11,552 stories by "Trav S.D."
Marjorie Gateson (1891-1977) is known to comedy fans whether they know it or not) from such films as Mae West’s Goin’ to Town (1935), Harold Lloyd’s The Milky Way (1936), A…
A little murk today in our biography of these two performing sisters and their family, though we’ll fine-tune it as better facts emerge. It owes much to the gang at Nitrateville —…
January 17 is the birthday of British music hall entertainer Ida Barr (Maud Barlow, 1882-1967). Barlow was an army brat, born in Regent’s Park Barracks, London. She was 16 when she mad…
Faylen and Hughes was a mid-west vaudeville act from the late 1920s through 1935. The team were a married couple: Carol Hughes (Catherine Hukill, 1910-1995) and Frank Faylen (Charles Ruf, 19…
There’s far too much celebration of hoodlums and gangsters in this culture so that’s not we’ll be doing with reference to Al Capone (1899-1947) today, but his name does pop…
Because he wrote two of the Marx Brothers’ weaker, more clueless vehicles (At the Circus and Go West), I’d love to respect Irving Brecher (1914-2008) less than I’m oblig…
Violet La Plante (1908-1984) was Laura La Plante’s kid sister, and benefited from her stardom, though she never achieved anything like the success of her famous sibling. Violet made ju…
My quandary yesterday: be a day late with a tribute to Carol Channing (1921-2019), or be very late and wait until her birthday, which is just two weeks from today, when I was already plan…
William “Buddy” Lester (1915-2002) was the younger brother of comedian Jerry Lester, though he would come to overshadow him. The brothers performed in vaudeville and nightclubs i…
Brooklyn-born Sid Silvers (1901-1976) got his show business start in the early 1920s as the vaudeville stooge to comedian and accordion player Phil Baker, interrupting the act with comic bus…
I emerged just now from an uncharacteristic separation from my computer to find my feed exploding with the sudden, sad news that friend the Neo-Burlesque pioneer Miss Bonnie Dunn has passed …
Charley Rogers (1886-1956) was an old cohort of Stan Laurel’s from his music hall days. Originally from Birmingham, UK, Rogers had moved to the U.S. by 1912, where he toured vaudeville…
Having already done a post on Jonathan Harris, we thought it only equitable that we should publish our Lost in Space post on the birthday of Guy Williams (Armando Joseph Catalano, 1924-1989)…
A tribute today to child actress Mary Ann Jackson (1923-2003). There were many performing Jacksons, beginning with her mother Charlotte (1891-1992), who presumably had a stage career before …
Three cheers for Jack Mercer (Winfield Mercer 1910-84), one for each skill. Jack Mercer was one of the few people in cartoon animation who worked in the three wildly different creative a…
Smilin’ Ed McConnell (1892-1954) was born this day. The son of an Atlanta minister, McConnell started out as a gospel and folk singer, breaking into local radio in 1922. Fifteen years …
Gladys Blake (Gladys Timmons, 1910-1983) was a Hollywood supporting player who most often found work as comic relief playing talkative, gossipy friends. Orphaned shortly after her birth, Bla…
Sara Berner (Lillian Ann Herdan, 1912-1969) was better known by her voice than her face at the peak of her fame. She had been a department store clerk with a penchant for comedy dialects and…
An overdue tribute to Hollywood legend Nick Cravat (Nicholas Cuccia, 1912-1994). Cravat and Burt Lancaster met as teenagers and formed an acrobatic (trapeze) act called Lang and Cravat which…
Today Josephine Crowell (1859-1932) is remembered chiefly for several memorable late supporting performances (her last three in fact): as a lady on a street car in Harold Lloyd’s Speed…
A tribute to stage and screen actress Claudia Dell (Claudia Dell Smith, 1910-77). Originally from San Antonio, Dell played violin as a child, and moved to New York as a teenager to join her …
A tribute to stage and screen star Peggy Shannon (Winona Sammon, 1907-1941), a prolific artist with a sad end. Born in Pine Bluff Arkansas, she was only 16 when she went into the Ziegfeld Fo…
Pauline Starke (1901-77), a major silent film star during the 1920s, found herself in films almost accidentally. As a teenager, she did extra work in The Claws of Greed (1914) and D.W. Griff…
Born in Oklahoma (then still Indian Territory), Harry Harvey, Sr. (1901-85) broke into show business as a member of Gus Hill’s Honey Boy Minstrels** in 1918. For the next fifteen years…
Today being the birthday of the great Murat Bernard “Chic” Young (1901-73), and having had occasion to make reference to his greatest creation, Blondie, it seems incumbent upon u…
