11,738 stories by "Trav S.D."
Today is the birthday of Sir Arthur John Gielgud (1904-2000). Through one of the great peculiarities of our culture and the “industry” which entertains it, I (like so many oth…
Today is the birthday of Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), probably the twentieth century’s greatest and most influential playwright, also much admired for his essays, fiction and poetry, bo…
Today is the birthday of Don Adams (Donald Yarmy, 1923-2005). It’s inevitable that I’ll write about the television perfection that was Get Smart. I just watched an episode a coup…
Today is the birthday of one of my heroes, Charles Ludlam (1943-1987). I consider it one of the great ironies of my life that I moved here just a few weeks after he died. I would have been a…
Don’t be so smart. When I say “forgotten” I’m not talking about his current CBS night-time show, or even the long-running  NBC late-night show that preceded it. Th…
Two Great Silent Comedy Screenings in New York This Weekend You Shouldn’t Miss! On Saturday, April 13th at 2:30, The Silent Clowns Film Series presents a 90th anniversary screening …
Today is the birthday of David Cassidy (b. 1950). Son of the actor Jack Cassidy and step-son of his wife, Shirley Jones, Cassidy co-starred with Jones on the hit series The Partridge Fami…
Today is the birthday of that Holy Saint of the neo-vaudeville movement, Herbert Khoury, ak.a. Tiny Tim (1932-1996). Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish he could be alive today to see what God Hath W…
Today is the birthday of Virginia Cherrill (1908-1996), one in a long line of young women Charlie Chaplin plucked from obscurity in order to co-star with him in films. From rural Illinois, s…
Unlike our contemporary Serpentina, snake-charming star of the Coney Island Circus Sideshow, the original Serpenta (possibly named Irene Ferrill, b. circa 1898), was billed to be boneless, l…
Thanks to one and all who came out to Dixon Place for our Chain of Fools launch event. I was so grateful to all those who braved the rains to come out. It proved to be a veritable who’…
Today is the birthday of Louise Lasser (b. 1939). Some may know her as Woody Allen’s first wife and the co-star of his early films through 1972. (Very few) others of you may know he…
Clico (1857-1940) was actually Franz Taabosh, a Bushman native of what is now South Africa. Fond of, and skilled at, his native Khoisan folk dances, the four foot tall Taabosh was first pres…
Today is the birthday of Rosa Richter (1862-1922), known professionally as Zazel, one of the first of the human cannonballs. Born in England, she was already an acrobat and tightrope walker …
Hello and welcome again to Vaudephone, your one stop shopping for all the best contemporary variety acts! Today we feature — me! With a very special message for  – you! (Wa…
Henry Darrow (b. Enrique DelGado, 1933) is best known for his role as Manolito Montoya on the hit tv western The High Chaparral (1967-1971). The good looking Darrow was one of tv’…
We most this one today in conjunction with our post on the new book about Henry Darrow. The High Chaparral (1967-1971) is one of the very first tv shows I can remember watching. (I have a…
Low, Hite and Stanley was a highly vaudevillian act of the post vaudeville era who performed together from the mid 1930s through 1961. Amusingly, Roland Picaro Low was not the little person:…
I recently wrote an article for the next issue of The Berlesker that talks about four performing artists with a connection both to clowning and to burlesque (Dottie Lux, Melissa Roth a.k.…
Dagobert Roehmann (sometimes given as Dagmar Rothman, 1920-1952) was one of the sideshow world’s most legendary geeks and regurgitators. Billed as Waldo the Great or “the Human O…
Please Join Us For the FREE Chain of Fools Launch Event Wednesday, April 10, 7:30-9:30 pm in the Dixon Place Lounge Trav S.D. launches his new book Chain of Fools: Silent …
Part two of today’s birthday tribute to comic actor Stuart Pankin (for part one go here). Here’s a show that was not only quite prominent for a time, but was actually on tv fo…
 The Hall of Hams is my series on some of my favorite actors who have brought the art of melodramatic acting into the modern era. One of the great thespians of his day, Frank Keenan (Apr…
This is the first of two posts today celebrating the birthday of comic character actor Stuart Pankin (b. 1946). While you may not know the name, his is an an extremely recognizab…
Today is the birthday of Shecky Greene (Fred Sheldon Greenfield, b. 1926). I don’t know how it happened, but somewhere down the line his name became synonymous with “hack comedia…
