11,754 stories by "Trav S.d."
Today is the birthday of Ida Lupino (1918-1995). Most people know her strictly as a beautiful English-American noir dame, and as one of America’s first female film directors. Â What …
Today is the birthday of Alice Cooper (b. 1948). My ten year old self would have been appalled to learn that I would one day come to appreciate him. In point of fact, being several decades t…
What a surprise it was to learn about this book! One tends to think of former British Prime Minister John Major as a colorless fellow (in fact, I’d already sort of forgotten about him)…
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. John W. Cooper (1873-1966) was the first African American ventriloquist to play the predominantly white vaudeville circuits. A broo…
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. Patterson and Jackson were a plus sized African American comedy duo who billed themselves as “Two Tons of Song and Mirth̶…
Today is the birthday of the very funny comedian Shelley Berman (b. 1925. If he sticks it out two more years, he’ll make it 90!) A Chicago native got his start at that same Compass Pla…
Today is the birthday of Dave Davies (b. 1947, the very same day as Melanie!) His biggest mark was as guitarist for the Kinks of course, but he occasional writes and performs his own materia…
Today is the birthday of the late Joey Bishop (1918-2007). I think of him mostly as a live comic, working night clubs and resorts, but this is mostly because his two TV shows in the 1960s…
The Hall of Hams is my series on some of my favorite actors who have brought the art of melodramatic acting into the modern era. Today is the birthday of the late great Victor Buono (1938-19…
Today is the birthday of Melanie Safka (b. 1947), a.k.a. “Melanie”. She had a number of hits in the early 70s but this is the one I remember. For a brief while it was on everyone…
Today is the birthday of the great American experimental writer Gertrude Stein (1876-1946). (How amazing that her birthday is one day off from Joyce’s. Say, maybe there is something to…
Today is the birthday of Norman Rockwell (1894-1978). A couple of years ago I reviewed a retrospective of his work at the Brooklyn Museum; see my review of that show and some thoughts about …
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. The Crackerjacks (seometimes billed as 4, later as 5 and 6 when others joined the act) was an acrobatic African American dance team…
Today is the birthday of James Joyce (1882-1941), author of the greatest work of English literature of the 20th century. As far as I’m concerned, writing like this is the only reason t…
Today is the birthday of the great jazz saxophonist Stan Getz (1927-1991). Here he is with Astrud Gilberto as she performs her famous rendition of the bossa nova tune  ”The Girl fro…
This is one in a series of posts we are producing in connection with our new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, available from Bear Manor Media…
Today is the birthday of Tom Smothers (born 1937). I often think of the act he did with his brother Dick (born 1939) as the last American comedy team with a wide national exposure, althou…
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. Even more than Robert Johnson, Charley Patton can be called the father of the Delta Blues. As the clip below illustrates PattonR…
Today is the birthday of Grace Gilbert (1876-1924). One of the most masculine of all the circus bearded ladies, she would often earn extra dough doing roustabout work alongsize the razorback…
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. Aaron Palmer started out at age 13 as a “pickaninny” with Mabel Whitman and her Dixie Boys, an act produced by th…
Today is the birthday of Bobby North (1884-1976). North started in show business at 12 years old, as a boy balcony singer to vaudeville soubrettes (Al Jolson started out in exactly the same …
Today is the birthday of Tin Pan Alley songwriter Clarence Gaskill (1892-1947). Born and raised in Philadelphia (where he attended a Quaker school), he began playing piano in theatres when h…
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. Probably not a coincidence that Black History Month launches every year on Langston Hughes’ birthday (1902-1967). The great p…
Today is the birthday of the great Irish-German-Austrian-American stage composer Victor Herbert (1859-1924). (He was born in Ireland, raised in Germany and Austria and moved to the U.S. as a…
Today is the birthday of the great American film director John Ford (1894-1973). God willing, my third book is going to be about westerns, so you’ll be hearing lots more from me on the…
