11,545 stories by "Trav S.D."
Comedian Jules Mendel (1874-1939) made all of 21 silent comedies, one in 1915, the rest between 1923 and 1926. All of them (even the early one) appear to have been made for Hal Roach. He act…
Baltimore-born Johnny Hudgins (1896-1990) was billed in vaudeville, burlesque, nightclubs, and musicals as "the Wah Wah Man". The nickname arose from his act, which consisted of a comical da…
Whew! With a few hours to spare, I just happened to notice that today is National Astronaut Day. Inspiration enough for a little listicle about a classic comedy subgenre too little acknowled…
Not to be confused with KENNY Baker, or this Benny or that Benny, Benny Baker (Benjamin Michael Zifkin, 1907-1994) was a comedian from St. Joe, Missouri, who broke into vaudeville and burles…
Today being the birthday of Hollywood actor Tyrone Power (1914-1958), it seemed fitting for a long overdue explication of his distinguished lineage. Power was a fourth generation actor, and …
June Lang (Winifred June Vlasek, 1917-2005) started out performing in amateur theatricals in her native Minneapolis from age five. Two years later her family had moved to Los Angeles and Jun…
Frank H. Wilson (1886-1956), was an African American actor, singer, playwright and director who got his start during the Harlem Renaissance, and later dabbled in films. Wilson started out in…
Vaudeville made for strange bedfellows; this post sent me down an unexpected path to say the least. The Sobels' Pictorial History of Vaudeville informs us that Coots and Shirley billed thems…
Some sources give 1813 as the birth year for Robert Hales, others 1820. He was born and raised in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, the largest member of a large family of large people. His parents w…
Eddie Borden (Edgar Mason Borden, 1888-1955) hailed from small town Waynesville, Ohio, and made his way into vaudeville. For a time in the late teens and early 20s he was teamed up in an "En…
Singer Jack Heller (1906-1988), sometimes billed as Little Jackie Heller, started out as a popular vaudeville singer and a teenaged prizefighter, starting out in his hometown of Pittsburgh.Ã…
Josephine Dunn (1906-1983) was only 14 years old when she was hired to be a chorus girl at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1920. From here she went into an out of town production of Good Mornin…
The story of Katherine Grant (1904-1937) was one of brief success and promise, and then mystery and tragedy. A striking beauty with a dimpled smile and pale green eyes, she won the Miss Los …
Ada Brown (1890-1950) was a blues singer who came out of the Kansas City jazz scene, starting out in night clubs and black vaudeville. She was a cousin of the ragtime composer James Scott. I…
Well, I'm hoping you even know what a May Basket is, but the odds are almost certain you don't, as this old folk custom seems to have nearly died out. I haven't thought about May Baskets sin…
80 years ago this month, the Batman made his first appearance in Detective Comics #27. As we've written in the past, we think creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger may have drawn inspiration fro…
 Glenn Ford (1916-2006) was still very much a going concern when I was a kid. In the years of my childhood, like a lot of movie stars of his generation, he was putting all of his energy …
This post is adapted from a talk I gave at the Queens Theatre on April 28, 2019. The present post is a very truncated version and includes only a couple of the 120 or so images I used in my …
Satan is of course, Mickey Rooney, aka Joe Yule, Jr. The father is of course Joe Yule (Ninnian Joseph Ewell, 1892-1950). Joe the Elder was born in Glasgow and emigrated to the U.S. when stil…
May  4, 5pm: Coney Island and the World's Fairs To continue our World's Fair theme, as part of Coney Island USA's Congress of Curious Peoples, I'll be giving this illustrated talk on h…
I was honored to be the guest of Matthew Coniam, Noah Diamond and Bob Gassell on the Marx Brothers Council podcast over the weekend. Honored and intimidated " these guys know their beans, wh…
By virtue of his dashing and debonair demeanor and his penchant for natty threads, Edward Kennedy Ellington (1899-1974) was already nicknamed "Duke" by his friends when he was still as a kid…
In my book, the lede in any story about Tommy Noonan (1921-1968) is that he co-wrote, produced and co-starred in Promises! Promises! (1963), the first mainstream American film in which a maj…
I grew interested in William Kent (1886-1945) after seeing him in blackout sketches in the 1930 Paul Whiteman movie The King of Jazz. Sometimes billed as William T. Kent, sometimes as Billy …
What a great screen name for an African American star of the early 20th century is Ethel Moses (1904-1982), a sort of mash-up of Ethel Waters and the spiritual "Go Down, Moses". In show busi…
