11,730 stories by "Trav S.d."
Today, a squint at Clarence Chesterfield Howerton, known professionally as Major Mite (1913-1975). Howerton was at least the third American performer to use the Major Mite handle; prior to h…
Saturday, February 13, 8pm: Valentines of Vaudeville! In celebration of Valentine's Day, please join me for an illustrated Zoom talk on great romances and romantics of the vaudeville stage! …
Today we toot a horn on behalf of composer John Williams (b. 1932). There's a tendency to mischaracterize Williams' signficance in terms of "firsts", suggesting his art as a harbinger of fut…
At 8443 West Sunset Blvd in West Hollywood, on the storied Sunset Strip between Beverly Hills and Los Angeles, there lies a venue whose history tracks nearly a century of American popular cu…
Steven Keats (1945-1994) was a ubiquitous presence on screens big and small when I was a kid in the '70s. My clearest association is the campy 1977 scifi movie The Last Dinosaur with Richard…
Today we bow our heads in memory of the screen star Ramon Novarro (José Ramón Gil Samaniego, 1899-1968). Novarro was a scion of a large, aristocratic Mexican family (a second cousin of D…
Nigel Bruce (William Nigel Ernie Bruce, 1895-1953), known as "Willie" to his friends, is most widely remembered for playing Dr. Watson to Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes in 15 films from 19…
Mabel Mercer (1900-84) lived at the crossroads of American vaudeville and English music hall, night clubs of Paris and New York, and the black and white show biz cultures of her day. She was…
The Outer Limits (1963-65) falls third, both chronologically and in the esteem of the American public, in the field of "Weird Television Anthology", I believe, right after Alfred Hitchcock P…
Mark Twain was 74 when he died and was considered ancient. Look at the clips of him in his last years (or listen to a recording of his voice " one exists, you know!) He may as well have been…
Thanks to Criterion once again we took the opportunity to fill in a gap in our cinematic education last night. We'have had the occasion to mention Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) many times on…
We do not know if the Woman in Question's name is homonymic with that of the Borscht Belt comedian. Her father's name was Allen, and she was certainly named to honor him, but whether hers wa…
We caught Netflix's new producion of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to hold my rave 'til Black History Month, when I traditionally try to do a post related to A…
Launched this day in 1936, the original radio incarnation of The Green Hornet, an interesting pop culture character for all sorts of reasons. For example, it is one of the few such character…
Some brief notes on minor independent silent film produce Charles C. "C.C." Burr (1891-1956). Burr was an advertising man from Brooklyn who hung out his "Mastodon Films" shingle in 1920, pro…
I had already planned to do a post on Cicely Tyson (b. 1924) for Black History Month, just a couple days from now. But the news of her death yesterday at age 96 makes the matter more pressin…
There is much I know about John Forsythe (Jacob Freund, 1918-2010) that would not tempt me to write a blogpost about him. For example, he was the voice of Charlie on the original Charlie's A…
Charles Morton (1908-1966) must have wondered what the hell hit him. At age 19, with only some vaudeville and stock company experience behind him, the Madison Wisconsin native was signed by …
Holocaust Remembrance Day seems an appropriate, if vaguely irreverent time to plug An American Pickle (2020), Seth Rogen's low-key, high concept, double-Jewish-identity comedy. I suppose the…
Sometimes, especially in the case of magicians, I learn about an artist first from stumbling across their ephemera. Thus was the case with McDonald Birch (1902-1992). Birch was born in McCon…
Born 100 years ago today, Donna Reed (Donna Belle Mullenger, 1921-86). Reed was a farm girl from Iowa, possessed of a loveliness so great that she was drafted for the film business at the ag…
Aloha, Friends and Frenemies! We've been laying low the last few tumultuous weeks but I'm here to tell ya today that there is much in the works for February and beyond, so please take heed a…
Composer Hugo Riesenfeld (1879-1939) was a character at once interesting and pivotal to show business history, foundational to the early movie industry. Born in Vienna, Riesenfeld graduated …
A wave of the wand on behalf of Gerald Heaney (1899-1974) a.k.a. The Great Heaney. Heaney was a kid working at his dad's jewelry store in Berlin, Wisconsin when he chanced to meet Blackstone…
I first became interested in Joan Leslie (Joan Agnes Theresa Sadie Brodel, 1925-2015) when I noted that she was one of the few key cast members of Yankee Doodle Dandy I knew nothing about! (…
