11,727 stories by "Trav S.D."
Today is Frederic March’s birthday. Rather than crow about his dozens of well-known and award winning roles today (including one of my personal favorites since childhood, the semina…
Today is the 100th anniversary of the release date of the Charlie Chaplin comedy short His New Profession. This film is quite distinct from His New Job, Chaplin’s first film for …
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Buster Keaton talkie Doughboys (1930), directed by Eddie Sedgwick. Doughboys is Keaton's Shoulder Arms. It's probably his best t…
Today is the birthday of actor George Macready (1899-1973). While a relatively minor stage and screen star, I have two special reasons (besides his talent) for including him. One is that he …
Filed under: PLUGS, SOCIAL EVENTS Tagged: Cafe Loup, mark York, Summer Soiree, Ziegfeld Society
Today is the birthday of the late great character actress Nancy Kulp (1921-1991). Best known of course for her role as “Miss Jane” Hathaway, the love-starved spinster secretar…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of Buster Keaton’s short The Frozen North (1922), co-directed by Eddie Cline. The film is a parody of westerns, specifically those of Wi…
Today is the release date of the Harry Langdon feature Three’s Crowd (1927). Most critics are hard on the films Langdon self-directed, beginning with this one, though I don’t hap…
Today is the birthday of the lovable Babe London (Jean Glover, 1901-1980). Overweight since youth, she was a natural as a comedy bit player, and over her long career she worked with most …
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Burlesk, Coney Island, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Bleach at the Beach, burlesque, Coney Island USA, Sideshows by the Seashore
Today is the birthday of Bobby Dunn (Robert V. Dunn, 1890-1937). A Milwaukee native, Dunn started out doing acrobatic high dive stunts at amusement parks and other outdoor shows starting at …
Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: burlesque, Nurse Bettie, Shelly Watson, Turn for the Nurse
 Today is the birthday of Victor Heerman (1893-1977), best known today as the director of the Marx Brothers‘ Animal Crackers. Later dissed in interviews by Groucho, Heerman …
Today is the 100th anniversary of the release date of the Charlie Chaplin comedy The Masquerader (1914). The film is one of many Keystone and Chaplin comedies to be set in an actual mo…
On this day in 1919, comedian Harold Lloyd suffered a most grievous accident while taking some publicity photos for his new series of two-reelers. Lighting what he thought was a prop fus…
Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Calamity Chang, Grace Gotham, Metropolitan Room, One Enchanted Evening, Shelly Watson
Filed under: Music, PLUGS Tagged: Spin NYC, Sweet Soubrette
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Laurel and Hardy feature Bonnie Scotland (1935). In this classic, the boys break out of jail and stowaway on a cattle boat to get to…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the classic W.C. Fields short The Golf Specialist (1930). This was Fields’ first talking film, and the provenance of it is most fa…
 Today is the birthday of film director Jean Yarbrough (1901-1975). Though I don’t know that they ever had anything to do with one another, I mentally associate Yarbrough with Will…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle comedy His Wedding Night (1917), also featuring Buster Keaton and Al St. John. Fatty plays a puc…
Today is the birthday of the great (and beautiful) Russian actress Olga Baclanova (1896-1974). People of her day would be flabbergasted to know that in 2014 her best known screen performance…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Laurel and Hardy comedy Block-Heads (1938). Originally intended to be their last Hal Roach film (and it was their last Roach film fo…
As we head into our last week of our announced run of I’ll Say She Is, I thought it would much behoove us to pay tribute to the man who wrote the book to the show, and co-wrote its …
Today is the birthday of famous Hollywood ne’er-do-well Jack Pickford (John Charles Smith, 1896-1933). Not a significant artist himself (although considered by his peers to have been q…
