Labor Day 2025 falls unconscionably early this year (September 1), but there is an excellent way that you can spend the evening if you're in New York. You can let some highly skilled enterta…
Today's new Travalanche post for August 29, 2025 highlights four shows about the impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans as of two decades ago today. Previous posts for August 29 includes…
20 years ago (August 29, 2005) Hurricane Katrina made its second landfall, hitting Louisiana well east of New Orleans, then moving north through Mississippi. In previous days it had cut acro…
Today's new Travalanche posts for August 28, 2025 are beauty queen, chorine and actress Lindsay Bloom, and the new Wizard of Oz spectacle at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Previous August 28 posts…
Here in New York the annual NYC Unicycle Festival gets underway today, but I confess my attention has been pulled across the shifting sands to Las Vegas, where the Sphere is doing something …
Many happy returns of the day to Lindsay Bloom (b. 1950). You know! Lindsay Bloom! The one who's not Barbi Benton! Though, like Benton, Bloom was not from the Southland, as her screen castin…
Today's new Travalanche posts for August 27, 2025 are about Hallie Flanagan and the Federal Theatre Project and Theodore Dreiser and An American Tragedy, which turns 100 years old this year.…
With his greatest reaching the century mark later this year, this seemed the best time for a proper nod to Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945). Theatre (vaudeville in particular) have been the orig…
August 27 was both the founding day of the Federal Theatre Project (1935-39) and the birthday of its only director Hallie Flanagan (Hallie Ferguson, 1889-1969). Even if the FTP had never exi…
I'm overdue to do this plug, and just under the wire at that, but I do want to make you aware of this great radio show my old high school buddy Matt Mania hosts every Tuesday afternoon. No w…
Today's new Travalanche posts for August 26, 2025 are about silent screen star Robert McKim, and a cool blues radio show. Previous August 26 posts have spotlighted: Several Famous Performing…
IMDB gives August 26 as the D.O.B. of stage and screen actor Robert McKim (1886-1927). Here in New York we are accustomed to that surname being followed by "Mead" and "White", but our subjec…
Today's new Travalanche posts for August 25, 2025 are about Don DeFore, black vaudeville star Gertrude Saunders, and the new book Mr. Moser's Neighborhood: The Intersection of Cleveland and …
I think of him as more of a straight man, but Don DeFore (1913-1993) definitely had a foot in classic comedy, by appearing in such films as It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947), My Friend Irma…
This book was released several days ago, and I've had a copy in hand nearly as long, but I did want to give the once over before posting my unconditional plug! The title of Christopher Roy's…
Those who saw the 2015 HBO bio-pic Bessie, may recall the scene where Queen Latifah as Bessie Smith confronts her husband and manager Jack Gee (Michael K. Williams) about the attention he is…
Today's new Travalanche posts for August 24, 2025 are about early game show pioneer Dennis James, actor Steve Guttenberg, and the recently departed Jerry Adler. Previous August 24 posts incl…
Thanks, Eve Golden, for the sad intel that Jerry Adler (1929-2025) breathes no more. 96 years old! He must have had the same doctor as Fyvush Finkel! Strange…I had cause to mention him her…
All things remaining the same, it might have been quite some time (if ever) that I would have devoted a post here to actor Steve Guttenberg (b. 1958). But a couple of recent developments hav…
Over 9,000 posts on Travalanche and I have not yet had any occasion to mention broadcasting announcer, emcee, commercial pitch man, and game show host Dennis James (Demetrio "Demie" Sposa, 1…
I only just got the memo (via Dan Christopher's TikTok) that magician and ventriloquist Tom Ladshaw passed away suddenly back on August 7. A sure sign the social media isn't working for us, …
Today would have been the 62nd birthday of Little Person actor Ed Gale (1963-2025), if he hadn't passed away back in May. The Michigan native was 23 years old when cast as the body of the ti…
Today's new Travalanche post for August 23, 2025 are about Warhol Superstar Viva, and the late Little Person actor Ed Gale. Previous August 23 posts include ones on: Gene Kelly (and his fami…
August 23 is the birthday of Viva (Janet Susan Mary Hoffman, 1938). Viva was one of the few Warhol Superstars to have a modicum of a screen career after departing the Factory. The daughter o…
Today's new Travalanche post for August 22, 2025 is about David Chase and The Sopranos. Previous August 22 posts include ones on: Dorothy Parker Valerie Harper and Rhoda George Herriman and …