11,552 stories by "Trav S.D."
Two anecdotes about the late Tony Randall (1920-2004), one of which illustrates how much he was loved by all, one how much he was loved by me. I was in his elf-like presence exactly twice. T…
February 26 is the birthday of cartoonist Rudolph Dirks (1877-1968), papa of The Katzenjammer Kids. Dirks was a German immigrant who settled with his family in Chicago. By the 1890s he…
Hal Fimberg (1907-1974) is today best known for having created and co-written the Our Man Flint series of James Bond parodies starring James Coburn (1966-1967). But that was just the climax …
Joan Castle (1916-2009) started her career in New York as one of Gus Edwards' stable of performing kiddies in vaudeville in the 1920s. Her first film was a bit part in the Fox comedy short M…
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. Betimes we have had occasion to back into a subject rather than proceed in the customary direction. Thus we have written about Ruby…
A little attention today for a family of actors whose heyday was the early 20th century. It all starts with Bob McKenzie (1880-1949) an Ulster-Scot from County Altrim who moved to his family…
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. The bulk of our content here has to do with classic show biz, but ya know? In Living Color is now nearly 30 years old — I hea…
Actor Edward Arnold (Gunther Edward Arnold Schneider, 1890-1956) was simultaneously owlish, shifty-looking and possessed of an excellent baritone voice, a perfect combination to play shady l…
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. I was young when when George Kirby (1923-1995) hit the peak of his fame (1972), and his plunge to obscurity thereafter was so rapid…
George Givot (Yuri Givistinsky, 1903-1984) was a performer who qualified as a star, or close to it, in his own time, but whose name has gotten swallowed up by time. Born in Ekaterinos…
Sol Lesser (1890-1980) was one of the most successful of the independent producers during the classic studio era and there are many reasons to celebrate him. Originally from Spokane, Lesser …
February 17 is the birthday of miracle man Kuda Bux (Khuda Bukhsh, 1905-1981). As a teenager, Bux learned the secrets of professional magic from a certain “Professor Moor”, but w…
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. A brief-shout for African American jazz/ pop composer Harvey Oliver Brooks (1899-1968). Philly-born piano man Brooks started his ca…
Texas-born Louise Byrdie Dantzler (1906-2002) was discovered at age 16 by Esther Ralston in a local beauty pageant whilst residing in Long Beach California. Ralston brought her to the attent…
My Sonny and Cher coverage has been crazily piecemeal ’til now; I’ve done a post on Sonny, one on Cher, and one on their 1967 feature film Good Times. Betwixt ’em …
Strange to have written about Buddy Lester, before his older and more consequential brother Jerry Lester (1910-1995) but sometimes that’s just how the gookie grumbles. Like his kid bro…
Today in 1907 was born the late sideshow eminence Melvin Burkhart. I was about to call him a “sideshow giant”, but of course there are literal sideshow giants, so calling Burkhar…
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. For good or for ill, today the name James Baskett (1904-1948) has been overshadowed by his most famous role, that of Uncle Remus, w…
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. Here’s an interesting artifact of the ’70s. Roll Out (1973) was a sitcom about a mostly African American army supply un…
A brief plug for People in a Magazine, Joseph Goodrich’s new volume of the collected correspondence of S.N. Behrman (1893-1973) with his editors at The New Yorker. If you’re like…
It’s bewildering that we haven’t yet done a post on Harold Arlen (Hyman Arluck, 1905-1986) this late in the game, given that he wrote some of my (and America’s) favorite so…
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. This TV Guide ad from the early 1970s promoting the TV premiere of Nothing But a Man is significant because it marked the fi…
I am just the right age to be starstruck by three child stars of a family named Shea who enjoyed high recognition in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Today is the birthday of the mid…
Abergavenny, Wales was the site of a curious and weighty coupling. There it was in 1890 that local teenager Miriam Kate Williams (1874" 1946) met women’s gymnasium owner William Hedley…
This post is one of a series honoring Black History Month. Julia, which ran on NBC from 1968 through 1971 was the first network television series to star an African American woman in a setti…
