And how will you be celebrating Mary Shelley's birthday (1797-1851)? Having already written quite an extensive post on the influential author a couple of years ago, I thought this year I wou…
I love and hate it when this happens " exploration of the life of an interesting person uncovers a warren of their fascinating relatives and associates. Love it because it's a gold mine. Hat…
August 29 was the birthday of Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982) as well as the date of her death. There are times when I must seem to run the risk of falling prey to the cult of numerology here. Th…
A theme begins to emerge on Travalanche this week which I was about to call coincidental, though it surely isn't, for undoubtedly it's more a reflection on the predilections of the author of…
Like all the other opera singers on Travalanche, we treat of Alice Zeppilli (1885-1969) today strictly because she played vaudeville. After World War One, throughout the 1920s, as she was wi…
Paul Reubens a.k.a. Pee-wee Herman (b. 1952) turns 70 years old today. I realized that just in the nick of time when I was posting about Tim Burton a couple of days back and decided that my …
I first became aware of screen dancer Joyzelle Joyner (1905-1980) from her performance in the early talkie comedy short The Night Court (1927) directed by Bryan Foy for Vitaphone and starrin…
According to at least one source I've come across, in addition to being National Dog Day, August 26 is National Mountain Lion Day. The American Mountain Lion goes by many names: cougar, puma…
Happy National Dog Day! Having already done posts on Lassie, Rin Tin Tin (here and here), Madame Strakai's Dogs, Al Mardo's Do Nothing Dog, Don the Talking Dog, Rosina Cassell's Chihuahuas, …
How perfect is that is it that animator/director Tim Burton (b. 1958) shares a birthday with animation pioneer John R. Bray, whom we just did a post about earlier this morning? I wonder if h…
Today, some brief appreciation for cartoonist, pioneering animator, and independent film producer John R. Bray (1879-1978). The name may not immediately ring any bells (his entertainment con…
After our last post, you may think it impossible for us to get any more Anglophile on Travalanche today. Challenge accepted! For August 24 is traditionally St. Bartholomew's Day, the traditi…
Born 150 years ago today, British theatre critic, humorist, essayist, caricaturist, and conspicuous Edwardian dandy Sir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm (1872-1956). A man of such patent genius as …
Career's end for actress Dorothy Comingore (1913-1971) is easy to predict once you know the inputs. Having played the part of Susan Alexander in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941), the role m…
Wendall Hall's (1896-1969) was a name I'd not encountered (or at any rate, not taken note of) until my recent research for my upcoming book on television variety. As it happens, Hall was one…
I refer in the title of this post of course not to the super-cool downtown performance art impresario who used to do the booking at P.S. 122 and who founded and runs the Under the Radar Fest…
Acknowledging that the name of actress Francine Larrimore (Francine La Remee, 1898-1975) may not be immediately recognizable to some (all?) of you, we precede the chronology with a shortlist…
Born this day 150 years ago, the great vaudeville critic and chronicler Epes W. Sargent a.k.a. "Chicot" (1872-1938). Now, some may be curious about the pen name, but I find myself much more …
A brief look this morning at silent screen actress Eileen Percy (1900-1973), whose other claim to fame was being Mrs. Harry Ruby. As such you will see her portrayed by Arlene Dahl in the Kal…
I love it when you can draw a line from vaudeville all the way to (relatively) modern times. The career of dancer and choreography Alex Romero (Alejandro Bernardo Quiroga, 1913-2007) traces …
Having already written posts about the original 1947 Nightmare Alley film as well as the 2021 remake, you might think yet a third post related to the sordid tale a bit much, but the author o…
I first learned about magician Max Holden (William Holden Maxwell, 1884-1949) when researching this piece on Times Square area magic shops last fall. Born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland, Ho…
This is the third time we have been inspired to observe National Aviation Day with a post! Previously we took a look at wacky airplane movies and their climaxes, and a couple of years later,…
From what I have been able to ascertain, stage and screen actress Elsie Ferguson (1883-1961) didn't play vaudeville, although she was certainly referenced there, as one Martha Russell toured…
It was probably inevitable that I would do a post on English music hall comedian Walter Groves (1856-1906), especially since David Crump's recent biography of Fred Karno has confirmed, at le…