11,535 stories by "Trav S.D."
Fans of the Marx Brothers' The Cocoanuts (1929) may be astonished to learn that the homely, rather unimpressive actor who plays the schemer Harvey Yates was anybody, anybody at all. But he w…
Character actor Warren Berlinger (b. 1937) has just passed way. I don't know that I'd have felt the need to eulogize him, but for the fact that, par usual, the entertainment obit writers (or…
Ordinarily, I restrict what's essentially local news to posts on social media, but I think you can see that there's a dimension to this story that will be of interest to vaudeville lovers th…
Mark Robson (1913-78) directed many of my favorite movies but until recently I never knew his name. His is not a name-above-the-title, and many of his best known films are associated with st…
A few words on the legacy of Frank Joslyn Baum (1883-1958), sometimes billed as "L. Frank Baum, Jr" or "Col. Frank Baum". The son of the famous author of The Wizard of Oz, Baum Jr is known f…
I've long wanted to do a post on Alfred "Alf" Reeves (1876-1945). There's not much to be said, but he deserves to be honored. The brother of the better remembered Billie Reeves, Alf was init…
The title of this post is of course a screen name. It belonged to Matilda Fernandez (1897-1976), a local Los Angeles girl, who initially danced on the stage before an injury forced her to re…
Tribute today to Flo Bert (Florence Bert, 1898-1981), sometimes rendered as Flo Burt, or Flo Sophie Bert, but never apparently as "Flaubert". She is not to be confused with African American …
A few words on early talkie star June Clyde (Ina Parton, 1909-1987), whose screen career and name both seem like a mash up of June Haver and Andy Clyde. Billed as Baby Tetrazini, Clyde began…
The career of William Tracy (1917-1967) was fairly blessed while he remained young (and young-ish, thanks to a boyish face and persona) but hit a brick wall all at once in middle age. The Pi…
There is no way to give a pat, simple description of the life and career of Jack Sheldon (Beryl Cyril Sheldon, Jr, 1931-2019). He was most accomplished as a jazz trumpeter, but he also made …
What a stroke of genius it was casting Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989) in Aaron Sorkin's Netflix movie The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020). The recreation of Hoffman's (and Jerr…
Happy St. Andrew's Day, for them that celebrate! A fitting time, says I, for a brief tribute to the Collins Variety Agency, which ruled Scottish music hall for the first half of the 20th cen…
Jacqueline Logan (1904-78) was a movie star for precisely one decade (1921-31), starring in over five dozen films. Her gorgeous looks made her a shoe-in for silents. She also had decent stag…
I recently re-watched a favorite movie of mine, Wild in the Streets (1968), whose nightmare satircal scenario is that people under 30 get their wish and take over the world, The career of Di…
Some brief notes on the brief career of Betty Mack (Idalene Thurber, 1901-1980). A rural Illinois girl, Mack started out as a Broadway chorus girl at the age of 18. She was in the shows Red …
Curious how African American classic blues singer Lucille Hegamin (Lucille Nelson, 1894-1970) has been forgotten, when so many of her peers have been remembered, despite the fact that she le…
A tip of the Stetsomn today to legendary stuntman, action director, and actor Enos Edward "Yakima" Canutt (1895-1986). Canutt is best known today for: several stunts in John Ford's Stagecoac…
On the one hand, Garry Shandling (1949-2016) left us way too early; on the other hand, now that the book is closed you can see his life as a self-contained system. Shandling is already in th…
I've never met anyone who was less than enthusiastic about Gloria Grahame (Gloria Grahame Halward, 1923-1981). Grahame was the daughter of Scottish actress and acting instructor Jean Grahame…
We were delighted to see that Criterion just added comedy shorts of W.C. Fields to its streaming platform. Unlike most of the so-called classic comedians, Fields made relatively few shorts: …
I was eight years old when the news of Bruce Lee's (1940-73) sudden, early death exploded around the world. Naturally he was on my radar. He was the father of the martial arts craze that has…
We regret that we haven't yet turned up information on the earliest years of pathbreaking African American screen actor George H. Reed (1866-1952). Reed was one of the few genuine black acto…
Anne Nichols (1891-1966) is one of those figures whose own fame has been eclipsed by her greatest creation. We'll get to her most famous play presently, but first some background. Nichols ha…
Tis the gift giving season, what what the onslaught of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber-Monday and then, um, another three weeks of potential holiday shopping on the horizon.…
