11,542 stories by "Trav S.D."
Esther Howard (1892-1965) is best remembered for playing dowagers and dames in comedies and crime dramas, but she had range " she also did Irish characters, homeless women, lady criminals an…
A brief sketch on the husband-wife eccentric dance team of Lorraine and Rognan, best known for their appearances in two Hollywood musicals, and the spectacular, tragic end of their act durin…
I used great deliberation in titling this memoriam to actor Leslie Howard (Leslie Howard Steiner, 1893-1943). We tend to remember him for one thing, his most famous role, but it's a practica…
My modus operandi in creating this blog is to constantly work a list of names on a calendar. Occasionally, a date arrives and I find myself stumped as to why I had placed a name there. Case …
Today being the birthday of magician William Ellsworth Robinson a.a. Chung Ling Soo (1861-1918) whom we first wrote about here. Seems a fitting time for a little plug for Jim Steinmeyer's 20…
Bobby Jordan (Robert G. Jordan, 1923-1965) was one the key members of the Dead End Kids/ East Side Kids/ Bowery Boys movie franchises. Though the youngest of the bunch, he worked in films ea…
It would be too much I think to call Melville "Mel" Shavelson (1917-2007) a comedy auteur, but he was undoubtedly a key player in American comedy film from the '40s through the '70s and was …
Fame requires a critical mass of the right sort of material to self-perpetuate, and this is my explanation for why Henry Morgan (Henry Lerner Van Ost Jr, 1915-94), a familiar figure in Am…
An unabashed mash note today to stage and screen actor William Daniels (b. 1927). Daniels is one of a handful of actors who gives me a delight that is almost uncontainable, every second he i…
Thanks, friend Jonathan Smith, for making me more aware of screenwriter and producer Robert Riskin (1897-1955). To grapple with the legend of Frank Capra over time is to let a certain amount…
Herman Bing (1889-1947) was one of a slew of popular comical German Hollywood character actors of the first decade of talkies. He made hay while the sun shone, but was unable to cope with th…
Billy Merson (William Henry Thompson, 1879-1947) was born and bred in Nottingham and got his show biz start as an acrobat and comedian at the Nottingham Theatre Royal. For a time he worke…
We just heard from Troma's Amanda Flowers the sad news that Alan Merrill, who co-wrote Joan Jett's hit "I Love Rock and Roll" has died of Covid-19. As the noose tightens here in New Yo…
I first became aware of Irish-American character actor Arthur O'Connell (1908-1981) at a young age; he was in the first movie I ever saw in a cinema, The Poseidon Adventure (1972). At this s…
A somber story to contemplate during chaotic times, and I'm in no mood to mince words today about its lessons. Philip Loeb (1891-1955) was a Jewish-American actor from Philadelphia. Followin…
My adopted city is going through a lot right now. There are simple common sense reasons why New York's number of Covid-19 cases are so much more numerous than the rest of the country's, even…
In honor of Tennessee Williams' birthday, we append this little sidebar to the massive tribute we wrote to the playwright here. Our conceit lies in the observation that in the thick of Willi…
Terence McNally dead, yet Anita Bryant lives " thus runs the world's cold calculus. And yet, we may take solace in the fact that McNally's plays live on, and Bryant is at best a Trivial Purs…
Today we'll talk a little about a show business family named the Kellys. It's not the family vaudeville act which gave us Gene Kelly, however, nor is it the Philadelphia bunch that gave us W…
Today we celebrate animation pioneers William Hanna (1910-2001) and Joseph Barbera (1911-2006), immortalized through the name of their joint production company Hanna-Barbera. Like millions o…
Well, it has ceased to be abstract. The great American playwright Terrence McNally (1938-2020) has died of complications related to Covid-19. All of you who aren't taking this seriously, go …
Saharet (Paulina Clarissa Molony, 1878-1964) was a popular performer of the vaudeville, burlesque, music hall, and musical comedy stages of the fin de siècle  and early 20th century. Sah…
A celebration today of minor movie star Virginia Grey (1917-2004) who appeared in films with many classic comedians. But first a detour into the life of her father, whose career was also rel…
I can see and hear the face and voice of Cliff Norton (1918-2003) in my head so clearly but have struggled in vain to identify the ONE place I know him from. The answer is probably a thousan…
A few words today in remembrance of pioneering screen director W.S. Van Dyke (Woodbridge Strong "Woody"Â Van Dyke II, 1889-1943). Born in San Diego, Van Dyke was raised in the theatre acti…
