11,728 stories from Trav S.D.
Inevitably we come to celebrate Reginald Marsh (1898-1954) today, mostly on account of his memorializing of Coney Island, the Bowery, Times Square, dance halls, vaudeville, and burlesque. In…
100 years ago today, March 12, 1926 was opening day for The Savoy Ballroom on Lennox Avenue in Harlem. Named after London's Savoy Hotel, it was designed to be an uptown alternative to the Ro…
Today's new Travalanche posts for March 13, 2026 are about Neil Sedaka, Paul Fix, and Bumps Adams. Also it's Friday the 13th! I thought I would take the occasion to share a vaudeville bad lu…
March 13 was the birthday of Neil Sedaka (1939-2026). He passed away two weeks ago, but I decided to save a tribute for the customary annual day. I am too young to have been around for Sedak…
I was already resolved to include Paul Fix (1901-1983) in this history for having played Micah on The Rifleman (1958-63) and for having been John Wayne's acting coach. But the detail that se…
And a word or two is about all there is! The little I know (and probably all anyone knows) about W.L. "Bumps" Adams (Walter Lawrence Adams, 1894-1943) comes at the hands of Steve Massa's ind…
I was delighted to bump into my old yet evergreen friend Jonny Porkpie last night at Target Margin's This is Real " it reminded me that I have yet to plug his excellent Substack Burlesque 19…
Today's new Travalanche posts for March 12, 2026 are about Liza Minnelli's new book and recent documentary, as well as Target Margin's terrific new production This is Real, and Jonny Porkpie…
We are grateful for a third occasion to post about show biz monster Liza Minnelli, on top of our main biographical post, and the account of the time we met her. Her new autobiography Kids, W…
Thus, in just under a week, Travalanche takes you all the way from Moxie to Doxsee. The Doxsee, that is, Target Margin's theatrical fortress in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The company moved into …
Today's new Travalanche post for March 11, 2026 is about songwriter and serial rapist Joseph Brooks. Earlier Travalanche posts for March 11 (in no particular order) include ones on: Buster K…
Good Lord, has this one taken me to some unexpected places. Who would have thought that looking into Joseph "Joe" Brooks (Joseph Kaplan, 1938-2011), the ultimate lucky stiff hack songwriter …
Today's new Travalanche post for March 10, 2026 is a review of a new movie starring Rosanna Arquette. Earlier Travalanche posts for March 10 (in no particular order) include ones on: Bix Bei…
Having already done a post on Lou Reed upon his passing, I pin today's post to the birthday of John Cale (b. 1942). And Todd Haynes' recent Velvet Underground (2021) documentary went a long …
We hasten to clarify that this is NOT about Yoko Ono's Grapefruit, quite a different citrus altogether. I got a press release the other day, informing me that this recent film (privileging R…
Today's new Travalanche post for March 9, 2026 is about Paul Revere and the Raiders. Also Joe Franklin was born 100 years ago today! My 2015 post on the show business legend is here. Earlier…
We have been circling AROUND this topic for ages. We have posted about their greatest hit  "Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)", and about their producer T…
Today's new Travalanche posts for March 8, 2026 are about my recent appearance on the Flash Back internet radio show (topic: the Marx Brothers), and a couple of new record releases by old fr…
Geordie Austen released this new album Moments That Shine with his band The Sad Dogs about a week ago, and I'm just now catching up with it. Geordie was a key member of my vaudeville show ba…
Last week, I was delighted to chat for an hour about the Marx Brothers with Dr. Wesley Britton on his internet radio show Flash Back, in connection with my recent book The Marx Brothers Misc…
Lainie Miller (Sheila Elaine Halpern, 1941-2025) passed away back in May; today would be her 85th birthday. Miller battled polio as a young kid in Toronto, then took dance lessons for years,…
Yes, I know they say it's 1884 on the signs, but 1876 was the year that year that Civil War hero and homeopath Dr. Augustin Thompson (1835-1903) first concocted his patent medicine and "genu…
Today's new Travalanche posts for March 7, 2026 are about Moxie, National Cereal Day, Barbara Heller (The Jackie Gleason Show), Virginia Pearson (Larry Semon's Wizard of Oz), Beatrice Robert…
Beatrice Roberts (1905-1970) had over 70 screen credits, all between the years 1932 and 1949, and yet her screen career manages not to be the most interesting thing about her somehow; it's t…
A few fragments on silent screen star Virginia Pearson (1886-1958). Travalanche readers may consider her especially notable for a trio important supporting parts she played in 1925: as the c…
