11,729 stories by "Trav S.d."
I became aware of John Sheehan (1885-1952) because he co-starred in the 1934 Educational short Trimmed in Furs with Louise Keaton, Buster's sister. Born in Oakland, Sheehan acted with stock …
Saturday October 23, 12-4pm is Tin Pan Alley Day in NYC! I will now do appropriate homage by supplying you with a clattering cacophony of links. My brand new article for Chelsea Community Ne…
Dancer and actress Barrie Chase (b. 1933) has MANY notable screen credits but of COURSE we are going to foreground her memorable turn opposite Dick Shawn in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (…
The barriers to resumption of NYC cultural life seem to be rapidly melting as the Covid rate goes down and the vaccination rate (here at least) goes up. This week Chelsea Community News publ…
Just some very brief jottings on producer Hal B. Wallis (Aaron Blum Wolowicz, 1898-1986). Wallis's rapid rise in the movie business was the very definition of what it means to get in on the …
October 19 is the natal day of the much-missed Divine (Glenn Milstead, 1945-1988). As Lon Chaney was to Todd Browning, so was Divine to John Waters, both muse and star at the heart of his wo…
Well pleased we were with yesterday's Gatsby Fest, organized by Destination Great Neck, a literal stone's throw from the house where F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a good chunk of The Great Gatsb…
Oh, how Hollywood loved blonde Northern European model/actresses in the '60s. I knew of many of them because they were still around in the '70s when I was a kid, woman like Elke Sommer (Germ…
Roy Stewart (1883-1933) starred in over 100 silent films, most of them westerns, but I am personally most interested in the beginning of his career, for that is when he acted in some of the …
Phyllis Gordon (1889-1964) was mostly a supporting player during her brief heyday " in our visiually focused age, she is primarily known for a couple of flashy publicity stunts. Gordon was f…
A few words of apprecation this morning for Ann Guilbert, or Ann Morgan Guilbert (1928-2016). Guilbert enjoyed a sort of charmed career. She went from being a key cast member in the popular …
Attention paid today to poet, novelist, historian and activist Helen Hunt Jackson (Helen Maria Jackson, 1830-1885), best known today for her 1884 novel Ramona, which was adopted for the Amer…
Frustrating, but amusing " if you Google "Dick Bernie", you will get pictures of 94 year old Dick Van Dyke championing Bernie Sanders for President, or clips of Bernie Mac saying "Give her d…
We are delighted to report that our friend Lynn Sally (whom I initially knew as the burlesque performer "Dr. Lucky") has just hit the market with a tremendous new book entitled Neo-Burlesque…
I was very jazzed last night to, through the good graces of the estimable Allen Lewis Rickman (Boardwalk Empire, A Serious Man, and the reigning king of Yiddish theatre), attend the invited …
I'm pretty sure that I have never heard a better name for a performing little person than Dolleta Boykin (Dolly Dodd, 1881-1948). Not just Doll like the Doll Family, but "Dolletta", an even …
I'm not certain if I would otherwise have done a post on singer/actor Yves Montand (Ivo Levi, 1921-1991) before I learned of his early years. In America, we thought of him as one of a handfu…
There are fewer than two dozen film acting credits in the dossier of Jean Wallace (Jean Walaceck, 1923-1990). Yet hers is a story worth knowing for show biz buffs I think. Wallace was raised…
Buster Brodie (Max Broida, 1885-1948) billed himself as "The Hairless Man", but he had an additional distinguishing characteristic: he was only 4′ 9 1/2″ tall, making an almost l…
By happy coincidence, the natal day of Chief Caupolican (Emile Barrangon, 1876-1968) falls on Indigenous Peoples Day this year. Chief Caupolican was believed to have been a member of the Map…
We hope you will forgive the split nature of this portmanteau-post, which is intended to do double duty as a capsule biography of Madame Tussaud (Anna Maria Grosholtz, 1761-1850) and a revie…
Alastair Sim (1900-1976) rarely stirred from his "right little, tight little island", spent more time on stage than screen, and jealously guarded his private life. As a consquence, he is alm…
We are apt to think of Elmer Calvin "Hank" Patterson (1888-1975) as a rube comedian on account of his long standing role as Fred Ziffel, proprietor of Arnold the Sentient Pig on the Paul Hen…
Before the Floradora Girls, the Ziegfeld Girls, or the Goldwyn Girls, there were the Gaiety Girls. These were the creation of West End impresario George Edwardes (1855-1915). Edwardes had le…
In his day, Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916) was known as "America's Best Loved Poet". Today, I fear that most English departments regard his work as primitive kitsch and he has…
