11,531 stories by "Trav S.D."
Australian-American ventriloquist Clifford Guest (1911-2002) sometimes billed himself as a "ventro impressionist" or "polyphonist", meaning, in addition to the expected routines with dummy p…
Broad and yet ambiguous is the legacy of stage and screen figure John Emerson (Clifton Paden, 1874-1956). This is because for many key years of his career, he was part of a creative partners…
Tribute today to Jazz Age star Zelma O'Neal (Zelma Schrader, 1903-1989.) Chicago native O'Neal started out in a vaudeville act with her sister. She could sing, dance, play the piano, and do …
May 29, 1743 was the date of birth of Johann David Wyss (d. 1818), known solely today, if at all, for a single literary effort, The Swiss Family Robinson, published in German in 1812, transl…
Look what I found awaiting my butt this past weekend! Fully vaxxed as of a couple of weeks ago, I hazarded my first physical trip into a theatre since early 2020, in order to review a play, …
A shout-out today for comic Al Bernie (Alfred Bernard Price, 1920-2003). Bernie hit the ground running in show business when he was still a teenager. A gifted impressionist, he started out a…
Isabelle Keith's (1898-1979) chief claim to fame is in being one of only two actresses to have played both Mrs. Laurel and Hrs. Hardy in Laurel and Hardy comedies. She's the former in Perfec…
Could there be a better name for a fictional classic comedy star than Dorothy Christy (1906-1977), seeing as how it combines the surname of Al Chistie with the given name of all those comedy…
Today we celebrate the universally beloved puppetmaster Frank Oz (Frank Oznowicz, b. 1944). What a magical and sly surname forshortening, eh? To imply a connection to that magical place with…
It is with with an unprecedented amount of hometown pride that I share this post about classic era sword swallower Marie De Vere (Marie Ellmore, 1874-1941). I've written about countless perf…
Bob Dylan turns 80 today. Â I've somehow managed to write a couple of pieces about him here without talking much (not at all, really) about his records. One was about the Rolling Thunder R…
Patricia "Tricia" and Priscilla "Cyb" Barnstable are a pair of identical twin actress/models from Louisville, Kentucky, born May 23, 1951. They are the daughters of college basketball star D…
May 22 is World Goth Day " the perfect time to extol the virtues of Becoming Bettie Page, for it seems to be me you can draw a line from those dark beatnik bangs of Bettie Page's to those of…
John LaZar (b.1946) has always blamed his freaky, over-the-top role as Ronnie "Z Man" Barzell in Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) for his inability to secure a proper, legi…
Magician Tom Selwyn (1878-1950), often billed simply as Selwyn, was a man of both America and the British Empire. Though his parents were British, he was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, and s…
If you're like I was, you've seen Richard Libertini (1933-2016) on screens dozens of times, even recognized him, and even laughed at his performances, without really knowing who he was. My s…
Many's the time I've looked on a silent comedian's get-up and thought of Tin Tin's Thomson and Thompson, but never more so than with respect to Charles Dorety (1898-1957). It turns out that …
Okay, forgive the irreverence of the headline " we thought we'd honor the late Paul Mooney (1941-2021) by emulating the spirit of his comedy. And, besides, he really WAS in the circus. We we…
Slowly, slowly we come out of hibernation! Here are my next two public appearances, one of which is actually live, thanks to the fact that I fully vaxxed! Lower East Side Festival of the Art…
Hats off today to Vonda Kay Van Dyke (b. 1943), the first Miss America to attain that distinction showcasing ventriloquism in the talent portion of the competition. It's funny " it's a commo…
Felix Wehrle (1858-1933) was born in Mount Ida, Wisconsin and discovered in his youth that he possessed the unsettling ability to stretch his skin in great bunches and tug it like taffy. Eve…
The title of this post of course comes from Charles Grodin's best-selling 1990 autobiography It Would Be So Nice If You Weren't Here. (31 years ago, ugh!) Just got the news that he has left …
Today we expend a few syllables to extol the accomplishments of George E. Stone (Gerschon Lichtenstein, 1903-1967). Stone was a supporting player whose roles embraced a wide range of sizes, …
Conway Tearle (Frederick Conway Levy, 1878-1838 was show biz royalty, a star of stage and screen. The "Conway" handle comes from his mother's side of the family, on which he was descended fr…
George H. Adams (1853-1935) was widely regarded as America's 2nd greatest pantomime clown after George Fox. (A little known fact " the panto tradition we associate with the U.S. was a thing …
