11,542 stories by "Trav S.D."
Bronx native John Tyrrell (1900-1949) was only 16 when he went into vaudeville as part of the team Tyrrell and Mack, which performed dance routines and crosstalk, with Tyrrell taking the str…
You will be evincing true variety connoisseurship if you demonstrate a familiarity with British comedian Will Hay (1888-1949). The son of an engineer, Hay saw W.C. Fields juggle in a Manches…
Eleanor Holm (1913-2004) is one of that small "school" of swimming entertainers that includes Annette Kellerman, Esther Williams, Johnny Weissmuller, and Buster Crabbe. Her career was limite…
Vermont native E. Mason Hopper (1885-1967) performed in vaudeville and with stock companies, played pro baseball, and studied at the University of Maryland before becoming a successful…
Joyce Mathews (Jane Isabelle Mathews, 1919-1999) is normally presented as a footnote in the lives of others. Today we give her her own spotlight. According to studio publicity, Mathews was t…
On this day in 1876 occurred the second worst theatre fire in U.S. history (and New York's worst): the Brooklyn Theatre Fire. I first became aware of this disaster in the most moving away po…
Well, now! I didn't plan it this way but the year 2019 has been perfectly framed for me by Necromancers of the Public Domain. I started the year by performing at Theater of the Apes wonderfu…
I first came across the name Hassan Ben Ali in Joe Laurie's Vaudeville book, where the author calls Ali and his troupe "the best of the alley oop acts" " meaning the best of the acrobatic ri…
The demise of Paul Bern (Paul Levy, 1889-1932) has long ranked with those of William Desmond Taylor and Virginia Rappe as one of the great Hollywood crime riddles, with many explanations as …
A toot of the train whistle today to country cornpone comedian Rufe Davis (Rufus Davidson, 1908-1974). The Oklahoma farmboy started out as a member of the Weaver Brothers and Elviry's large …
This month TCM will be devoting several days to screening multiple versions of films that have been remade once or more. As luck would have it, I was already working on this related post abo…
I never had the pleasure (and by universal account it was one) of seeing the late Julie Harris (1925-2013), on stage, her true domain. I am a huge fan of hers now, but it took me awhile to g…
The long career of Ethel Shutta (1896-1976) has several distinct phases: 1) childhood in vaudeville; 2) young womanhood on Broadway; 3) middle aged woman on radio and singing with big bands;…
Some brief words of tribute for African American character actress Etta McDaniel (1890-1946), younger sister of Sam McDaniel, and older sister of Oscar winning Hattie McDaniel. Etta started …
Mary Martin (1913-90) is certainly one of the first performers I knew primarily as a stage star. This is because she's only in a handful of movies, none of them blockbusters or enduring clas…
The identical Connor Twins, Velma (1906-1987) and Thelma (1906-1981) hailed from Hornbeck, Vernon Parish, Louisiana. The harmonizing sisters toured big time vaudeville with a Gus Edwards rev…
Note this morning on character actress Josephine Whittell (1882-1961). Born Josephine Cunningham, either in Tucson or San Francisco, Whittell started out as drummer in an all-girl band in Sa…
Other than that he was born on November 29, and that he was an eccentric dancer, I've been able to learn almost nothing of Al Norman (Samuel Newman, 1906-99). He was from New York and was ni…
When television began to dominate American lives in the 1950s, it made possible an unprecedented phenomenon: fame untethered to accomplishment. Well-known people would be booked for the endl…
Some tribute today for the late film director Michael Ritchie (1938-2001). Ritchie was primarily associated with comedies, which is the main reason we are moved to write about him this morni…
The career of Bobby Watson (Robert Watson Kuchner, 1888-1965), assumed an interesting trajectory: from vaudeville, to medicine shows, to Broadway, to films, to…impersonating Adolf Hitler. …
African American character actor/ comedian Dudley Dickerson (1906-1968) is today best remembered for his comic turns in many Three Stooges shorts, although he appeared in films starring near…
Readers of No Applause may have gleaned that I am not a fan of impressionist Rich Little (b. 1938), but I've had occasion to mention him here a few times, so I thought it advisable to create…
The complex life of Bartholomew "Bat" William Barclay Masterson (1853-1921) contained enough incident to fill many books, and has. Today, as we did with his wild west colleagues Wyatt Earp, …
The career of Adele Jergens (1917-2002) is an interesting instruction on how influential burlesque is on the culture at large. While I haven't come across any information on her working on t…
