11,839 stories by "Trav S.D."
As we blogged here over the weekend, Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of W.C. Fields’ debut with the Ziegfeld Follies, where over the course of just over a decade he would explore a…
Today is the birthday of Lee Moran (1888-1961). Moran got his start performing in vaudeville and musical comedy, breaking into films at the Nestor  company in 1912. After three years on h…
Today is the birthday of the great Hollywood auteur Billy Wilder (1906-2002). Much like Preston Sturges, some of Wilder’s best work as a screenwriter was written previous to his ascens…
Today is the first day of summer! Yesterday the Mad Marchioness and I launched the season in the best way possible: by being judges in the 33rd annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade, produced b…
Today marks the 100th anniversary of W.C. Fields’ debut in the Ziegfeld Follies, one of many major stepping stones of his career. Broadway revues were the customary career rung between…
Today is the 100th anniversary of the release date of the 1915 Charlie Chaplin comedy Work. This is an interesting example of Charlie the low comedian: in his early years there were many…
Tonight on Turner Classic Movies, as part of their program of “dad’s on boats” they will be showing is the Buster Keaton feature Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928), co-directed b…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of Mabel’s Married Life (1914), directed by Mack Sennett and starring Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand. In this film Charlie pla…
We need to talk. That’s all anyone’s been saying since yesterday. Last night, my significant other and I heard at least three groups of people passing by our open window, all tal…
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: BROOKLYN, Bushwick, Cobra Club, Force Majeur
As I’ve blogged about recently, I’ve been re-engaging with a lot of old music lately and hearing and appreciating elements I’d not heard in the past. The Beatles and Paul M…
Today is the birthday of 19th century performer William H. (“Billy”) West (1853-1902). We call him “another Billy West” to distinguish from two others…the silen…
Two exciting stories to report; both have probably already exploded their way through every contact I have on social media, but for those who missed them, here they are: Variety reported yes…
Okay, today is Louise Fazenda’s birthday; yesterday was Tom Howard’s.  I recently visited Joe Cook’s house and an exhibition about his life and career, and TCM played…
Here’s a fortuitous find! I learned about Tom Howard only a few days ago when I saw him in Joe Cook’s Rain or Shine (1930). And got curious. He was one of the key people in…
A funny thing happens once you have seen Tammy Faye Starlite perform many different shows in many different characters: you spot the thread of her real identity flowing through all her work.…
Today is the 800th anniversary of the initial version of the document known as the Magna Carta. My son Charlie and I saw an early copy of it a couple of months ago at the Morgan Library and …
A mild setback in my genealogy journey this week. I seem to have spit wrong! They didn’t like my spit sample at the DNA testing lab so they’re asking for a do-over. I had planned…
The Mad Marchioness was amused to inform me the other day that some of the obits of the late Sir Christopher Lee breathlessly reported the interesting tidbit that “Christopher Lee was …
Today is the anniversary of the release of the all-star Keystone comedy Mabel’s Busy Day. This is one of those shorts that, rather annoyingly, nowadays gets marketed and written abo…
A quick, incestuous post about Noah Diamond’s performance as Groucho last night at the Jewish Museum. Well, it is and it isn’t (incestuous, that is). All things remaining the sam…
Filed under: African American Interest/ Blackface/ Minstrelsy, Blues, Jazz (miscellaneous), Music, PLUGS, Singers, Women Tagged: Cafe du Soleil, Renee and the Derelicts, Renee Flemings
Filed under: Acrobats and Daredevils, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Ambrose Martos, Amy G, Astoria, Bacchanal, Big Sky Works, Corn Mo, Melrose Ballroom, Miss Saturn
Poor chap! Ron Moody’s death today at age 91 will inevitably be overshadowed by Christopher Lee’s death at 93, so I want to do my bit at memorializing him. Moody specialized in p…
In case you missed our big social media push yesterday, our revival of the Marx Brother’s 1924 show I’ll Say She Is will be returning in spring of 2016, to the Connelly Theatre, …
