11,729 stories by "Trav S.D."
Originally posted in 2011 Born this day in 1914, Jackie Coogan was, like Charlie Chaplin, a child performer, and also like Chaplin, was discovered for the movies while performing on th…
Kevin Fitzpatrick, Chief Cook and Bottle Washer of the Dorothy Parker Society has just released this swell new book Under the Table: A Dorothy Parker Cocktail Guide – just in tim…
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Coney Island, HOLIDAYS, FESTIVALS, MEMORIALS & PARADES, Horror (Mostly Gothic), PLUGS, SOCIAL EVENTS Tagged: Coney Island, Halloween Parade
6:30pm: The Walking Dead (1936) Directed by Michael Curtiz. Edmund Gwenn (best known as Santa in Miracle on 34th Street) is a scientist who revives the corpse of wrongly executed Boris…
Originally posted in 2010 America's most famous and respected little person (of the twentieth century) began his career as an even littler person. William John Bertanzetti was only three yea…
It’s that time of year again! Late October means many things to many people but for circus fans here in New York it always means the launch of Big Apple Circus’s Fall and Winter …
Originally posted in 2012 I’d like to go out on a limb and say that life without Minnie Pearl is not worth living, but I’m 17 years too late. But you know what I mean. I miss the…
Originally posted in 2009 Two, two, two Dollies in one! The Duncan Sisters were more talented, the Hilton Sisters were more freakish, but no sister act was more beautiful, or mor…
Filed under: HOLIDAYS, FESTIVALS, MEMORIALS & PARADES, PLUGS, SOCIAL EVENTS Tagged: Halloween, masquerade Ball, Ziegfeld Society
Today is the birthday of Paul Draper (1909-1996), who came along too late for vaudeville, but oh how that would have been the perfect platform for him! A son of wealthy parents, and a nephew…
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Coney Island, Indie Theatre, LEGIT, EXPERIMENTAL & MUSICAL THEATRE, PLUGS Tagged: Coney Island, Coney Island Criminals, Creep Show, Dick Zigun, freak show
Today is the birthday of Moss Hart (1904-1961), playwright, director, screenwriter and memoirist. With George S. Kaufman he co-wrote the plays Once in a Lifetime (1930), Merrily We …
Today is the birthday of Sonny Terry (Saunders Terrell, 1911-1986). The North Carolina farm boy learned to play blues harp from his father and lost his eyesight due to injury by the time he …
Today is the birthday of Bill Wyman (b.1936), the member of the Rolling Stones so hapless and unsung that when he left the group two decades ago after having been a member for nearly 30 year…
Every Thursday in October, Turner Classic Movies is screening the films of the incomparable Vincent Price (for my full appreciation of Price, go here.) Tonight here’s wh…
Ah, these are among my fondest memories of early, early childhood! Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp was created by former Get Smart writers: the show is essentially a riff on the g…
About the Snooki from New Jersey, I am proud to say I know next to nothing. Of Snooky the Humanzee however I am proud to say I owe the sum total of my knowledge to Steve Massa (whose book La…
Now, now, don’t get all testy. When I say “forgotten” I KNOW that Marx Brothers fans haven’t forgotten who Gummo is. But among the general public, many of whom don…
Originally posted in 2009 Today is the birthday of the Divine Sarah. Bernhardt was the greatest star of the 19th century. If she didn't already exist, it would have been necessary to inve…
Two of my talented friends Caraid O’Brien and Shane Baker, both Yiddish experts and speakers, are voice-over actors in this documentary about the same Holocaust cave survival story fea…
Today is the birthday of Barboura Morris (1932-1975), a lovely fixture of a little over a dozen Roger Corman features between 1957 and 1970, including one of my favorite movies Bucket of …
Kitty Smith’s is the saddest story I’ve encountered thus far in exploring the sideshow world and writing about over 150 of its artists. Most human anomalies are born different; t…
Originally posted in 2009. Today is the birthday of Fayard Nicholas. He is one of the very few actual old time vaudevillians I got to interview when researching No Applause. Brothers …
Originally posted in 2012 My late-ex-father-in-law, who was born in 1911, used to go see silent comedies as a kid the way today's kids go to the cinema to see Steve Carrell and Will Ferr…
Today is the birthday of Margaret Dumont (Daisy Juliet Baker, 1882-1965). Raised in the South by her Godfather Joel Chandler Harris, collector and editor of the “Uncle Remus” …
