11,730 stories by "Trav S.d."
If there were a vaudeville today, Marilyn Michaels (Marilyn Sternberg, b. 1943) would be a star of it. It's an odd thing: back in the day, many or most of the show biz impressionists were fe…
Oh, did I say, "important"? I meant impotent, but whatever gets you to click the link! This marks my fifth Travalanche post on Zeppo Marx, over and above my numerous posts on the entire team…
A few words of homage to recording pioneer George W. Johnson (ca. 1846-1914). I had previously been under the mistaken impression that Williams and Walker were the first African American rec…
The above chronicles my obligatory pilgrimage to City Lights Bookstore during my sojourn there in October 2019. Its co-founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti passed away yesterday at the age of 101! …
People name places after particular human beings so that they will be remembered. And then what happens? We forget them anyway. Broadway theatre lovers have no doubt been in the Cort Theatre…
Now that we add the name of Siegmund Breitbart (1883-1925) beside those of Sandow and The Mighty Atom, it emerges that Jewish strongmen were palpably a thing. Some have speculated that Breit…
Today, two generations of James Kirkwoods. The father (1876-1963) was a prolific actor and director of the stage and screen who enjoyed his greatest success in the silent movie days. A stage…
In a world in which there is also a George O'Brien and a George Murphy, it is easy to see where a George O'Hara (George Bolger, 1899-1966) might get lost in the shuffle. But he too was a pop…
"Shipwreck" was the metaphor I wanted for the title of this post on Kelsey Grammer (1955). Like the Sea Venture and the characters in The Tempest he hung fire on American Islands (born in th…
Some brief recognition today for Hamilton "Ham" Kinsey (1900-67), a minor figure in comedy history but an important member of the teams on which he played, mostly Hal Roach Studios. Kinsey's…
We have written about thousands of performers here on Travalanche, but Delno Fritz (1876-1925) is only our third swallower, after Chevalier Cliqout and Mimi Garneau (apart from some contempo…
The internet is abuzz with news of the streaming availability of The Muppet Show on Disney+, and I am surprised this morning to discover that I hadn't already done a dedicated post on the sh…
Tomorrow, and streaming throughout next week " the Thunderbird American Indians Dancers' Dance Concert and Pow-Wow! Check out my post from last years Pow Wow for background. I really wish we…
The arc of the career of Ukrainian-American actor Jack Palance (Volodymyr Palahniuk 1919-2006) was like a jump-rope in repose: high at the beginning and end and sagging in the middle. It's a…
Folks might remember Wayne Morris (1914-1959) somewhat better if his life hadn't been cut short by a heart attack at age 45. He'd been a moderately well known star for decades, never plungin…
The other day we shared a post showcasing pairs of famous people who possessed the same name. Today, a variation on a theme, only with one of the stars chiefly famous for sharing the name of…
Kevin McCarthy (1914-2010) is one of those actors most people don't know that they know. At best, he bumped his head against mainstream fame, never quite catapulting himself into the upper e…
I don't claim that the photo above is REPRESENTATIVE of the career of comical bit player Stan Ross (Abraham Schiller, b. 1926). As an X rated movie, some might regard The Sexpert as a low po…
This is a post that has been germinating for years and will no doubt get added to as new inspiration strikes. In fact, the impetus probably goes back 20 years, when I first heard about Spike…
It's purely and simply weird to live in a world where the significance of Arsenio Hall (b. 1956) is no longer universally known, not just because he was once such an inescapable fact of Amer…
Thorough as this blog is, we can pre-emptively and categorically state that we will never compose and publish biographies of all 1,500+ victims who went down with the Titanic. We have, howev…
Today a wave of the wand over the wizardry of Karl Germain (Charles Mattmueller, 1878-1959). Born and raised in Cleveland, Mattmueller began performing magic as a teenager after receiving Pr…
There is no way to do justice to the myriad accomplishments and massive legacy of Josh White (1914-1969) at anything less than book length. Fortunately, there are a couple of biographies, an…
Thornton Freeland (1898-1987) is a notable director for fans of vaudeville to know about, for he directed many comedies and musicals starring vets of the vaud stage. A native of Hope, North …
News just reached us that Mary Wilson (b. 1944) has suddenly passed away at the relatively young age of 76. I was going to subtitle this post "The Last Supreme" but stayed my hand knowing th…
