11,758 stories by "Trav S.d."
Today is the birthday of the great Trixie Friganza (for her full bio go here). In honor of the day, we present her rendition of A Girl Named Lula. It seems to me carrying around a cello …
There were several hurdles for The Fartiste to clear before the curtain even went up: 1) I am extremely hard on musicals. It’s not, I finally realized, that I don’t like them, it…
This is part of a little series of post-Thanksgiving mini-posts I’m doing about items you might want to consider as Holiday gifts. Readers of No Applause and this blog know that I̵…
Tonight at 10:15pm (EST) on TCM, a rare showing of Eddie Cantor’s 1936 vehicle Strike Me Pink, also featuring Ethel Merman, William Frawley, Sidney Fields, etc. ,with Brian Dunlevy, (u…
 Lou Tellegen (born this day in 1881) is sadly most famous today for his Hollywood Babylon style suicide. Surrounded by scrapbooks and memoribilia, he stabbed himself to death in 1934. S…
Today is the birthday of British Music Hall singer Vesta Victoria (for a full bio go here). Here she is now singing her signature song “Daddy Wouldn’t Buy me a Bow Wow”. To…
This is part of a little series of post-Thanksgiving mini-posts I’m doing about items you might want to consider as Holiday gifts. A copy of this CD magically fell into my hands a coup…
Tonight I’m performing in The Loose Caboose’s Black Friday Edition at Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery). Please come see! Here are all the “deets”, as the young people …
While you scurry around the shop-o-sphere trying to find that PERFECT Christmas gift, may I suggest…this (please follow the link; for some reason I couldn’t embed the video!) No …
Today is the birthday of the “Suave Deceiver” Cardini (for a full bio go here). Below, witness a fuzzy but genuine clip of him in action: To find out more about the history o…
Every year at this time, I break out my copy of this handy Life Magazine coffee table book chronicling the history of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.The book is a souvenir from whe…
Here’s a charming if problematic object to contemplate this Thanksgiving Day: my 1925 copy of “The Land of the Pilgrims” by one Jay Earle Thomson, Principal of School #3, J…
Today is the birthday of Ruth Etting, “The Sweetheart of Song”. My bio of her (here) is too brutal, I think, but after all it’s all a matter of taste. She sings wonderfully…
Here now our second installment in the Vaudephone series, Jenny Lee Mitchell as Deirdre Pazzeco in “sopravvalutato”:
Today is the birthday of Charles Mack (1887-1934) of the team of Moran and Mack, a.k.a “Two Black Crows” (see article here). For your delectation, we present their 1929 comedy re…
Ethel Levey is unfortunately best known today as George M. Cohan’s wife. Unfortunate, because, if not for that, she’d be known primarily for own stage stardom, which was interrup…
Far be it from me to turn this blog into TV Guide, but sometimes I just gotta alert the public to developments of vaudevillian interest! Tonight at 10pm (EST) TCM is showing one of my favori…
Today is the birthday of the amazing Eleanor Powell (see full bio here) Now here she is dancing to  to George and Ira Gershwin’s “Fascinatin’ Rhythm” in the 1941 M…
This very promising-sounding documentary about Woody Allen premiers tonight and tomorrow on PBS’s American Masters. Mr. Allen and others often spout off about how he alone among the up…
Alan Corelli (ca. 1895-1980) had an unusual act: essentially he was a strong man who specialized in lifting other people up…and rendering himself almost impossible to be lifted up hims…
Today is the birthday of Clifton Webb, latter day Renaissance man. (see full bio here). Here he is in one of his best loved roles, Mr. Belvedere in Sitting Pretty. To find out more about …
Today is the birthday of one of my favorite character actors Ned Sparks (full bio here) . Below, find a a great montage of some of his characteristic lines in Hollywood movies: To find out m…
This may be too much awesomeness all in one place! And furthermore it’s free! I highly endorse…. Peter and the Wolf is not supposed to include an elephant and a cockroach. And Th…
Most photos of Imogene Coca accentuate (usually with her help) her homeliness for comic effect. In the photo above, I was struck by how beautiful she was, and so I defy tradition by selectin…
