11,866 stories by "Trav S.D."
Today is the birthday of Chester Augustus Wright (1890-1980). From the late 1910s through decades afterward he traveled with his own self-contained tent show that toured the rural east coast…
A few days ago, I did a birthday post about Dan Aykroyd and how his film career has been but a shadow compared to the brilliance of his performances on Saturday Night Live in the mid to l…
Opening tonight: RuPaul’s Drag Race Winner Jinkx Monsoon in The Vaudevillians. From the description: “Throughout the 1920′s Kitty Witless and Dr. Dan Von Dandy toure…
Clarence E. Willard (1882-1962) was billed as “The Man Who Grows Before Your Eyes”. By manipulating his spine (elongating and contracting the space between his vertebrae) he coul…
Today is the birthday of silent screen actor Cullen Landis (1896-1975). The Nashville native began his career in 1916 at the age 0f 18 and was a popular leading man through the end of the si…
Today is the birthday of Cecile Arnold (Cecile Arnoux, 1893-1931). Having grown up in St. Louis and Fort Worth she reportedly became a Ziegfeld girl, before being hired by Mack Sennett in 19…
Born in Germany in 187, Olympia DesVall was an equestrienne who performed not only with horses but also a troupe of trained dogs, and later birds. In written accounts, the animals were sa…
Originally posted 2010 Harry Von Tilzer was one of the most successful of the Tin Pan Alley songwriters, not just because he wrote songs that defined the era (e.g., “A Bird in a Gil…
Yea, verily the Redness of the Bastard is like unto the Whiteness of the White, White Whale. Red Bastard (learn all about him here) used to breathe the soot of New York City along with the r…
Today is the birthday of J. Russel Robinson (1892-1963). (He spelled his first name without the customary second “L”.) Posterity knows him best as the composer of scores of ragti…
Originally posted in 2010 In honor of Billy Shears’ 70th birthday, it seemed like a good time for a brief appreciation of his best record. I’m one of those misguided souls who co…
Sunday tends to be a sleepy day readership-wise on Travalanche so I thought I’d take the opportunity to do a little navel-gazing for the faithful few. Within a few months the Stars of …
Today is the birthday of Richard Carle (1871-1941), a Renaissance man of American show business: vaudeville comedian, stage actor, playwright, producer, songwriter, and actor in silent and s…
“Consul the Great” was the top performing ape in vaudeville, so much so that getting back to the original one takes some digging. The original was purchased from Wombwell’s…
Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Bettina May, Chris McDaniel, Dangrrr Doll, Gary Beebe, Gotham Burlesque, Grace Gotham
Today is the birthday of the great television satirist (and frequent Presidential candidate) Pat Paulsen (1927-1997). He attained his fame on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the l…
Today is the birthday of rock and roll pioneer Bill Haley (1925-1981). While some make claims for him as “the first rock and roller” (and plenty of those claims were contemporane…
Today is the birthday of Australian swimmer, vaudeville performer and film actress Annette Kellerman. The clip above is from her 1914 silent film Neptune’s Daughter and includ…
Gale Sisters there were four, two sets of twins in fact (not Quadruplets, as billed): June (1911-1996), Jean (1912-1974), Jane (b. 1911) and Joan (1912-1998). Their real names were Doris, Le…
Today is the birthday of Charles B. Tripp (1855-1930). Born without upper limbs, he taught himself to do nearly everything a person with arms can do: dress himself, shave, write with a pen, …
(adapted from a talk given at the Barnum Museum, Bridgeport, CT, November 2005) Most books on vaudeville devote at most a mention or two to P.T. Barnum (July 5, 1810 " April 5, 1891). In …
Trixie and Monkey’s “AMERICAN MORONS” $15 in advance, or at the door. Sideshows By The Seashore Flipping and stripping for AMERICA! Celebrate America’s birthday with …
Today is the birthday of Dell Henderson (George Delbert Henderson, 1883-1956). A stage actor from Ontario, he started out at Biograph in 1908, around the same time as D.W. Griffith and Mack …
Today is, oddly enough, also the birthday of Neil Simon (b. 1927). I confess to having something of a love/ hate relationship with him as a playwright. On the one hand, he’s the first …
Today is the birthday of that peculiar American phenomenon Mitch Miller (1911-2010). Most of us today know him from scratchy old record albums, listened to for camp value on holidays, featur…
