11,545 stories by "Trav S.D."
A few tantalizing fragments on comedian Charlie Crafts (1895-1974). A Boston native, Crafts first comes onto our radar as Jack Haley's vaudeville partner around 1923, specializing in songs, …
50 years ago this day the first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus aired on BBC. Though it debuted in Britain in 1969, the influential sketch comedy program didn't air in the the U.S. u…
October 2 is Groucho Marx's birthday, and this may be my most memorable Groucho-Birthday ever, as I am spending it in Fredonia New York, for their annual Freedonia Marxonia event. I've writt…
October is German-American Heritage Month, which is as appropriate time as there can be for a program celebrating the greatest of all vaudeville "Dutch" comedians, Weber and Fields. I was pr…
Apparently October 1 is National Hair Day…which calls to mind a certain Hanna-Barbera cartoon of my extreme youth, Help…It's the Hair Bear Bunch! (1971-72). Hippies are naturally associa…
It's funny what you remember and what you don't (until you do). When William Windom (1923-2012) passed away a few years ago, I remembered in particular a memorable Star Trek performance he g…
Our Gang fans in the L.A. area: A friend writes to let everyone know that there is headstone laying ceremony for, and program about,  Mickey Daniels (1914-1970) on Friday. Here are the…
I originally posted this review in 2010. We re-post today in memory of Jimmy Nelson, who passed away yesterday at the age of 90. Of all the odd phenomena anthropologists study " cargo cu…
A dubious birthday gift for the late Christopher Reeve (1952-2004). I'll confess to never having been a fan of the actor. His main positive attribute seems to have been an uncanny resemblanc…
Louis Sorin (1893-1961) is well known to Marx Brothers fans as Roscoe W. Chandler a.k.a. Abe Kabibble a.k.a. Abie the Fish Man in Animal Crackers (1930). But Sorin had a long stage and scree…
Born 100 years ago today, comedian and voice-over actor Dayton Allen (Dayton Allen Bolke, 1919-2004). Bolke got his start on local radio in NYC when he was still a teenager in 1936. One of h…
 The story of singer, dancer, choreographer, actress Toni Basil (Antonia Christina Basilotta, b. 1943) is so broad-ranging and worthy of respect that I am going to bury the logical and c…
I stumbled across something great today while preparing my many talks for my San Francisco junket. It's something I'd wanted to share for years, but misplaced. When I was researching No Appl…
Virginia City born Hobart Cavanaugh (1886-1950) was an early vaudeville partner of Walter Catlett. The mild-mannered, weak-chinned character actor broke into Broadway in 1916 with Mile-a-Min…
Jay Ward (1920-1989) had already had one television cartoon series (Crusader Rabbit) under his belt when in 1959 he adapted an earlier show concept The Frostbite Falls Revue into what became…
Next week I'll be taking my act to California, with events in San Francisco, San Luis Obispo and Niles. If you're in the area, I hope you can make it to one of these events! On Tuesday, Sept…
Last year we observed Talk Like a Pirate Day with a glimpse at my five favorite pirate performers. Today we give a shout out to one of my favorite books as a child, Robert Louis Stevenson's …
I only became aware of stage and screen actor Ernest Truex (1889-1973) recently, when I learned that he was one of the colony of well-known showpeople who lived in Great Neck during the 1920…
Diana Lewis (1919-1997) is probably best known to classic film buffs as the third and final wife of William Powell, who was 27 years her senior. But she had her own interesting film career s…
Usually I turn around tributes to deceased artists as fast as I possibly can, but I got the news about Ric Ocasek on the way back from a performance last night, at a bus stop in Queens, in t…
Fred Warren (1880-1940) started out in a song and dance act in vaudeville with his wife Effie Conley-Warren around the turn of the last century. The fact that the Rock Island, Illinois nativ…
Actor Robert Williams (1894-1931) was on the fast track to stardom when death snatched him the moment he arrived. The North Carolina native ran away as a teenager to perform in tent shows an…
Returning this week for a performance in Theater for the New City's Dream Up Festival: Me and Lee: The Musical, written by, songs by, and starring Jason Trachtenburg, of Pendulum Swings a…
There are ways in which I envy younger generations. I was born at the elbow between the Baby Boom and Generation X. I'm the first to admit that I bring a lot of baggage and bias that inhibit…
There is truth in advertising! As revealed on Travalanche, I much enjoyed Jennifer Ann Redmond's previous two books, Reels and Rivals: Sisters in Silent Film and Southern Belle to Hollywood …
