November 3 was the birthday of the Great American scribe William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), the man for whom Bryant Park in NYC is named for, though I'll warrant that 99% of the people who g…
**Friday, November 5 @ 7:00PM EASTERN** Will Friedwald and CLIP JOINT LIVESTREAM PRESENTS: salute to:**RON HUTCHINSON'S "VITAPHONE PROJECT" ** presenting:Â "VITAPHONE VAUDEVILLE" with spec…
Here it is! Opening Day of Frigid New York's Gotham Storytelling Festival ! Where I especially want to recommend MY SHOW The Pilgrim's Progress, which will be presented November 11 and 13. A…
Jack Egan (1904-1982) enjoyed his greatest fame at the beginning of his career, as a juvenile in the last days of silent films and a couple of very early talkie musicals. The Paterson native…
November is Native American Heritage Month. But this year it will not be not just any Native American Heritage Month. 2021 marks the 400th anniversary of what is traditionally known as The F…
In an earlier post, we spoke of Wonder Woman, The Bionic Woman, and Isis as a kind of triumvirate of feminist heroines in the mid '70s " but we left these two out. And boy did they make a bi…
We won't bury the lede here. The primary reason you should know the name Shirley Dinsdale (1926-1999) is that she was the winner of the very first Emmy Award. She won in the category of Outs…
We've written about many ventriloquism acts that were identity-based: English, Irish, African American, female, gay, etc. but surprisingly, I think Rickie Layne (Richard Israel Cohen, 1924-2…
I'd seen Ruth Hussey (1911-2005) in quite a few Hollywood classics, but it seems fitting that the one that finally made me curious about her life story was that ghostly, Gothic tale The Unin…
Just a real quick post on an entertaining father-daughter combo I learned about recently. The dad MacDonald Carey (1913-1994) was someone I knew about throughout my childhood " he played Dr.…
A nod today to a pair of lovebirds from the transitional era between old and new show biz. Bill Holliday (William F. Holliday, 1914-1971) was a ventriloquist, trumpet player, and balloon twi…
By 100, of course, we mean years, and not pounds, for the fact that Muriel Landers (1921-77) went into comedy has to do with the fact that she was *200* pounds (and only 5'2″ in height…
Tonight at 8pm EST, TCM will be showing the terrific, eye-opening documentary Carl Laemmle (2019). This movie has special significance for me in that I had the honor of presenting it at the …
What a treasure trove is the life and work of Daniel P. Mannix IV (1911-1997). I first latched onto him because of his involvement in sideshow, circus, and magic (viz., "The Great Zadma"), a…
October 25 through October 31 is National Magic Week, according to the Society of American Magicians! Go here to learn about their activities all over the country. In honor of the season, I …
We pen this tribute to Holly Woodlawn (Haraldo Santiago Franceschi Rodriguez Danhakl, 1946-2015) amongst good and bad benchmarks. It's the star's birthday of course, and 50 years from the po…
In a career that spanned over 50 years (1933-1984), and over 300 roles in all genres, given the season, we'd like to begin by pointing out all of the horror and sci fi movies that character …
Today we sing the praises of Eddie Lang (Salvatore Massaro, 1902-1933), known to some as "the Father of Jazz Guitar". Lang came from a musical family " his father made and sold string instru…
Alexander P. Linton (1904-1972) was born in Roscommon Ireland, and had immigrated to New York by the 1920s, when he began performing as a magician in the Bowery, at Huber's Museum, and numer…
African American ventriloquist and magician Louis McBride was working nightclubs and vaudeville as early as the 1930s. His act included coin magic, a rope escape, and byplay with his dummy S…
Silent Mora (Louis Jerome McCord, 1884-1972) derived his stage name from switching the letters of the name of one of his mentors, Maro, Prince of Magic " and from the fact that he performed …
Like Sonja Henie and Vera Ralston, the creature known as Belita (Maria Belita Jepson-Turner, 1923-2005) found her way to movie stardom by being a world renowned ice skater. Like Ralston, she…
Beloved character actor Peter Scolari (b. 1955) has left us too soon and as always I thought I would chime in with an appreciation that fills in some of the more obscure cracks that other eu…
You may be inclined, as I often am, to mix up Jordan Christopher (Jordan Christopher Zankoff, 1940-1996) with Christopher Jones (star of Wild in the Streets). No doubt the two did some scrap…
During the first year of Covid, we binge watched The Love Boat, and that is how we became aware of Korean American comedian Johnny Yune (Yoon Jong Seung, 1936-2020). I didn't know it at the …