11,729 stories by "Trav S.D."
Today is the birthday of the still-living and still-gorgeous Mamie Van Doren. My usual hierarchical formulation for her is “as Jayne Mansfield is to Marilyn Monroe, Mamie Van Dor…
Today is Red Buttons’ birthday (see here for my full post on the late rusty-haired comedian.) Most of us below a certain age know Buttons only from film roles in pictures likeÂ…
On this day in 1919 was launched the film studio known as United Artists. This won’t be the least bit surprising to film buffs, who know the story well, but it will be more than int…
Today is the anniversary of the U.S. (and world) premiere of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. Released in 1936, it is widely regarded as the last of the silent films, made near…
Unless you’re a rooster you’ll want to set your DVR for this one: tomorrow at 3:30 a.m. EST, Turner Classic Movies will be showing The Jolson Story (1946). While undeniabl…
One in our series of old time radio posts in celebration of Valentine’s Day. Today we present the least romantic couple in the world, the Bickersons (Don Ameche and Frances Langford) i…
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of Buster Keaton’s The General (1927). Unthinkable as it may be to us today, this film, now regarded as Keaton’s masterpie…
One in our series of old time radio posts in celebration of Valentine’s Day. In this episode of Amos and Andy entitled “The Mean Valentine”, the titular characters of…
Hello and welcome again to Vaudephone, your one stop shopping for all the best contemporary variety acts, just returned from a many-monthed hiatus, andnow at a new location, the Brooklyn …
Today is the birthday of distinctive character actor John Schuck (b. 1940). The emphasis in Schuck’s wiki article appears to be the work of some demented lunatic, leading with his gues…
Today is the birthday of Danish film director Carl Dreyer (1889-1968). We recently watched his 1932 excursion into the horror genre Vampyr, so we thought we would share our impressions here.…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of Harry Langdon’s first comedy short for Mack Sennett, Picking Peaches (1924). Langdon had made a couple of shorts at a small, obscu…
That’s right; he is dead. Wait, wait, hear me out! A few months ago (back when you could see the grass) we were walking through Green-wood Cemetery (like you do), and, boom, I just …
Not long after moving here in 1988 I answered a tantalizing ad I used to see every week in the Village Voice placed by none other than Dave Van Ronk. Anyone steeped in Dylan lore…
Since it’s Superbowl Sunday, and the only aspect of football that’s remotely interesting to me is halftime, with the exception of Superbowl halftime, I thought I would look into …
Today is the birthday of “Big Joe” Roberts (1871-1923), best known as the heavy in 16 Buster Keaton shorts and Keaton’s first two features. Roberts was a family friend of t…
And, no, wisenheimer, I’m not referring to a show that hasn’t yet happened. I’m talking about literally the first show I was ever in, my first performance experience in the…
Today is the 100th anniversary of a major benchmark; the release of Charlie Chaplin’s first movie Making a Living. Chaplin had been starring in vaudeville with Fred Karno’…
Filed under: Jazz (miscellaneous), Music, PLUGS Tagged: Aeolian Hall, Gershwin, Nighthawks, Paul Whiteman, Rhapsody in Blue, Town Hall, Vince Giordano
I just got wind (thanks Andrew Martin) that Christopher Jones has died, a fitting time to pay tribute to one of my favorite movies Wild in the Streets (1968). This movie was a major in…
Today is the anniversary of the murder of Hollywood film director William Desmond Taylor (1872-1922). This was one of the many topics that General Jinjur and I bonded over on our first da…
On this day (February 1) in 1976 there occurred one of the great events in television history (for eleven year olds): the FIRST bigfoot episode of The Six Million Dollar Man. This was an …
Today is the birthday of the great American humorist S.J. Perelman (Simeon “Sidney” Joseph Perelman, 1904-1979). Because of his association with The New Yorker he is often …
Louis Sunlin (born February 1857) was a clown and comedian who worked with a succession of trained animals, both in vaudeville and circuses. A second generation performer, he was born in Ohi…
Happy Chinese New Year! It is the Year of the Horse! A fitting time methinks to give a shout-out to the many Chinese vaudeville and sideshow performers we’ve profiled on Travalanche. �…
