As we wrote here, most pirate movie aficionados acknowledge Robert Newton (1905-1956) to be the greatest pirate actor of all time. His performance as Long John Silver in Disney's 1950 ver…
I was certainly aware of actress Diana Canova (b. 1953) when I was a kid, for her's was a frequent television face throughout the 1970s and '80s. Though she was attractive, talented, and fun…
Hal Skelly (James Harold Skelley, 1891-1934) was just beginning to cement his fame when he was prematurely taken by an accident. The Broadway and Hollywood star was raised in the midwest …
The career of Ann Christy (Gladys Cronin, 1905-1987) was brief but notable for lovers of classic comedy. She managed to translate a small role in Harry Langdon's Long Pants (1927) into a …
Barbara Pepper (Marion Pepper 1915-1969) had two distinct phases as a Hollywood character actress. In the first she was a devastatingly gorgeous sex symbol in the Jean Harlow mold. In the se…
Well, I kept postponing a post about Leon Redbone and now he's passed away at the young age of 69. Redbone was definitely one of the many messengers standing by the roadside during my '70s k…
I am pleased to get you a little more info on Virginia Karns (Virginia Ida Weddle, 1907-1990) than is generally available in any single place on the internet, for what that's worth to ya. Th…
Bronx-born Jack Smith (Jacob Schmidt 1896-1950) started out in vaudeville singing in quartets, as a solo, and as a song plugger. His job as a staff piano player at a radio station in the 192…
We have had many occasions to mention Broadway producer Charles Dillingham (1868-1934) so today we give him a proper tip of the topper. The son of a Hartford clergyman, Dillingham started hi…
Cornelia Otis Skinner (1899-1979) was one of those impossible-to-pigeonhole artists whose fame gives one hope that the world need not be a howling mad wilderness. She was a writer and an act…
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I'd like to draw your attention to this gent's website. First, because he generously named my book No Applause as the best book on American vaudeville. Second, because I admire what he do…
Comedy pioneer Lucille Kallen (1922-1999) came to New York from her native Los Angeles to study piano at Juilliard. Realizing that she wasn't cut out to compete at the concert level, in t…
Robert C. Hilliard (1957-1927) commenced his working life as a clerk on Wall Street, but the good-looking, fashionably attired gent got much positive reinforcement regarding his appearance. …
The Luck o' the Irish may not be a literal thing, but on the other hand Phil Regan (1906-1996) was pretty damned lucky. An Irish cop from Brooklyn, he was hired to work security at a show…
Vaudeville and musical comedy star Guy Shy (Augustus Scheu, 1893-1945) made a mark on both stage and screen and was noted for his eccentric dancing and his drunk act, among other turns. His …
Wally Vernon (1905-1970) was second generation show biz, joining his parents onstage as early as age three, growing up in vaudeville and acting with stock companies based out of New York Cit…
There is something Messiah-like about the advent of Isadora Duncan (1877-1927). She emerged seemingly out of nowhere, was so completely transformative, and touched so many people. And there …
The choice of May 26 for World Dracula Day is not random: it was the date in May 1897 when Bram Stoker's original novel was published. We thought we would use the occasion to pay brief tribu…
Prior to her brief but impressive screen career Gertrude Selby (1890-1975) had been in musical comedy, stock theatre and vaudeville, dancing with Gertrude Hoffman, appearing in Gus Edwards' …
I first knew Betty Garrett (1919-2011) as a contemporary TV star in the 1970s. On All in the Family she played Irene, the neighbor Archie Bunker was suspicious of because she was handy with …
Just to clarify, this post is about a family of actors who happened to be marvelous, not a vaudeville act called the Marevelous McHughs. This is a blog on which the latter could well be the …
The Poet of Democracy turns 200 in a few days! Come see me pay tribute to Walt Whitman in the perfect surroundings: Theater for the New City's Lower East Side Festival of the Arts! My slot's…
Anyone my age will be flabbergasted to know what a huge star George Gobel (1919-1991) was in the 1950s, or that he remotely had anything to offer. I grew up in the 1970s, when Gobel was a fr…
All the crummy news this week put me in something of a physical funk. When the world seems too dark, a malaise can set in, and it can get hard to get things done. Yesterday though, I stumble…