11,744 stories by "Trav S.D."
Today is the birthday of Harry Steppe (Abraham Stepner, 1888-1934). A legendary burlesque and vaudeville comedian, Steppe was billed as “The Hebrew Gent”. He was credited by Phil…
Today is the birthday of the legendary Henny Youngman (see here for his full bio including my own brush with Henny). Now here he is in a classic spot on the The Steve Allen Show in 1960: To …
Today is the birthday of early vaudeville favorite Else Janis (see her full bio here). Now here she is singing “Florrie Was a Flapper” (recorded 1914): To find out more about …
Today is the birthday of Jerry Lewis (b. Joseph Levitch in 1926). Though he came into the world just a hair too late for vaudeville, his parents (former vaudevillians) let him onstage with t…
For Women’s History Month, Travelanche is hosting several posts by several guest bloggers about various female vaudevillians and other performing artists. This is the second in our ser…
The DVD release of last year’s Three Musketeers movie and research for my Adah Isaacs Menken play have recently placed Dumas pere foursquare on my radar. The former development represe…
The Brooklyn Museum is screening an amazing documentary tonight. You should definitely see it if there are any seats left. I had a chance to look at a screener a couple of weeks ago and it r…
Today is the opening day of Cinefest, the vintage film festival put on by the Syracuse Cinephile Society. I know it’s far away, New Yorkers, but when you see the dense program of rare …
Today is the birthday of William Selig (1864-1948), best known as the founder of the first Hollywood movie studio, the Selig Polyscope Company. A Chicago native, he started out as a vaudevil…
This is one in a series of posts in honor of Women’s History Month Today is the birthday of a long-forgotten vaudeville singer named Clarice Vance (born Clara Etta Black in 1870).She f…
And now here’s the 18th installment in our Vaudephone series, Al Duvall and his Monotone Baritone, singing two hilarous numbers, with Franklin Bruno at the keys: Vaudephone is a co-pro…
Today is the birthday of Jack Lait (1883-1954). I quoted him in No Applause without knowing much about him. I gathered that he was a journalist of some sort, but more specifics weren’t…
This is one in a series of posts in honor of Women’s History Month May Howard (ca. 1860-1925) was a star of early burlesque. After becoming popular with several of the major burlesque …
This is one of a series of posts in honor of Women’s History Month. Our guest blogger today is Anne Boucher. Anne is a fan of early 20th century entertainment who became an independent…
Just learned the other day that Tom Murrinwas near the end…he’d kept his cancer a secret so that no one would make a fuss. But everyone would have to learn about it sooner or lat…
Steve Bird is back! Well, he hasn’t actually been away. That’s just what you say when someone has a new thing coming out. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to imply that Steve …
Today is the birthday of Broadway revue impresario George White, most famous for his Scandals. For my full bio on him, go here. Below, a clip from the 1934 Hollywood film version, with Rudy …
This is one in a series of posts in honor of Women's History Month. Marion Harris appeared seemingly out of nowhere in 1916Â to appear in vaudeville, on records and in Ziegfeld’s Mid…
This is one in a series of posts in honor of Women’s History Month. Minnie and Helen French were a singing, dancing identical twin sister act of vaudeville’s earliest years. They…
Another entry in my silent comedy project (described here) in conjunction with the upcoming release of my new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube…
Before I fell under the spell of The Countess, I had only the dimmest awareness of eccentric German film-maker Werner Herzog, having seen his remake of Nosferatu and having heard of earl…
And now here’s the 17th installment in our Vaudephone series, the Francophiliac Filly Sweet Soubrette: Be sure to catch her and her band March 13, 20 and 27 at Spike Hill! Vaudephone i…
This is one in a series of posts in honor of Women’s History Month Artie Hall (c.1881-1906) was a blackface performer and so-called “coon shouter” in vaudeville, a field in…
This is one of aseries of posts honoring Women’s History Month Ruth Roye (originally Becker) was billed as the “Princess of Ragtime”. Very little is known about her (birthd…
This post is part of a series honoring Women’s History Month. Millie DeLeon (ca. 1873-1922) is regarded by many as one of the founders of modern burlesque. Her real name was apparently…
