11,812 stories by "Trav S.D."
The career of Natalie Wood (Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko, 1938-1981) may be divided into four phases: childhood (1943-1955), which includes such films as The Moon is Down (1943), Tomorrow i…
It's a surety I have nothing to teach classic animation nerds about the art and story of Fleischer Studios (1921-1942). But I've mentioned that outfit on Travalanche on many occasions and I …
Most people who know the name Richard Dix (Ernst Brimmer, 1893-1949) today probably know it from a single quip spoken by David Huddleston in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles. Dix was indeed assoc…
I was reminded of the existence of Sid Gould (Sydney Greenfader, 1912-1996) during our recent Covid quarantine binging of The Love Boat. He had a recurring role as a waiter on about a half d…
I knew a Fred Sullivan years ago; he's a longtime (decades long) company member of Trinity Rep in Providence, where I studied, as well as Boston's Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. (I am del…
O, if only Acquanetta (1921-2004) had been in vaudeville or burlesque. She had that genius for hype and camp and self-creation. Her real name seems to have been Mildred Davenport but everyth…
Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970) was one productive S.O.B. Originally a practicing lawyer, he went on to write hundreds of legal dramas and mystery novels and short stories, as well as trave…
Stanley Clements (Stanislaw Klimowicz, 1926-1981) is best known to classic comedy fans as "Stash" and "Duke" from the East Side Kids and Bowery Boys franchises, but he's one of the few of th…
We have our finger in many pies here at Travalanche so sometimes we miss major news (e.g. departures from the mortal plane) by people we care about. Thus it is with Don B. Wilmeth, whom we j…
Today a salute to George Tobias (1901-1980) best remembered for his role as Abner Kravitz, long-suffering neighbor of the Stevens family on the TV sitcom Bewitched (1964-1971). Kravitz was s…
Today, a smattering of applause for classic cinema's second favorite ice skating movie star, Vera Ralston (VÄ›ra Helena Hrubá, ca. 1920-2003) The first is of course Sonja Henie. So don…
Most of us remember Sidney Blackmer (1895-1973) as Roman Castavet, the nice elderly friend who helps Mia Farrow in her lonely, terrifying predicament in Rosemary's Baby (1968). Unlike many o…
"When you talk about The Swimmer, will you talk about yourself?" asks a 1968 poster for this impossible-to-pigeonhole film. The short answer is, probably not when you're 20. I was that age w…
I begin my appreciation of Barbara Loden (1932-1980) by telegraphing the ending. She died young, at age 48. If she hadn't it's likely she'd be better known today for she was on the cusp of b…
The life story of Lili Damita (Â Liliane Marie-Madeleine Carré, 1904-1994) resolves into nice, discrete chapters for convenient consumption. She made quite a journey. The daughter of a Fr…
In the unlikely event that you didn't get the memo, the Coney Island Circus Sideshow is up and running Fridays through Sundays throughout the summer season. They have a killer core cast this…
We have a sort of theme emerging today: first this celebration of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and now a eulogy to a character who dates from that era of experimental theatre in the Off-Of…
Today we spotlight the too little celebrated (and too little understood) contributions of the San Francisco Mime Troupe and its founder R.G. "Ronnie" Davis (b. 1933). There are struggles and…
Far be it from me to recommend any vaudeville book above my own (and I'm not, I stand by it as the best of its kind available, though I am also champing at the bit to do a revised, updated e…
There was a stretch there, from the late '60s through the early '70s when Kim Darby (Deborah Zerby, b. 1947) was very "flavor-of-the-month". I associate her especially with the title role in…
Having mentioned him a couple of dozen times on this blog, today some attention for George Dewey Cukor (1899-1983). "Cukor" is Hungarian for sugar, an apt brand, given how so many of his mov…
I was watching The Vikings (1958) on TCM the other day (and a surprisingly entertaining picture it is, if a preposterous one) but I feel compelled to to report that one of my main unanticipa…
Hollywood director and producer Richard Donner (Richard Donald Schwartzberg) has passed away at age 91. I've written about a few of Donner's films, as it happens: Salt and Pepper (1968), Sup…
Today we salute actress Barbara Weeks (Susan Kingsley, 1913-2003). Weeks is often confused with another actress of the same name who appeared in five Broadway plays from 1927 to 1936, was a …
