11,813 stories by "Trav S.D."
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…
The career of Dorothy Gibson (Dorothy Winifred Brown, 1889-1946), is full of hair raising twists and turns, and not just the one that took place on April 15, 1912. A Hoboken native, she sang…
As Jane in the Tarzan movies (1932-1942), Maureen O'Sullivan (1911-1998) seemed the epitome of the upper-crust colonial Brit, but that was just a matter of study and accident. She was as …
On May 16 was born the enterprising serial killer Dr. H.H. Holmes (1861-1896). Naturally we do not celebrate the day; we abjure the man and his deeds (just put yourself in the shoes of one o…
Bull Montana (Luigi Montagna, 1887-1950) was a funny professional wrestler who became a heavy in silent and early sound comedies. Because he made such a scary impression, there was something…
Just a few words of tribute for one of my favorite Pre-Code stars, Constance Cummings (Constance Cummings Halverstadt, 1910-2005). The daughter of a concert soprano, Cummings started out in …
Bald-pated, bespectacled character actor Richard Deacon (1921-1984) was one of the great comic foils of all time, and one of the first to spring entirely from the television era. For over a …
Lew Lehr (1895-1950) is someone many classic comedy and animation fans know about…without realizing that they do. Homage was paid to him in no less than 8 Warner Brothers cartoons between …
