11,870 stories by "Trav S.D."
100 years ago today Keystone released the memorable early comedy Their First Execution. Special thanks to Ben Model and Steve Massa who introduced me to this film through their Crue…
Originally posted in 2011. For a time during my childhood, at an age far too old to have been healthy, I believed that Oz was a real place. This may be credited both to an unhappy childh…
Today is the birthday of Marion Sunshine (Mary James, 1894-1963). She got her start at age five acting in the melodrama Two Little Waifs and later went into vaudeville. For a time she was in…
Oh, this isn’t really a competition (42 vs. The Jackie Robinson Story). It’s like trying to suss out the outcome of an exhibition game between the 1950 Brooklyn Dodgers and…
Today is the birthday of show biz wunderkind Bobby Darin (Walden Robert Cassotto, 1936-1973). The subject of Darin (and some others like him) is a fascinating one for someone of my age to pr…
Today is the birthday of jazz saxophonist, clarinetist and composer Sidney Bechet (1897-1959). Bechet is considered one of the first important jazz soloists, and possibly the first im…
Today is the birthday of Yvonne and Yvette McCarther (1949-1992). Born joined at the top of the head, it was predicted that they would be unable to walk and that they would both be me…
Today is the birthday of Jenks “Tex” Carman, the Dixie Cowboy (1903-1968). Born into a large Kentucky farming family, he picked up guitar as a kid and started playing at church a…
Originally posted in 2009. The most famous female impersonator of the vaudeville era, Julian Eltinge was a point of cultural reference as late as the early 1960s when Lenny Bruce dropped…
Today is the birthday of Maude Fulton (1881-1950). Together with her partner William “Billy” Rock (1867-1920) she formed a popular act in big time vaudeville from around the turn…
Today is the birthday of magician Carl Hertz (Lieb Morgensten, 1859-1924). A San Francisco native , he first gained notice in London in 1884 performing tricks purloined from Buatier de Kolta…
Today is the birthday of Tin Pan Alley songwriter Grant Clarke (1891-1931). Originally from Akron, in vaudeville, he performed himself and wrote songs and special material for Bert Williams,…
Born in India in 1888, Piramel Sami possessed a parasitic twin brother growing out of his chest. For the sake of showmanship, the poor half-creature was represented as Piramel’s sister…
On March 24 of this year the Palace Theatre turned one hundred years old. In celebration of the event, me and my American Vaudeville Theatre are presenting a Special One-Time Only Tribute Sh…
Just wanted to expend a few words on a terrific play I saw yesterday at LaMama. Jill Campbell’s Chemistry of Love would make a highly compatible companion piece to Robert Honeywe…
Today is the birthday of the sadly short-lived Richie Valens (1941-1959), stolen from the world in the same plane crash that took Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper. Since Valens was on…
Today is the birthday of Polaire (b. Emilie Bouchard, 1879-1939). I was flabbergasted to notice I hadn’t already done a post on her; I knew about her and had mentioned her in in No App…
Since today was the most perfect day in the history of the world ever, the Duchess and I took a major stroll around Prospect Park and Grand Army Plaza. On the way home, this classic, early-t…
I hope I’m not dating myself for loving Victoria Libertore’s work as much as I do and for the reasons I do. When I first came to this city, her brand of autobiographical solo wor…
Today is the birthday of Joseph Myrtle Corbin (1868-1928). Myrtle possessed an extra set of small, doll-like legs. Corbin was a dipygus; her axis had split during her development as an embry…
Today is the birthday of perhaps the greatest comic drunk of all time, Foster Brooks (1912-2001). While he got his start in radio in the 1930s, it wasn’t until he was in his 50s that h…
Today is the birthday of the great stand-up comedian Mort Sahl (b. 1927). Sahl is part of the generation that revolutionized comedy starting in the late years of Eisenhower’s presidenc…
Today is Eric Burdon’s birthday (b. 1941). I’d always been a huge fan of all the Animals (and Eric Burdon and the Animals — they were two different bands with two different…
Today is the birthday of the great Salvador Dali (1904-1989). Those of us whose lives were lucky enough to have overlapped his will have no problem digesting why this painter merits inclusio…
Vaudeville was an exhilarating, great new world for me. It had its share of deadbeats and egocentric maniacs and joke-snatchers. But we had warmth and camaraderie and time for laughs. –…
