11,492 stories by "Trav S.D."
Just a few words in memory of comedy magician Johnny Thompson, a.k.a. The Great Tomsoni (1934-2019). When we call Thompson a comedy magician, we don't mean like Carl Ballantine, whose routin…
I'm sorely tempted to hold this post for the bicentennial of the birth of John Vorhis (1829-1932), but for the fact that it is altogether likely that Travalanche will be on a slab itself by …
The name may elude you, but the young man it belonged to, Ross Alexander (Ross Alexander Smith, 1907-1937) was technically a leading man at the time of his untimely death, though he was more…
Today's peculiar portmanteau-post arises from the coincidence of the birthdays of George Bernard Shaw and Stanley Kubrick, and the 250th anniversary of The American Revolution, and my attemp…
July 29 (this coming Tuesday) marks the birthday of every comedy nerd's favorite heartthrob Thelma Todd. As they have done most years for the better part of three decades this weekend (July …
We have Kevin Fitzpatrick, Shepherd of The Lambs to thank for the present post, for he pointed me in the direction of painter Lee Lash (1864-1935). Lash had studied in Paris to be a proper f…
I was delighted to learn just now that the guy who played General Henry Knox (1750-1806) in the HBO mini-series John Adams was none other than Del Pentecost, who played the title character i…
We are thrilled to be participating yet again in another Hilobrow.com "…Your Enthusiam" guest-blogging series. I believe the original impulse for the name of this series of series came fro…
The title of this post is a rhetorical question. It does not imply that I am asking YOU or ANYONE what the answer is. Three time Emmy winning TV star Michael Richards (b. 1949) set his caree…
I have been a fan of comedy character actress Edie McClurg (b. 1945) for just about the entirety of her half century career. Though I surely saw her very first TV performances dating to back…
As is not uncommon, we got a flurry of obit notices yesterday from the The Dark Angel known as Eve Golden. The one that hurt the most was Malcolm-Jamal Warner the likeable Theo Huxtable from…
I promise that we are not becoming a poetry blog. It's just that the birthday of Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) comes immediately after that of Hart Crane. And her contribution seems especially wo…
July 21 was the birthday of the enigmatic midwestern poet Hart Crane (1899-1932). Little known fact: Crane's father invented Life Savers! Not the flotation device, the candy! He was was a re…
July 20, 1925 was the date of birth of the influential anti-colonialist thinker Frantz Fanon. As should be apparent by now, I am attracted to observing these big, round anniversaries. Still,…
As promised earlier this morning, our second grim show biz post in a row. This one concerns stage and screen actress Isabel Jewell (1907-1972). Jewell had scads of good supporting parts in H…
The first of a couple of grim posts scheduled for today, this one on silent screen actress Florence Deshon (Florence Danks, 1893-1922). Deshon was born in Tacoma, Washington to a couple of u…
Of the so-called New Journalists thus far I have written about Truman Capote and Norman Mailer, and just a little about Tom Wolfe (more on him to follow). My wife is the in-house expert on, …
July 18 was the birthday of Red Skelton, Lupe Velez, Dave Chasen, Monty Banks, Jane Frazee, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Dion DiMucci, and the Unsinkable Molly Brown, among many others we've writt…
Here's a post that links our ongoing series honoring the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution with our core content stream of vaudeville. It concerns a grandfather and a grandson, bo…
We seldom talk about food on this blog, and in the opinion of my wife, today we won't be doing that either. But the humble hot dog has such a close association with Coney Island, one of our …
Today is World P.R. Day and believe it or not I have a post for that, too. These days P.R. has bad P.R. of all things, largely the fault of an industry which has done too much work on behalf…
Born 100 years ago today, documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker (Donn Alan Pennebaker, 1925-2019). Like most moderately well-educated Americans of my age, I have seen most of Pennebaker's ma…
The death of Hugh "Bud" Ernst (1910-1950) is often told, for it made all the papers, but we'll add as much about his life as we can, for it was also interesting. Ernst was an aviator, a radi…
Since we have written about so many other members of the Ed Wood stock company, we thought it only fitting to do something on James "Duke" Moore (1913-1976), whose only credits were in Wood …
Born this day in 1945 comic actress Leigh French. Born in Kentucky, a former member of The Committee (based in San Francisco and L.A.), French specialized in three types of characters: hillb…
