11,853 stories by "Trav S.D."
Today is the birthday of Dame Frances Margaret “Judith” Anderson (1897-1992). Australian by birth, she began he acting career in Sydney in 1915, and moved to the U.S. three years…
Today is the birthday of Chester Lauck (1902-198), best known for playing Columbus “Lum” Edwards of the radio comedy team of Lum and Abner. He’d met his partner Norris G…
Today is the birthday of the great Hollywood heavy Brian Dunlevy (1901-1972). Born in Ireland, Dunlevy moved with his family to Wisconsin as a child, as I’m sure will come as no surpri…
One in our series of old time radio posts in celebration of Valentine’s Day. Here’s Der Bingle’s radio broadcast for Valentine’s Day 1948, with special guest Oscar Le…
Today is the birthday of the great Portuguese-Brazilian performer Carmen Miranda (1909-1955). We will certainly be giving a lot more attention to the career of this amazing, uni…
The Hall of Hams is our series of tributes to artists who brought the art of melodramatic acting into the modern era. Today is the birthday of Ronald Colman (1891-1958). This English sta…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the hilarious Laurel and Hardy comedy The Fixer Uppers (1935). A re-make of their 1927 silent short Slipping Wives, this little mo…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the droll Harold Lloyd comedy Ask Father (1919). In this silent short, Harold is among the many suitors for a desirable girl, who instru…
Tonight at 10pm (Eastern) on Turner Classic Movies: The Great Ziegfeld (1936). In this heavily bowdlerized account of the life of this notorious ladies man, William Powell playsÅ
Today is the centennial anniversary of the release of the film Mabel’s Strange Predicament. This is a historic film for all sorts of reasons. One is that it is was actually the …
Today is the birthday of the great actor (comic and otherwise) Jack Lemmon (1925-2001). While Lemmon is associated with many classic comedy performances in many classic comedy films (I was g…
One in our series of old time radio posts in celebration of Valentine’s Day. Many of us have seen the movie and television adaptations of Chic Young’s comic strip Blondie s…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the hilarious Laurel and Hardy comedy Blotto (1930). Directed by the great Leo McCarey, the crux of it is that the boys want to sneak ou…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Harold Lloyd comedy His Royal Slyness (1920). This  silent short is Lloyd’s take on the old Prince and the Pauper twi…
Today is the anniversary of the world premiere of D.W. Griffith’s 1915 mixed-up masterpiece The Birth of a Nation. This film a complicated bit of baggage to unpack. Look at that …
Today is the birthday of Christie Comedy star Billy Dooley (1893-1938). Dooley had been partnered in a vaudeville act with Frances Lee when Al Christie recruited them and began starrin…
Today is the birthday of Charles “Charlie” Ruggles (1886-1970). While his brother Wesley had more of a pedigree in silent comedy and eventually became a successful director, Char…
One in our series of old time radio posts in celebration of Valentine’s Day. All of us too young to have been Baby Boomers or older missed a joke in the movie Grease (1978) and i…
Today marks a big benchmark in comedy and film history. It is the centennial of the release of Kid Auto Races at Venice, the film which provided the public with its first glimpse of Charl…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the hilarious Laurel and Hardy 1930 comedy Be Big. Stan and Ollie and their wives (Anita Garvin and Isabelle Keith) are preparing to go dow…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of Harold Lloyd’s The Milky Way (1936). The Milky Way was Lloyd's last independent feature, and a very respectable one (i.e., funn…
One in our series of old time radio posts in celebration of Valentine’s Day. My favorite Husband was Lucille Ball’s radio sit-com precursor to I Love Lucy, which ran on CBS…
Much joyous celebration, crazy talent and carousing with friends at the opening of Carolyn Raship’s “Chorus Girls” exhibition at Dixon Place last night. Not only are Caroly…
All you working people set your DVRs! Today at 1:15pm EST on Turner Classic Movies: The Bad Seed. This movie is significant for all sorts of reasons. One, it is based on Maxwell Anderson&…
Today is the birthday of the still-living and still-gorgeous Mamie Van Doren. My usual hierarchical formulation for her is “as Jayne Mansfield is to Marilyn Monroe, Mamie Van Dor…
