11,730 stories by "Trav S.D."
Where do you go when you want to re-discover your lost joy in attending live theatre, recapture your innocence, reconnect, and get back to basics? At least since 2004, I have been attending …
Today is the birthday of Arthur Freed (Arthur Grossman, 1894-1973). Born in Charleston, raised in Seattle, he launched his professional career in Chicago as a song plugger and piano player. …
Today is the birthday of Peter Seller (1926-1980), one of the great comic geniuses of the late 20th century. Sellers was a second generation performer; his parents were both music hall perfo…
Today is the 100th anniversary of the release of the Keystone film Mabel’s Dramatic Career, directed by Mack Sennett, starring Sennett, Mabel Normand, and Alice Davenport. ItR…
Today is the birthday of Willie Tyler (b. 1940). While not America’s first African American ventriloquist (there have been several stretching back to the early 19th century), he has be…
Look at the head of hair on this hep cat Originally posted in 2012. Isaac Sidney Caesar (born this day in 1922) came along too late to be in vaudeville proper (hence his exclusion from t…
Today is the birthday of the Father of Country Music, James “Jimmie” Rodgers (1897-1933). A second generation railroad worker, he also performed in tent shows and vaudeville, pio…
Originally posted in 2012 This piece has involved more than my usual (and preferred minimal) amount of research, but it has been rewarding and I (or someone) would do well to do still more a…
Today is the birthday of Howard Dietz (1896-1983). He is best known today as one half of the great tin pan alley songwriting team Dietz and Schwartz but at the same time he was an advertisin…
Today is the birthday of Frances O’Connor (1914-1982). Born without arms (or even stumps), O'Connor developed the ability to perform most ordinary everyday tasks with her feet: cut up …
Every Sunday in September TCM will be showing dozens of works by Alfred Hitchcock from morning until…well into the next morning. It’s not the entire canon, but it’s e…
Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Gotham Burlesque, Shelly Watson, Tansy
Today is the birthday of Charles Hardin “Buddy” Holley (spelled professionally as “Holly”, 1936-1959). It’s easy to obsess about the topic; he was so prolific a…
Filed under: Coney Island, Dime Museum and Side Show, PLUGS, SOCIAL EVENTS Tagged: Coney Island Beard & Moustache Comeptetion
Today is the birthday of Hampton Del Ruth (1879-1958). Educated at Oxford, he gained some experience at a couple of smaller studios before joining Keystone as a writer and actor in 1914. (He…
Today is the opening day of Shane Salerno’s new documentary about J.D. Salinger (he also released a related book on Tuesday). This is a fitting time to recall (and thanks Noah Diamond …
Today is the birthday of Joanne Worley (b. 1937). How to explain this peculiar phenomenon of the sixties to the young ‘uns? Like many who were popular during that experimental decade, …
Today is the birthday of Charles Joseph “Buddy” Bolden (1877-1931). This seminal New Orleans cornet player is credited by many with being the Father of Jazz, although when he was…
Originally posted in 2010 Joe Kennedy, you wonder? What the hell’s he doing on this show biz blog? Well, in some respects he may be the most important of all the people in these annals…
I can’t help noticing that this gentleman is carrying a hot stove Originally posted in 2010 Today is the birthday of Charles E. “Charlie” Evans (1856-1945). He got his star…
The Funny Lady and Husband Originally posted in 2010 Billy Rose (b. this day in 1899) is a sort of honorary vaudevillian. While he never trod the vaudeville stage, he came awful close to it …
Today is the birthday of Harry Pease (1886-1945. According to encyclopediast Anthony Slide, Pease was known in vaudeville as “The Boy with the Golden Voice” and wrote special mat…
Today is the birthday of Louis Silvers (1889-1954). Silvers got his start playing in vaudeville (sometimes teamed with Arthur Freed), and supplied material and worked as musical director for…
Today is the birthday of Clara Kimball Young (Clarisa Young, 1890-1960). She was a second generation actor, born to a pair of traveling stock company players based out of Chicago. In 1909 sh…
Today is the birthday of Bob Newhart (b. 1929). My period of maximum appreciation for his work is the slice right down the middle, that coincides with his first sit-com The Bob Newhart Sh…
