11,867 stories by "Trav S.D."
Filed under: Contemporary Variety, Music, PLUGS, Singers, Singing Comediennes Tagged: Happiness Waits, Jennie Lee Mitchell, Jennifer Lee Mitchell, Last Cyrclist, Rebecca Joy Fletcher, Terezi…
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the release of the hilarious Keystone comedy Barney Oldfield’s Race for a Life. A melodrama parody, it features Ford Sterling in top form as the mu…
Today is the birthday of jazz singer, dancer and trumpet player Valaida Snow (1904-1956). Raised in a musical family by a college-educated mother in Chatanooga, TN, she was mistress of te…
Today is the birthday of Huldah Pierce Warren Bump (1849-1879), the sister of the more famous Lavinia Warren, wife of General Tom Thumb. Like her sister, Minnie performed as a singer, and wo…
Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump (1841-1919) was the most famous female little person of the 19th century, but more than that — she was one of the most famous people of the 19th century perio…
The Magri brothers were a pair of Italian performing little people of the 19th century. Count Primo Magri, a.k.a Count Rosebud (1849-1920) was the 2 ft, 8 in. second husband of Lavinia…
Born in June 1876, Harry Watson, Jr. started out in circus, burlesque, vaudeville, and Broadway with a trio with George Bickel and Ed Lee Wrothe called Me, Him and I. His Broadway careerÅ
Filed under: Burlesk, Circus, Coney Island, Contemporary Variety, Dime Museum and Side Show, PLUGS Tagged: burlesque, Coney Island, Mermaids of the Gowanus
Filed under: Comedy, Hollywood (History), Movies, PLUGS, Silent Film Tagged: Charlie Chaplin Days, Essanay, film festival, Niles Film Museum, silent comedy
At least once per season (sometimes several times) Metropolitan Playhouse presents a play I am downright tickled to death about and absolutely have to see — and I never, ever regret ha…
The Hall of Hams is my series on some of my favorite actors who have brought the art of melodramatic acting into the modern era. Today is the birthday of beloved character actor Frank Morgan…
Bessie Wynn (1876-1968) was billed as “The Lady Dainty of Vaudeville” and “The Venus with the Velvet Voice”. Born in Chicago in June, 1876, she took singing lessons a…
The 10th annual NYC Musical Saw Festival is tomorrow starting at 2pm in Astoria, Queens. For full information go to http://musicalsawfestival.org/ Filed under: Contemporary Variety, Music…
Seem like an odd one for me to plug? Not really — it’s 19th century history after all. It’s about the Manchu Empress Cixi (1835-1908), who “ruled China from behind th…
Today’s is the birthday of Don Ameche (Dominic Amici, 1908-1993). Ameche got his start performing in college theatricals in his native Wisconsin. From here he traveled with a stock com…
Originally Posted in 2009. With his dour, doleful expression and his deadpan delivery it was perhaps inevitable that Fred Allen would make his greatest permanent mark in radio. On film, …
Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Brian Newman, burlesque, Jade Hotel, Red Room Revue
Very excited for old Brick friends Jon Bulette, Jay Klaitz and Nils D’Aulaire whose new film The History of Future Folk opens at Cinema Village Tomorrow. These are extremely funn…
Today is the birthday of Melvin Jerome “Mel” Blank [original spelling] (1908-1989). Everyone knows him as voice-over actor of all the classic Warner Bros cartoon characters: Bugs…
Originally posted in 2010. A problematic figure in these annals, Stepin Fetchit is much maligned nowadays for having played a shiftless, shuffling, mumbling, lazy no account servant in H…
This exciting new show is every Thursday night at 8pm at Times Scare (669 8th Ave between 42nd and 43rd). As they describe it: “Times Scare in conjunction with Todd Robbins (Play De…
Originally posted in 2009 As we have seen, personality was everything vaudeville. Pretty music aside, a major factor in the success of a band was a colorful and entertaining bandleader. Bern…
There are two Little Jack Littles in the annals of show business:. One is a dwarf comedian who worked in burlesque (unfortunately not the subject of today’s post). At all events,  t…
Mademoiselle Gabrielle (1884-?) is one of the very few human oddities known to have performed in vaudeville (as opposed to circuses, sideshows, and dime museums, although she certainly perfo…
Today is the birthday of The Great Raymond (Maurice Francois Sanders, 1877-1948). His magic career began as a child when we worked as an assistant to his uncle. At age ten he was performing …
