11,506 stories by "Trav S.D."
October 19, 1964 was the date on which Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., the first record album by the duo Simon and Garfunkel was officially released. The pair had released music earlier under the…
Multiple lures attracted us to Feejee Mermaid, the inaugural production of Drops in the Vase, now in previews at the Flea: the title, obviously, but also the past work of the principal artis…
My original intention was to create this new finding aid for Saturday Night Live related posts for the REAL 50th anniversary next year (2025 " the show launched in '75), but they're already …
Margot Kidder (1948-2018) gave up the ghost just a few years ago, but if I saw more than just a headline, I don't recall it. The country was neck deep in the shit storm of the 45th Presidenc…
October 16 was the birthday of a future B movie star whose birth name was Gordon Nance (1904-1965). Nance grew up on a cattle Missouri ranch. He grew up riding, roping, and participating in …
Little birds that tweet have told me of two new books that are coincidentally both being released today, which readers of this blog in particular should be interested in. As we told you back…
That's Jimmy Durante " of course, I'm going to give him pride of place among Italian Americans in show business. He's kind of the "Adam" of it all, a musician, a singer, a comedian, an actor…
Originally posted on my other blog the Trav-a-log, the contents of which I am in the process of transplanting here, so that it will all live in one place! In 1492 most well educated people i…
Jack MacGowran (1918-1973) was what it's all about: a muse for many of the best creative minds of the 20th century, an indispensible character actor, and a career most of us would die for, w…
It's National Farmers Day. For the occasion, I am restoring a post I published here in 2017, then moved over to Medium when I did a big purge of all the non-show biz related posts on Travala…
Born 100 years ago today, actress Randy Stuart (Elizabeth "Betty Jane" Shaubell, 1924-1996). Stuart started out with her parents in a small time vaudeville act that toured the South and Midw…
How perfect is it that the International Day of the Girl Child falls on the birthday Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)? She's one of my top female heroes; we've needed her or someone like her fo…
When I say I mourn Steve Gordon (1938-1982) I don't mean to imply that I knew him or that he only recently died. The writer/director passed away over 40 years ago, worlds away from my little…
My word but there were a lot of Alices running around a century and more ago! I've always been interested in the phenomenon because it was my mother's middle name, after her aunt, who hersel…
An experiment in media in honor of the birthday of the great actress Helen Hayes in further exploration of the legacy of her friend and "Boswell", Mari Lyn Henry. The audio is not optimal, y…
Born 100 years ago today, the one and only writer/actor/producer/director Edward D. Wood, Jr! We are a huge fan of his oeuvre, and have been for well over 30 years. (As it happens, it is als…
Above please note my first edition copy of a Pultitzer Prize winning autobiography from around a century ago The Americanization of Edward Bok. I acquired and read this now highly obscure bo…
Here's one I learned about by way of Eve Golden's "Youtube Theatre" column at the Los Angeles Daily Mirror. When I refer to Judy Tyler (Judith Mae Hess, 1932-1957) as the "Girl James Dean", …
Well, I've written about many of the classic, old time gossip columnists here (Walter Winchell, Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, Earl Wilson, Dorothy Kilgallen, etc) so why stop at the later o…
Today, a salute to an actor whose career is an illustration of the vagaries of fate when it comes to the breaks it dispenses to actors, Kirk Alyn (John Feggo, Jr., 1910-1999). A New Jersey n…
October 7 will always be remembered for the atrocity that happened in Israel a year ago, but it has another humanitarian significance as well, for it was the birthday of legendary labor acti…
October 7 was the birthday of Alfredo Codona (1893-1937), the most celebrated (and later mourned) member of an international, multi-generational dynasty of showfolk. Originally spelled Codon…
The second act of Mitchell Leisen (1898-1972) has arrived posthumously, but to misappropriate an attrocious line of Robin Williams, beter latent than never? Numerous in-depth articles about …
Previously posted on Travalachance and restored for National Rhode Island Day and the Halloween season. Today we continue our series of Rhode Island Day/ Halloween posts by relating some …
Yes, yes, I know the title sounds like a Michael Feinstein song (people are forever explaining my own damn jokes and literary devices back to me, as though the very productions of my own min…
