According to the old vaudeville quip, the Irish gave the Scots bagpipes for a joke " and the Scots never got the joke. I am a Stewart and was raised to love the sound of pipes, but I can mor…
Before Willie Tyler and Lester, ventriloquism-loving black audiences had another such act they could appreciate, Stu Gilliam (1933-2013) and his partner Oscar. But you had to be there " afte…
Thanks be to my intrepid wife who introduced me to British drag star Danny La Rue (Daniel Patrick Carroll, 1927-2009). Sh'd come across a reference to La Rue in a mystery novel she was readi…
Around the time I was in Junior High School, circa 1977, I bought a paperback copy of Paul Gallico's 1969 The Poseidon Adventure. The 1972 film adaptation was (and remains) one of my favorit…
Were she still alive today Janet Margolin (1943-1993) would be nearly 80 years old, but there's no doubt in my mind she would still be beautiful. What's especially interesting to me is that …
I was born in the town with the oldest continuously operating carousel in the U.S. (the Flying Horses of Watch Hill, Rhode Island, est 1876, above), and so you might say I have been remiss i…
Today we report the death of Jacov Moshe Maza (b. 1928), better known to the world as Jackie Mason. Mason was a last link in two very long lines. One: he was a FIFTH generation rabbi. Two: h…
The versatile Arthur Lubin (Arthur Lubovsky, 1898-1995) made a success in theatre, movies and television, as an actor, director, and producer. While no relation to the early screen mogul Sig…
When working on Rose's Royal Midgets and Other Little People in Vaudeville I came within a whisker of including mention of a couple of troupes for whom I'd seen lots of pictorial references.…
I'm pretty certain I have never heard a better named for a British-born Jewish guy than Montague Glass (1877-1934). Glass was the son of an English linen merchant; the family moved to New Yo…
Just a few words of acknowledgement for a character we New York City vaudeville fans are especially fond of, Timothy "Big Tim" Sullivan (1862-1913). The son of Irish immigrants, Sullivan gre…
Actress Florence Vidor (Florence Cobb, 1895-1977) was a player in the movie game a scant decade and a half, though that was longer than the marriage to the man whose name she bore, film dire…
The actor Phillips Holmes (1907-1942), both of whose names are so infuriating in the possessive case, came by them honesly, being as he was the son of the actors Edna Phillips and Taylor Hol…
Ordinarily, little people are photographed from head to toe so you can get the full effect of their remarkable size. But I kind of love this framing of the likeness of Berlin-born Henrietta …
The career of Natalie Wood (Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko, 1938-1981) may be divided into four phases: childhood (1943-1955), which includes such films as The Moon is Down (1943), Tomorrow i…
It's a surety I have nothing to teach classic animation nerds about the art and story of Fleischer Studios (1921-1942). But I've mentioned that outfit on Travalanche on many occasions and I …
Most people who know the name Richard Dix (Ernst Brimmer, 1893-1949) today probably know it from a single quip spoken by David Huddleston in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles. Dix was indeed assoc…
I was reminded of the existence of Sid Gould (Sydney Greenfader, 1912-1996) during our recent Covid quarantine binging of The Love Boat. He had a recurring role as a waiter on about a half d…
I knew a Fred Sullivan years ago; he's a longtime (decades long) company member of Trinity Rep in Providence, where I studied, as well as Boston's Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. (I am del…
O, if only Acquanetta (1921-2004) had been in vaudeville or burlesque. She had that genius for hype and camp and self-creation. Her real name seems to have been Mildred Davenport but everyth…
Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970) was one productive S.O.B. Originally a practicing lawyer, he went on to write hundreds of legal dramas and mystery novels and short stories, as well as trave…
Stanley Clements (Stanislaw Klimowicz, 1926-1981) is best known to classic comedy fans as "Stash" and "Duke" from the East Side Kids and Bowery Boys franchises, but he's one of the few of th…
We have our finger in many pies here at Travalanche so sometimes we miss major news (e.g. departures from the mortal plane) by people we care about. Thus it is with Don B. Wilmeth, whom we j…
Today a salute to George Tobias (1901-1980) best remembered for his role as Abner Kravitz, long-suffering neighbor of the Stevens family on the TV sitcom Bewitched (1964-1971). Kravitz was s…