11,698 stories by "Trav S.D."
Jack MacGowran (1918-1973) was what it's all about: a muse for many of the best creative minds of the 20th century, an indispensible character actor, and a career most of us would die for, w…
It's National Farmers Day. For the occasion, I am restoring a post I published here in 2017, then moved over to Medium when I did a big purge of all the non-show biz related posts on Travala…
Born 100 years ago today, actress Randy Stuart (Elizabeth "Betty Jane" Shaubell, 1924-1996). Stuart started out with her parents in a small time vaudeville act that toured the South and Midw…
How perfect is it that the International Day of the Girl Child falls on the birthday Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)? She's one of my top female heroes; we've needed her or someone like her fo…
When I say I mourn Steve Gordon (1938-1982) I don't mean to imply that I knew him or that he only recently died. The writer/director passed away over 40 years ago, worlds away from my little…
My word but there were a lot of Alices running around a century and more ago! I've always been interested in the phenomenon because it was my mother's middle name, after her aunt, who hersel…
An experiment in media in honor of the birthday of the great actress Helen Hayes in further exploration of the legacy of her friend and "Boswell", Mari Lyn Henry. The audio is not optimal, y…
Born 100 years ago today, the one and only writer/actor/producer/director Edward D. Wood, Jr! We are a huge fan of his oeuvre, and have been for well over 30 years. (As it happens, it is als…
Above please note my first edition copy of a Pultitzer Prize winning autobiography from around a century ago The Americanization of Edward Bok. I acquired and read this now highly obscure bo…
Here's one I learned about by way of Eve Golden's "Youtube Theatre" column at the Los Angeles Daily Mirror. When I refer to Judy Tyler (Judith Mae Hess, 1932-1957) as the "Girl James Dean", …
Well, I've written about many of the classic, old time gossip columnists here (Walter Winchell, Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, Earl Wilson, Dorothy Kilgallen, etc) so why stop at the later o…
Today, a salute to an actor whose career is an illustration of the vagaries of fate when it comes to the breaks it dispenses to actors, Kirk Alyn (John Feggo, Jr., 1910-1999). A New Jersey n…
October 7 will always be remembered for the atrocity that happened in Israel a year ago, but it has another humanitarian significance as well, for it was the birthday of legendary labor acti…
October 7 was the birthday of Alfredo Codona (1893-1937), the most celebrated (and later mourned) member of an international, multi-generational dynasty of showfolk. Originally spelled Codon…
The second act of Mitchell Leisen (1898-1972) has arrived posthumously, but to misappropriate an attrocious line of Robin Williams, beter latent than never? Numerous in-depth articles about …
Previously posted on Travalachance and restored for National Rhode Island Day and the Halloween season. Today we continue our series of Rhode Island Day/ Halloween posts by relating some …
Yes, yes, I know the title sounds like a Michael Feinstein song (people are forever explaining my own damn jokes and literary devices back to me, as though the very productions of my own min…
And now, since it's both National Rhode Island Day as well as the Halloween season, news of a spooky film set on a small island in the smallest state. I caught The Block Island Sound (2021) …
Ecstatic to report that I am finally realizing my long-cherished goal of doing a book event at Atomic Books in Baltimore this October 26, 2024, at 7pm. I first visited that cool emporium abo…
October 3 is the birthday of the grea drag star, singer, performance, actor Joey Arias. Born in Fayetteville, N.C. (recently hard hit by Hurricane Helene) Arias moved to L.A. with his family…
Thanks, Bob Greenberg for the very good idea to do a solo post on Bud Abbott (William Alexander Abbott, 1897-1974). The reasons for doing one (and doing one now) are multiple: 1) the many po…
100 years ago this day and this month: the birth of Surrealism (a few years longer if you count Apollinaire's coinage of the term in 1917). Yvan Goll published an obscure Surrealist Manif…
'tis the season for spooky, and I'm way into it this year, so expect plenty of horror and horror/comedy content here throughout the Halloween month. First out of the gate is a thing I have b…
Today marks the 100th birthday of former American President Jimmy Carter (b. 1924). Apart from Gerald Ford, who scarcely counts, Carter is the first President whose tenure I remember from so…
Born 100 years today, Truman Streckfus Persons (1924-1984), better known to most as Truman Capote. Mid 20th century fiction is far from my main jam, but writers of that era did leave footpri…
