11,741 stories by "Trav S.D."
This is part two of the series on the show biz ancestry of Cynthia Fujikawa, which we launched here last week. Lottie Burke (1883-1939) was on all fours when she made her stage debut. Sh…
Today on TCM at 2:30pm (Eastern), I’ll Cry Tomorrow, the 1955 bio-pic based on Lillian Roth’s eponymous memoir. The focal point is Roth’s descent into alcoholism and accomp…
Today is the birthday of Star of Vaudeville #423: Loïe Fuller (for full article on her go here). This incredible short film from 1902 opens with her transforming from a bat! To find ou…
This is one in a series of posts we are producing in connection with our new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, available from Bear Manor Media…
Today is the birthday of Dick Hilburn (1918-1971). billed in the sideshow world as “the Quarter Man”. The name sprang from the fact that he had but one fully developed limb (his …
This is one in a series of posts we are producing in connection with our new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, available from Bear Manor Media…
This is one in a series of posts we are producing in connection with our new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, available from Bear Ma…
This is one in a series of posts we are producing in connection with our new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, available from Bear Ma…
Today is the birthday of blues singer, comedian, male impersonator and all around vaudeville performer Princess White (1881-1976). She started out at age 5 as a toe-dancing R…
Today is the birthday of Star of Vaudeville #105: Sophie Tucker (for more on The Last of the Red Hot Mamas go here). Here she is, still doing her thing on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1960: To fi…
You heard it here first, folks! Rip Taylor (b. 1934) and Charles Nelson Reilly have the same birthday! Good lord, what crazy, kookin’, campy stars were alligned in the heavens on that …
Today is the birthday of the late, great Charles Nelson Reilly (1931-2007). A ubiquitous presence on game shows and talk shows in the 1970s and beyond, he first broke into the public’s…
Today is the birthday of that amazing American literary phenomenon Horatio Alger (1832-1899). I find his death date fitting, almost as though he knew he wasn’t meant to exist for even …
This has to be a good sign! There’s silent comedy happening all over the place today! If you act fast you can see them all! At 11am: The Film Forum is showing Sherlock Jr, Buster Keato…
Today is the birthday of the great American portaitist John Singer Sargeant (1856-1925). His great life-sized masterpiece, informally called “Portrait of Madame X” hangs in…
Today is the birthday of the great American writer Jack London (1876-1916). I really love early 20th century fiction with its exhilarating mix of then-new social and philosophical idea…
Today is the birthday of everybody named Tex! Not just Texas Guinan but also beloved cowboy star Tex Ritter (1905-1974), a fixture of the stage, radio, record albums and movie westerns…
Today is the birthday of Star of Vaudeville #104:  Texas Guinan (for my full squib on that quintessential jazz age entertainer go here). We think of her primarily today as the lege…
Today is the birthday of Arthur Ripley (1897-1961). He is remembered chiefly today as part of the creative brain trust behind Harry Langdon, an outgrowth of his tenure as scriptwriter and ga…
Tonight at 8pm Eastern on TCM, that heartwarming family classic Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? The part of the film that seems to stick uppermost in our mind is the situation of two old sis…
Today is Kreskin’s birthday (for my full, earlier post on the mentalist go here). I found the clip below amusing, on the one hand as an illustration of his technique of “fishing&…
Today is the birthday of Joe E. Lewis (Joseph Klewan, 1902-1971). He started out as an old school vaudeville singer/ comedian but rapidly evolved into a nightclub entertainer (although in th…
Based in New York, ventriloquist Charles Young played many of the important venues of the late 18th century: Tony Pastor’s, Bunnell’s New American Museum, Harrigan & HartR…
This is one in a series of posts we are producing in connection with our new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, available from Bear Ma…
One of my favorite movies is playing on TCM tonight at 8 p.m., E.S.T.  As a child, it held many mysteries for me. First, that title, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was so long i…
