11,744 stories by "Trav S.D."
Today is the birthday of Bert Gordon (1895-1974) best known as “The Mad Russian on Eddie Cantor’s radio show and in comedy films of the 1930s and 40s. NOT to be confused with Ber…
Today is the birthday of Lulu McConnell (1882-1962), best known as a cast member on the radio & tv parody game show “It Pays to be Ignorant” from 1942 through 1951. The daugh…
Today is the birthday of that complex American phenomenon (and child vaudevillian) Walter Winchell. For his full bio go here. And here is delivering this exceptionally strange promo for Jerr…
Drat, drat and double drat! I am traveling today or else I definitely would have attended this! Today, April 7th at 2:30, The Silent Clowns Film Series will present… “Forgotten Funny…
September 3, 1923 was an important date. It was opening night for the Broadway show Poppy, written by Dorothy Donnelly and starring Madge Kennedy as the titular New England heiress, and W.C.…
Good news for fans of the dying art of the witty screenplay. After a 14 year hiatus, Whit Stillman open his latest Damsels in Distress in theatres in New York and L.A. today! He needs your s…
The 3rd Annual Comedy in Dance Festival April 5-7 and 12-14, 2012 at 8pm at Triskelion Arts: 118 North 11th Street, 3rd Floor, Brooklyn  Mari Meade Dance Collective. Photo by P…
The Four Fords, a.k.a. the Four Dancing Fords were a legendary brother and sister dancing act of the early part of the last century. It all appears to have started with the fifth dancing For…
Mt friends from Charred Oak Films start shooting their new film The Widowers next month, written by and starring Richard Lovejoy, who was in my play Willy Nilly and whose Dark Heart of Meteo…
Author DeAnna Cameron tells me she used No Applause to research her new historical romance novel Dancing at the Chance. (The “Chance” is the name of a vaudeville theatre in the s…
Today is the birthday of the seminal cartoonist Bud Fisher, creator of Mutt and Jeff. For more on him and his vaudeville bona fides go here. And for a visual argument: To find out more about…
Today is the birthday of the great fan dancer Sally Rand. For a bit on her life story go here. For a glimpse of her at work go here: To find out more about the history of vaudeville, …
I was lucky enough to get into Charles Busch’s latest workshop at Theater for the New City yesterday, a take-off on D.W. Griffith’s early epic Judith of Bethulia. This is the sec…
Today is the birthday of the first of the great carny “strong men”: Eugene Sandow (for full bio go here). Check out this actual footage of him in action circa 1894, courtesy an E…
Today is the birthday of William Ellsworth Robinson, a.k.a Chung Ling Soo. To read about his life and his rivalry with Ching Ling Foo, go here. And here’s a swell little mini-doc about…
Today is Buddy Ebsen’s birthday. See here for my article on him and his sister Vilma, one of vaudeville’s great dance teams. I am crazy about Buddy’s work on The Beverly Hi…
Today! 12-6pm at the City Reliquary 370 Metropolitan Avenue FREE FOR ALL! City Reliquary’s 10th Anniversary Celebration Today they promise to unveil… An all new GIFT SHOP featuring l…
Today is the birthday of the great blues singer Alberta Hunter (1895-1984). A Memphis native, she ran away from a bleak life to pursue a music career in Chicago. Starting in the seediest pos…
Wit's End and the Dorothy Parker Society invite you to celebrate the social life of the Jazz Age at the Bootlegger Social with the Red Hook Ramblers! Saturday, March 31st, 7pm-Midnight Alway…
Today is the birthday of Eddie Quillan (1907-1990). Quillian was a man with many show biz lives. 1) He started out with his parents and siblings in the family vaudeville act “The Risin…
Viva Patshiva is the infectious Romany-inspired musical by old pal Mr. David Jenness. Its virtues are many…from the traditional Hungarian folk melodies you’ll never get out of yo…
My old pal the public historian Kathleen Hulser is giving this fascinating-sounding free talk at the New School on Tuesday (April 3). Highly recommended! : Heroic Mythology in the Napoleonic…
Today is the birthday of Hollywood character actor Joseph Cawthorn (1868-1949). His film career ran from 1927 through 1942, and he had prominent roles in such films as the Fairbanks-Pickford…
Opens for previews today. Looks promising…music by the Gershwins, book “inspired by material by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse“, Mathew Broderick and Estelle Parsons in the …
Today is the birthday of Paul “Pops” Whiteman. (see here for full article on him). How awesome is this 1930 clip in 2 strip Technicolor! It really brings out the BLUE in the RHAP…
