11,744 stories by "Trav S.D."
Today is the birthday of banjoist, comedian and songwriter Freddy Morgan (1910-1970). He started out in vaudeville in the 1920s as one half of the banjo duo Morgan and Stone. In 1947, he�…
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 Mike Nichols (b. Michael Igor Peschkowski, 1931). I wrote a little about Nichols and May in my new book Chain of Fools. They represent a sort of bend in the road in …
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. Those who exclusively associate Jonathan Harris (1914-2002) w…
Today is Ole Olson’s birthday (for more on him and his partner Chic Johnson, see my article here). I note with pleasure that Youtube has a whole mess of their movies on Youtube in t…
Today is the birthday of great American lyricist Gus Kahn (1886-1941). He began his career writing special material for vaudeville acts in the early teens, and progressed to Broadway, whe…
A few years back I wrote about those puckish political provocateurs the Billionaires for Bush here and here. Now they are back just in time to lampoon Mitt Romney before (I hope) he disappea…
Today is Election Day! And not only that, it’s the birthday of Star of Vaudeville #254: John Philip Sousa (for my full article on him go here). As you pull your lever for President (or…
Jonathan Harrington (1809-1881) was a ventriloquist and magician based out of Boston, one of the first native Yankees to take up those professions. Inspired by an 1821 performance in Boston …
There are worse times to read books like Ben Winters' The Last Policeman than in the wake of a major natural disaster. (Are there any books like this one? A pre-apocalyptic murder mystery?) …
Today is the birthday of Peter Noone, lead singer of British invasion band Herman’s Hermit’s. We’ve written here earlier about Harry Champion and the original 1910 version …
With the F Train running out as far Avenue X, this weekend the Countess and I were able to make it out to Coney Island to bring a shopping cart full of donations to an impromptu re…
Today is the birthday of the favorite playwright of my early twenties (and still one of my favorites) Sam Shepard, born 1943. I think he is America's greatest stage poet, and, along wi…
In observation/preparation for Will Rogers birthday today (see our tribute article here) last night we watched his 1934 feature Judge Priest. Time has given an unfortunate new spin to the re…
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…
There were 7 Shields Brothers from White Rock, Texas, but only four of them were tall enough to tour with P.T. Barnum’s circus as “giants”. Even so, though they were billed…
Gustavus Katterfelto (ca. 1743-1799) was a species of professional that no longer exists — part quack physician, part magician, part legitimate scientific lecturer. In addition, he imp…
Comus was the ancient Greek God of revels, festivity and chaos, the son and cup-bearer to Dionysus. From the same etymological root we derive the word for comedy. A fiiting stage name …
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…
The Balasic Family were a troupe of performing acrobats originally from Croatia, whose contributions to the variety stage spanned three generations, from the 1860s through the 1930s. The …
Singer/dancer Frank Carter (1888-1920) is sadly better known for his death than his life. The young performer met Marilyn Miller when they performed together in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1918.…
Joseph Pinetti (1750-1800) was the principal figure in European magic during the second half of the eighteenth century. At the time, most conjurers were sleight-of-hand men who worked out…
The friggin’ blog ate 3/4 of my post as a I published it a few minutes ago. Here it is in its entirety. I walked into work and back again today, an hour plus each way — and are m…
Yesterday morning, stir crazy from having been cooped up in the apartment a couple of days, with no subways running and having some stuff to check on at work, I made the trek from my Park Sl…
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…
