Wow, are the stars ever crazily aligned today. Massachusetts and a few other states celebrate Patriots Day today, a holiday that commemorates what would be called the Birth of America if we …
What a cluster of symbolically weighted days we are in the midst of. The Revolutionary anniversaries of April 18 (Paul Revere's Ride) and April 19 (Lexington and Concord) combined with yeste…
Johnny Tillotson (1938-2025) passed away back on April 1 " but that's kind of a fraught date on which to announce anything, so I figured I'd leave this little tribute to his birthday, which …
This would appear to be a rare case of Travalanche scooping both Wikipedia and IMDB. Today would have been the 92nd birthday of character actor Monte Landis (Monte Landstein, 1933-2024) had …
Born 100 years ago today, magician Harry Albacker (1925-1994) " his oft-told tale that he was born on Halloween, 1926, right after Houdini died, was a show biz fib. A lifelong native of the …
Well, I wish I was on Lexington Green today watching the re-enactors re-create what happened there 250 years ago, but c'est la guerre. I do have my "eyes on the ground" in Lexington and Conc…
A quarter of a millennium ago, on April 18, 1775, occurred Paul Revere's famous ride to alert the slumbering Minutemen to an eminent crackdown by British leaders on the rebel Patriots at Lex…
April 17 was the baptismal day of Jacobean playwright John Ford (1586-ca. 1639). That's my copy of his collected plays above. (If you're looking for the director of Hollywood westerns, go he…
Olivia Hussey (1951-2024) would be turning 74 today; we lost her back in December. We tend to think of this actress in only one role because she was so iconic in it, but she actually had a t…
April 16 is kind of a comedy holy day 'round here. It's the anniversary of the release date of Laurel and Hardy's The Music Box and Way Out West and Chaplin's The Cure, and the birthday of T…
An atypical post today, for it concerns an artist who was ambivalent about show business. Many of us are. For me it's a love/hate thing. I hope I convey what I love about it here every singl…
I found this picture of Eve Golden (reclining) from the Digital Transgender Archive. It shows her in an off-Broadway play in 1981. Eve hasn't acted in some time, but she manifests the theatr…
The title of this post could take you down any number of legitimate paths " a playhouse named after the great Italian polymath, say, or biographical stage works about him. Instead, something…
The title of today's post is meant to differentiate its subject from the motion picture composer, although this John Williams (Hugh Ernest Leo Williams, 1903-1983) had a famous classical mus…
I know this isn't a very round anniversary, but ten years ago (at the 150th), Travalanche hadn't much expanded beyond vaudeville and silent film comedy as far as subject matter was concerned…
Yeah, I said! Just got the word from Feedspot that Travalanche ranks #57 of all New York City based blogs and websites, which I call not too shabby given that the list is topped by the likes…
Some attention paid today to Hollywood screen actress Claire Windsor (Clara Viola Cronk, 1892-1972). Windsor was a major star of the 1920s and early '30s, encompassing the late silent and ea…
This International Romani Day we thought we'd give you a head's up about a new film that focuses on Charlie Chaplin's Romani heritage and how it influenced his art. It's directed by the grea…
This is the second time I'm felt the need to single out Bill Maher for conspicuous bad-acting. (The first was about five years ago). Now that he's been to the White House to kiss the King's …
This will make an interesting companion piece to yesterday's post, which concerned major players in the birthing of jazz. The music has no end, one hopes, but today's post discusses a major …
And just what do I mean by a very vaudeville kind of day? Well it's National Barber Shop Quartet Day, as well as the birthday of Nick LaRocca of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, not to ment…
We choose the birthday of Dominic "Nick" LaRocca (1889-1961) for this tribute to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (original rendered as the Original Dixieland Jass Band). This seminal quinte…
April 9, 1813 was the date upon which Moll Pitcher (Mary Diamond) transitioned from this Mortal Plane into the Great Beyond. In modern parlance, Moll can best be described as a celebrity psy…
April 9 is the birthday of singer and actress Paula Stewart (Dorothy Paula Zürndorfer, b. 1929) Stewart is very much still with us " I've even had the pleasure of interacting with her on…
Happy National Banjo Day! As I wrote in No Applause, this quintessentially American instrument originated in Africa, made its way here through the cultured of enslaved black people, and then…