11,819 stories by "Trav S.D."
On this day in 1975, a topical television movie called Death Scream premiered on ABC. Death Scream was a huge television event, I watched it with my family when it premiered. Loosely base…
This one’s been a long time coming! It’s occurred to me in recent years just how influential my K-Tel novelty records were on me as a kid. From a distance these old novelty hits …
I didn’t get the memo until just now (5 weeks late): Mary Carlisle, the last surviving WAMPAS Baby Star, passed away on August 1 at the age of 104. Carlisle was born Gwendolyn Witter i…
A birthday shout-out to the great low-budget horror auteur Bert I. Gordon (b. 1922). Think of this post as a bit of foreshadowing and a promotion of what’s upcoming…for October n…
Each month, Theater of the Apes plucks a long forgotten volume from the shelves of the New York Society Library and resurrects it as NECROMANCERS OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, a low budg…
For over a year and a half now now, my little backwater of the internet has been a-titter with the news that a new bio-pic about Laurel and Hardy was in the works starring John C. Reilly and…
Today is the official publication date of Paula Finn’s new book Sitcom Writers Talk Shop. One is always ready for a book like this to be skimpy…it’s often the kind of bo…
Paul Muni’s career is an interesting window into public perception. Speaking personally, I always most associated him with those 1932 classics Scarface and I am a Fugitive from a Gang.…
A special birthday nod to comedian and comic actor Art Metrano (b. 1936). Metrano’s signature bit is better known than either his name or any of his roles. It has woven its way into fo…
The idea for this post came to me after writing my Barbara Eden/ I Dream of Jeannie post a month ago. But news that tonight TCM will be showing several genie themed movies tonight (September…
A top of the hat today to vaudeville/ music hall/ panto performer Lil Hawthorne (1877-1926). Hawthorne was a big-ish star in her day; audiences of her time would be nonplussed to learn that …
This just in over the transom: Ginger Rogers’ birthplace, 100 West Moore Street, Independence, Missouri, is now a museum. The Ginger House Museum, containing artifacts and memorabilia …
Okay — clowns are seriously intruding on my consciousness lately. So many pieces of clown fluff have been floating my way, I thought it would make sense to paste them altogether into o…
A tribute today to a favorite TV show of my youth, Emergency! (1972-1977). Emergency! was a Jack Webb show (co-produced by others) that transplanted the successful “partners” mot…
It’s National Talk Like a Pirate Day! I thought I’d honor it by doing a post on my favorite archetypal pirate villains from classic Hollywood films. And you know what? There are …
If you keep at it, you will find your niche. That is the lesson of the life of choreographer Agnes de Mille (1905-1993), whose birthday it is today. She was born into a theatrical (later, ci…
Willard Mack (Charles Willard McLaughlin, 1873-1934) was a writer, actor, director, and producer of stage, screen and vaudeville in the great age of melodrama. Mack was technically Canadian …
I miss the underrated and prematurely-stolen-from-us comic actor John Ritter (1948-2003). Skilled at slapstick and adept at delivering verbal comedy, he was taken for granted in his lifetime…
Having had occasion to write about Cecil B. Demille and William C. de Mille, we thought it appropriate to pay honor to the father who set them on their path, playwright Henry Churchill de Mi…
Part Two of Carolyn Raship’s series of posts on Agatha Christie. For Part One, go here. Agatha Christie's invention Hercule Poirot could only exist in harmony during the interwar y…
We posted earlier today about Peter Falk; sharing a birthday with him, three years younger, Anne Francis (1930-2011) grew up in the same town of Ossining, New York. They must have known each…
A brief encomium today on that sitcom (and rural comedy) God Paul Henning (1911-2005). Henning was originally a singer, performing on local radio in his native Missouri. He became a writer b…
A few fragments on vaudeville singer Marguerite Farrell, snatches taken from her obituary in Billboard, IMDB, and record catalogs. All we know is this. She started out around the turn of the…
I confess to having something like a mental block when it comes to most of the screen work of the late Peter Falk (1927-2011). It’s entirely my hang-up. I’ll try to articulate wh…
When I first began dating my wife Carolyn Raship she was still blogging regularly here. It was one of the countless things we had in common. Since then, she’s focused like a laser beam…
