R.A. Roberts (born Richard Arthur Roberts, 1870) was an actor, impressionist, and, above all, quick-change artist — billed as the “World’s Greatest” in that line. A L…
Today is the birthday of Star of Vaudeville #80: Frank Fay (for more on his life and career go here). Now here’s a timely number from the 1930 picture Bright Lights: To find out more a…
Richie Craig, Jr. (1903-1934) was the son of burlesque and musical comedy performer Richie Craig (who was singled out by Joe Laurie, Jr. as the first performer to do a double talk act with a…
Today is the birthday of Crane Wilbur (1886-1973). Wilbur was a rare beast: successful as a writer, director and actor for screen, radio and the stage, including vaudeville. That pretty much…
Today is the birthday of the Father of the Blues, W.C. Handy(1873-1958). In reality, the blues is a folkish form, it was well along in development when Handy, an educated man and a teacher, …
Today is the birthday of George S. Kaufman (1889-1961) I am going to shock and probably affront some of my readers by saying I’m really not at crazy about him. I’ve had plenty of…
York and King were a husband-wife, male-female comedy team of vaudeville’s golden age. Texas native Berry “Chick” York (1887-1969) ran away from home at age 15 to join a me…
Today is the birthday of Jack Burns (b. 1933), or as I like to call him, the “Huh? Huh? Huh? Guy”. When I first knew him he was one half of the team of Burns and Scheiber (Shreib…
The Rolling Stones: 50 Years on Film at the Museum of Modern Art November 15"December 2, 2012 Celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Rolling Stones, this retrospective traces the film c…
Today is the birthday of Petula Clark (b. 1932). Those who know her primarily from her 1960s pop hits might be surprised to learn that that was actually her SECOND career. She began as a chi…
Today is the birthday of the Fairbanks Twins, Marion and Madeline (b. 1900, no relation to Douglas). Second generation actresses from New York, they began acting in melodramatic hits of the …
Well, here’s a shocker. Beloved character actor Whitman Mayo, most identified with his role as Grady on Sanford and Son…was neither an old timer nor a graduate of the black va…
Magic Brian and his wacky friends are back with a brand new show! Â Magic, music, circus, comedy and danger, featuring: Magic Brian Albert Cadabra Cloris Flap Nigel Blackstorm and all the …
Maximo and Bartolo, the so-called Aztec Children were two microcephalic unfortunates from St. Salvator, Â hired by P.T. Barnum starting in 1848-49 as representatives of an ancient, vanishe…
In age when shows with premises as preposterous as those at the center of Charlie’s Angels and Fantasy Island became monster hits, perhaps you could forgive NBC for gambling, and…
Today is the birthday of the great American composer Aaron Copland (1900-1990), creator of Billy the Kid, Appalachian Spring, Rodeo, etc etc. I like his Fanfare for the Common Man s…
Today is the birthday of Louise Brooks (1906-1985). There are cases to be made for putting her in both our “Stars of Vaudeville” and “Stars of Slapstick” series, but …
Today is the birthday of Dick Powell (1904-1963). An Arkansas native (you can hear it in his accent), he started out as a singer with the Charlie Davis Orchestra before moving to Pittsburg, …
Tim Burton seems to be back on his game. His heavy duty fans have always prized him for his grotesquerie, his highly visual black comedy akin in spirit to Charles Addams and Edward Gorey…
The decapitation trick was just one of many illusions pioneered by John Simmons, a.k.a. Washington Blythe, a.k.a. Washington Simmons, a.k.a. Hugh Washington Lynn, a.k.a Hugh Simmons Lynn, a.…
One of the most alienating experiences I have ever had was in a cinema studies class at NYU, during a screening of John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln. I revere Ford. I revere Lincoln.…
Fedor Jeftichew, better known as Jo-Jo the Dog-face Boy, is undoubtedly one of the most famous of all sideshow performers. Born in 1868 in St, Petersburg, Russia, he was the second generatio…
The Rath Brothers, Dick and George, were a classy, well-regarded acro-balancing act, invariably on short lists of critics, bookers and audiences of greatest vaudeville acts of all time &#…
In his book Stage to Screen, A. Nicholas Vardac puts forth the impossible and yet so right and true thesis that theatre-makers on the eve of cinema’s birth in the late 19th century WAN…