11,700 stories by "Trav S.D."
New Yorkers! We're coming up on the bicentennial of Castle Clinton's start as an entertainment venue " seems like the perfect time to do my postponed marathon walking tour of the history of …
Two major benchmarks for Barry Manilow (b.1943) passed last year: the singer/musician/songwriter/producer turned 80 years old; and his self-titled debut LP turned 50. This year marks another…
The Ford Motor Company was founded on this day in 1903. As we posted earlier, our enthusiasm for the contributions to the world by Henry Ford are muted, to put it mildly, by his Anti-Semitis…
This piece was originally cooked up for Tim Greer's "Feet of Mud" website a few years ago, but it now seems to be offline, so I place it here. The Langdon Thing This is strictly anecdo…
There's not a ton of middle ground on silent screen comedian Harry Langdon (1884-1944). The few who know him either love or hate him, and those who love him are vastly outnumbered. I'm among…
The story of Charles Gemora (Carlos Cruz Gemora, 1903-1961) represents a confluence between two of our previous content streams: gorilla suit movies and animal impersonation (see posts on Fr…
If you missed Nelson Hughes' presentation at Marxfest, here's your chance to catch it, with enhancements. This Sunday at 4:30pm at QED in Queens, That Slapstick Show dives into the world of …
The Apprentice debuted in 2004. I never watched this damn show in real time, so I was rather shocked at the impact it wound up having on this planet. "New York is my town," host Donald Trump…
Today we finally shine a spotlight on female cinema pioneer Lois Weber (1879-1939). We do this in the interest of completeness, having long since done squibs on women like Alice Guy, Frances…
O.J. Simpson (1947-2024) died two months ago. Having had cause to mention him over 15 times on this blog, O.J. rates a post here, yet I wasn't about to eulogize him, and I certainly don't ce…
Once upon a time, contemporary variety arts and theatre information was a prominent content stream on this blog…but frankly few people read those posts, so I took them (and there were hund…
The ghost of Suzy Knickerbocker (Aileen Mehle, 1918-2016) seems to hover over this cultural moment, especially for those who love to binge streaming TV series. There are echoes of her life a…
Friday evening occurred a wonderful convergence of catchings-up: hanging out with old friends Michele Carlo and Last Up Larry…to see the current production of Circus Amok (one of my favori…
June 9 was the birthday of stage and screen actress Bessie Barriscale (Elizabeth Barry Scale, 1884-1965). Barriscale was the older cousin of Mabel and Edith Taliaferro; of the three, Mabel T…
June 8 was the birthday of Edwin S. Votey (1856-1931), inventor of, among other things, the player piano. Votey grew up in Ovid, New York, then moved to West Brattleboro Vermont with his fam…
That's right! There's more! In fact there'll be even more than THIS post over the next few weeks, truth to tell. The wonderful news for folks who couldn't attend Marxfest is that it was extr…
Born 100 years ago today, the great Broadway actress and nightclub performer Dolores Gray (Sylvia Dolores Finkelstein, 1924-2002). Not to be confused with the similar looking Dolores Fuller,…
Someone who watches vintage celebrity interviews as often as I do was bound to discover Skip E. Lowe (Sammy Labella, 1929-2014) sooner or later. I'd heard of him long before I ever saw him. …
Today we venture outside our wheelhouse a smidge, but not TOO far, for the post concerns the coming together of two previous subjects: Cyndy Fujikawa, who wrote this wonderful six part serie…
Have no fear, I have no attention of taking down or running down the idiosyncratic genius of Bruce MacLeish Dern (b. 1936). The title refers to the fact that this post will divide aspects of…
I am in the midst of a very mushy "soft roll-out" of my latest book. The Marx Brothers Miscellany became available to purchase about six weeks ago, and I certainly hawked it at the just-clos…
Two old time actors of note were born on June 2, 1874. Lulu Glaser came from Pennsylvania Dutch stock. She was only 17 when she began to show up in New York stage productions, initially unde…
Today we salute one of the key figures in the silent movie Renaissance of the last several decades: author, collector, preservationist, director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, and…
June 1 is National Game Show Day apparently, a holiday one mightn't have thought society required ("Those poor neglected game shows! Let us…let us take a day to memorialize them!") But it …
It's quite true! And (a fact that should be much more widely known) it was started by none other than P.T. Barnum! The final iteration of Barnum's American Museum burned down in 1868, but th…
