedian W.C. Fields all through November and December as part of our tribute to the comedian called Fields Fest.  For a full list upcoming live Fields Fe…
Today is the birthday of Patsy Ruth Miller (1904-1995). Â The word “fluke” is the wrong one to use in describing Miller’s career (after all, it was far better than that o…
We’ll be blogging about comedian W.C. Fields all through November and December as part of our tribute to the comedian called Fields Fest.  For a full list upcoming live Fields Fe…
This new series of posts came out of the stunning realization that I have family in all 50 U.S. states. My ancestors lived in 14 of them, all on the eastern seaboard or adjacent, and I have …
We’ll be blogging about comedian W.C. Fields all through November and December as part of our tribute to the comedian called Fields Fest.  For a full list upcoming live Fields Fe…
Great news! Today Undercrank Productions releases its 4th volume of rare surviving silent films entitled Accidentally Preserved. The first three volumes consisted of home-market 16mm prints;…
Today is the birthday of Eugene O’Brien (Louis O’Brien, 1880-1966). Originally from Boulder, Colorado, O’Brien studied first to be a doctor and a civil engineer before fina…
Fields Fest resumes this week with three (and a half) exciting events! Here’s what’s coming up over the next few days! Thursday, November 17, 7:00pm: Hear and Now with Rachel Cle…
I have Fields Fest events coming up this week and so I have been trying to psyche myself up for how to get into a Fieldsian frame of mind from the dark funk I’ve been in since Black Tu…
Today is the birthday of Nita Naldi (Mary Dooley, 1894-1961). Naldi was the child of working class Irish parents in New York City. When her (then single) mother died in 1915, she was forced …
Today is the 100th anniversary of the release date of the Charlie Chaplin movie Behind the Screen (1916). While made at the peak of Chaplin’s Mutual period, this comedy feels to me …
Today is the birthday of Norma Terris (Norma Allison, 1904-1989). Originally from Kansas, Terris started out in vaudeville performing singing celebrity impressions, an act that sounds not un…
Well, we’ve done our best not to have a TOTAL blackout here on the blog, but it was hard, especially on Wednesday, when I pretty much wanted to just Get Off the Earth. I think within a…
This new series of posts came out of the stunning realization that I have family in all 50 states. My ancestors lived in 14 of them, all on the eastern seaboard or adjacent, and I have writt…
Yesterday was one of America’s darkest days, and like many of you all I spent most of it immobilized, prostrate, occasionally mustering the energy to rail or theorize or eulogize or di…
Today is the birthday of Charles Feltman (1841-1910), Coney Island entrepreneur, restaurateur, inventor of the hot dog. To be much more accurate (as few seldom are) he is the inventor of the…
Happy 102nd birthday to Norman Lloyd (Norman Perlmutter, b. 1914), who has enjoyed surely one of the most amazing theatrical careers in history. Lloyd has been a performer since 1923 —…
This new series of posts came out of the stunning realization that I have family in all 50 states. My ancestors lived in 14 of them, all on the eastern seaboard or adjacent, and I have writt…
Today is the birthday of King Baggot (1879-1948). I know — sounds like a good name for a Hobbit’s Doberman Pinscher. What he was, was one of the first movie stars whose name was …
Filed under: Contemporary Variety, Magicians/ Mind Readers/ Quick Change, PLUGS Tagged: Cardone, magic, magicians, New York House of Magic, Slipper Room
We’ll be blogging about comedian W.C. Fields all through November and December as part of our tribute to the comedian called Fields Fest. (This one is a re-post from September of la…
We’ll be blogging about comedian W.C. Fields all through November and December as part of our tribute to the comedian called Fields Fest. For a full list upcoming live Fields Fest e…
Today is the birthday of tap dancer Chuck Green (1919-1997). The Georgia native danced on street corners as a child, won third place in a contest at age six, moved to New York with a talent …
