11,741 stories by "Trav S.d."
The vagaries of memory are never to be understood. Thus it is that The Howdy Doody Show, Andy's Gang, and Pinky Lee all appear to have left some imprint in the culture, but somehow I never l…
Born of an October 29, songwriter and blackface minstrel** Dan Emmett (1815-1904). Emmett has been traditionally credited with being the author of the songs "Polly Wolly Doodle" (1843) an…
Classic film fans know Hope Emerson (1897-1960) well from her memorable appearances in films like Adam's Rib (1949), Caged (1950), Westward the Women (1951), Casanova's Big Night (1954), and…
This is quite true (ask my high school buddies, they'll back it up): I liked actor Dennis Franz so much as a teenager that for several years I kept a picture of him in my wallet. Mark me wel…
Good Lord " I just had the horrifying realization that if Jack Soo were alive today he would be 102 years old! Memory has preserved the actor at his last age, his early 60s, and he will neve…
Am I wrong in thinking that "Queenie Vassar" is one of the best stage names I have ever heard? Born Cecilia McMahon in in Glasgow in 1870, she began singing in music halls when she was still…
Following a week's lay-off in the wake of our western sojourn, we made a beeline for Lincoln, Mass. where we visited a colossal complex known as the Commons at Lincoln, and celebrated German…
Here's the other shoe dropping from our month-long barnstorming junket. Part One (parts west) was here. This second leg was restricted to New England, radiating out from Boston. Follow links…
On October 20 we were honored to be the guest speaker at the 100th anniversary celebration of the Concord Players. More than this, we were delighted to learn that the roots of this impressiv…
A wunderbar time was had by all at our special launch event for Archeophone Records' recent release of century-old Weber and Fields recordings, featuring myself, along with Archeophone's …
Here's a story about an unjustly forgotten vaudeville veteran who made good " all the way to the Oscars. Seymour Felix (Seymour Simon, 1892-1961) started out in vaudeville as a hoofer at age…
Little People are statistically rare among the general population; so are good actors, to my mind. It stands to reason that individuals who answer to both descriptions would be rarer than ra…
So authentic was LaWanda Page (Alberta Peal, 1920-2002) in her role as the hot-tempered, pious Aunt Esther on Sanford and Son and its various sequels (1972-1981) that many must have assumed …
I happen to be in Maine at this writing, which also happens to be the birthday of Dame Angela Lansbury (b. 1925), so how I could I NOT do a post on Murder, She Wrote? (1884-1996). I caution …
We mentioned him briefly in our Hall of Plus Sized Comedians, but today a little attention for Frank "Fatty" Voss (1888-1917). Chicago born Voss was hired by Henry Lehrman in 1914 to be his …
There is an irony in Oscar Shaw (Oscar Schwartz, 1887-1967) being best remembered in the end for his less than stellar turn in the movie version of the Marx Brothers The Cocoanuts (1929). To…
Readers, many apologies for not posting here as frequently over the past couple of weeks, and apologies in advance for the next couple. I'm on the road, doing what amounts to a Travalanche r…
I was honored to be invited to take part in the Harry Langdon Film Festival at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum on September 28-29. Apart from a certain three year period, the Little Elf…
I've been living out of a trunk the past couple of weeks, just like the vaudevillians of old, and I've been keeping a log! If you're interested in these rambles, just follow the links below.…
I was honored to be the guest speaker at this year's Fredonia Marxonia, an annual event celebrating the Marx Brothers at SUNY Fredonia (and so named because the 1933 film Duck Soup takes pla…
I fulfilled a long-standing ambition a few days ago (September 27-29) by making a pilgrimage to the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, in Niles, California (we blogged about the town itself s…
A few tantalizing fragments on comedian Charlie Crafts (1895-1974). A Boston native, Crafts first comes onto our radar as Jack Haley's vaudeville partner around 1923, specializing in songs, …
50 years ago this day the first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus aired on BBC. Though it debuted in Britain in 1969, the influential sketch comedy program didn't air in the the U.S. u…
October 2 is Groucho Marx's birthday, and this may be my most memorable Groucho-Birthday ever, as I am spending it in Fredonia New York, for their annual Freedonia Marxonia event. I've writt…
October is German-American Heritage Month, which is as appropriate time as there can be for a program celebrating the greatest of all vaudeville "Dutch" comedians, Weber and Fields. I was pr…
