11,818 stories by "Trav S.D."
January 6 is the birthday of one of the few WAMPAS Baby Stars we haven’t written about yet Ruth Hiatt (1906-1994). Interestingly, Hiatt was born on the exact same day as another leadin…
Young Dorothy Appleby (1906-1990) won a Portland, Maine beauty contest and translated it into a 20 year career in show business, notably as a supporting player in classic comedy shorts. Appl…
Some brief words of appreciation for countrified character actor Tom Fadden (1895-1980). Born in Iowa, Fadden was the son of a mining engineer. Travel was part of the job, so parts of his ch…
January 5 is the birthday of my favorite of all the Supermans, George Reeves (1914-1959). Well I say that, but I have some catching up to do. I’ll be comparing all versions up to the p…
Like most classic comedy fans I first became aware of Cora Witherspoon (1890-1957) from seeing her as W.C. Fields’ henpecking wife Agatha in The Bank Dick (1940). (“Don’t y…
January 4 was the birthday of Sorrell Booke (1930-1994). Those who know Booke only as “Boss Hogg” will be startled by aspects of his background. He’s a Yankee from Buffalo,…
Orpheus McAdoo (1858-1900) was a terrifically successful African American minstrel show impresario, back in the era when “genuine” all-black minstrel shows were the rage, paving …
Today appears to be a day for profiling lesser-light younger brothers. Just now we did something on Harry Gribbon’s brother Eddie. Now we look at Jack Donahue’s younger brother J…
Today, a tribute to Eddie Gribbon (1890-1965), younger brother to the better known but still obscure Harry. Eddie broke into silent comedies a couple of years after his brother, playing …
Everything goes in three: today we lost wresting announcer Gene Okerlund, comedian Bob Einstein (son of Harry), and also musician Daryl Dragon (1942-2019), better known as the “Capt…
We are saddened to hear of the passing today of Eugene “Mean Gene” Okerlund (1942-2019), straight man to an entire sports league. The news took me aback, for I had no idea that: …
George “Beetlepuss” Lewis (1901-1955) started out in vaudeville but achieved his greatest fame in burlesque, where he was one of the most popular comedians. Lewis appears to have…
Dublin-born Tom Dugan (1889-1955) grew up in Philadelphia and was a manual laborer before breaking into show biz as an Irish tenor. He worked in minstrelsy, medicine shows, big time vaudevil…
In the Middle Ages, the Feast of Fools, a burlesque religious festival, was celebrated on or near New Year’s Day. In many places a Lord of Misrule, or a Boy-Bishop, or an Ass, ruled ov…
I’m tempted to dub 2018 “the smallest year ever”, for it was a year in which, for a variety of reasons, I was compelled to “work small”, to perform close-up mag…
Full confession: I was a huge John Denver (1943-1997) fan at the height of his full John Denver-dom (the 1970s). I was a child at the time and I naturally disavowed all that as a teen…
Very late in his life, I got to meet one of my favorite actors Jason Robards Jr (1922-2000) and for once I wasn’t tongue-tied, I knew just what to say to put us both at ease. For on th…
A tribute today to Russ Tamblyn (b. 1934). Ironically, I’ve already written a post on Russ’s much more obscure father, Eddie Tamblyn, a vaudeville performer, because that is the …
For those of us of a certain age there is only one Hawaii Five-O worth talking about, the original one starring Jack Lord (John Joseph Patrick Ryan, 1920-1998) which ran from 1968 through 19…
Everyone loved character actor Jack Riley (1935-2016). I considered a tribute to him at the time he passed a couple of years ago, but here follows a more thorough one than I would have done …
December 30 was the birthday of the late Bert Parks (Bertram Jacobson, 1914-1992). When I was a kid in the 1970s, Parks was a sort of a lightning rod representing the worst in old school, mo…
The late Ed Flanders was born on this day in 1934. We’ll talk about his eventual fate in a bit; meantime, we celebrate him, his career, and his hit TV show. An army vet from Minneapoli…
Wow! Okay, I fell down a happy rabbit hole this morning, and it was one of those experiences that assures me that this blog sometimes serves a useful function. Travalanche is the only place …
December 28 was the birthday of Martin “Mike” Branner (1888-1970). Branner was the son of a New York lacemaker. At age 17 he got a job as a clerk to a couple of vaudeville booker…
We were delighted to see “Radio City Music Hall” trending on Twitter this morning and to realize that today (December 27) was the anniversary of that storied venue’s 1932 o…
