11,754 stories by "Trav S.d."
Today is the birthday of The Incomparable Hildegard (1906-2005). I’m not saying she was incomparable, she may well have been, but that was how she billed herself. The adjective she too…
This is part four of the series on the show biz ancestry of Cynthia Fujikawa, which we launched here three weeks ago. It’s in her own words. GATES AND FINLAY Gates and Fin…
Today is Don Everly’s birthday. Since I did a post on the Everly Brothers just a few days ago here I’ll be short and sweet. The brothers (mostly Don) also wrote plenty of songs t…
I am very blue this morning to hear that Ed Koch has passed on. The photo above says it all: the New York I moved to in 1987 is increasingly gone (the guy in the foreground, the buildings in…
Today starting at noon Eastern on TCM: a swell double feature of the two greatest musicals of the early talkie era: A classic. Magical, glamorous, glittering, but all the while smart. It…
Master Juba, Father of the Quintessential American Dance Form: Tap February is Black History Month — every day this month look at Travalanche for short biographical articles on African…
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…
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 Tallulah Bankhead (1902-1968). IR…
Folks my age or older will protest “NOT forgotten!” (after all, it was a hit show from 1969 through 1974), but younger people are less inclined to have heard of this show (I̵…
Having seen every one of Woody Allen’s nearly four dozen feature films, I now consider it my duty to see each new one, just to keep on top of it. The trouble is, he turns them out so f…
I’ve been paying close attention to this interesting looking monthly show that mixes a bill of stand-up comedians and side show people. It’s a little bit of a hike but, at $5 and…
Today is the birthday of Roosevelt Sykes (1906-1983) a.k.a The Honeydripper. An Arkanasa native, he learned to play barrelhouse piano in the work camps along the Mississippi River, which is …
Today is the birthday of Star of Vaudeville #112: Eddie Cantor (for my complete biographical article on this giant of stage, screen and broadcasting go here). Many contemporary people compla…
 Based on Victor Hugo’s novel, The Man Who Laughs is performed in the style of a silent film, complete with live piano accompaniment, projected title cards, and vibrant black-and-w…
This image from the Meserve-Kinhard collection depicts Lizzie Reid (sometimes rendered as Reed), one of P.T. Barnum’s performing little people, circa 1865. Her maiden name is given …
Vasco ( 1871-1925) was a British music hall entertainer known for his flamboyant showmanship (he would often drive around town in a car adorned with signs advertising his act). Billed as the…
Today is the birthday of J. Homer Tutt (1882-1951). Along with his brother (or half-brother) Salem Tutt Whitney (1869-1934) he formed one half of a concern variously called the Tutt Brothers…
John Coffey (sometimes known as James) was the man who stood of the shoulders of the original Living Skeleton, Isaac W. Sprague, and thenceforth brought a little flair and panache to the rol…
Today is the birthday of Dick Martin (1922-2008). We already wrote about his most famous show Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In a few days ago. But do you know about his syndicated gam…
In our typical kamikaze fashion, on Sunday and Monday CR and I watched the entire Up series: (7 Up, 14 Up, 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, 42 Up and 49 Up) then went to the IFC Center on Tuesday to see…
Today is the birthday of British music hall and radio comedian Sandy Powell (1900-1982). His early music hall years often featured his parody of a Scottish vaudeville comedian, in which he w…
Today is the birthday of Rose Melville (Rosa Smock, 1867-1946). A native of Terre Haute, she toured vaudeville for several years with her sister Ida as “Two Jays from Indiana.”. …
Alexander Montarg was one of P.T. Barnum’s Living Skeletons, whose period of greatest activity appears to have been from the late 1850s through the 1860s. The man’s vital statist…
I’m the sort of person who must always be reading something. In the can, if there’s no magazine, then it’s the ingredients on the toothpaste tube. And, when listening to mu…
Today is the birthday of Jack Wilson (1894-1970), one-third of the team of Wilson, Keppel and Betty. Actually, the core team consisted of Wilson and his partner Joe Keppel; the two worked wi…
