11,855 stories by "Trav S.d."
Some brief approving words for Glora Holden (1903-1991). With a little more than three dozen screen parts over nearly a quarter century, she wasn't the most prolific actress in the world, an…
Today we celebrate the 80th birthday of sex symbol and actress Raquel Welch (Jo Raquel Tejada, b. 1940). Welch was a major pop culture figure in my younger childhood (the early '70s). I knew…
Around 1976 I had two formative circus experiences, each of which couldn't have been more different from the other. The first I've written about a few times, the Ringling Brothers Barnum and…
Some bite size factoids today on bandleader, piano player and songwriter Gus Arnheim (1897-1955). Arnheim was born in Philadelphia and raised in Chicago, two great vaudeville towns. Early in…
This day in 1972 marked the final closure of San Francisco's Playland at the Beach, a great historic amusement park, and really the last of a great collection of attractions that had been in…
I try to build double meanings into the titles of ,my posts " shame on you if you didn't already get the one that heads this one. Alan Ladd (1913-1964) was famously on the diminutive sid…
I'm sorry I missed Marge Champion's more significant birthday last year but we'll attempt to redress the wrong by bestowing maximum attention upon her today. What a remarkable life and caree…
Guido Deiro (1886-1950) was Italian aristocracy, a count from the countryside from an area near Turin which literally bore his surname. The family grew cattle, grapes, and a variety of fruit…
I thought I would finish out August with a post on the Beatles' Help! album, five years and three weeks after its Golden Anniversary. Well…I've done posts about all of their later records …
Mary Shelley (1797-1851)Â has been more in our consciousness of late, thanks to the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein's publication (and the superlative exhibition about same at the Morga…
Let us begin by clarifying that Lurene Tuttle (1907-86) was also a prolific actress of the screen; it's merely that she achieved a dominance in radio unmatched by her work in other media, th…
I imagine many people, like me, grew up watching Elliott Gould in the '70s, little dreaming the nature of his career in the previous decade. I'm here to tell ya about it! Born Elliott Goldst…
Sam Levene is an important guy to know about. He acted constantly on Broadway, in films, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century. The reason you may not have heard of him i…
I consider the case of Tuesday Weld (Susan Weld, b. 1943) to be one of maddeningly unfulfilled promise. One of the screen's great beauties as well as one of its great talents, she had the po…
Fate appears to be conspiring to make me (and thus you) aware of The Sisters G: I caught them recently (they are hard to miss) in Paul Whiteman's The King of Jazz (1930) and Frank Fay's God'…
Well, now: in the heat of current events we are apt sometimes to neglect benchmarks. Today marks the 20th anniversary of the opening of my play House of Trash in the 2000 New York Internatio…
How appropriate that National Dog Day falls during the dog days of August! Having already offered up close and personal peeks at Rin Tin Tin and Pete the Pup, we thought it it only right…
Some brief acknowledgment this day for June Collyer (Dorothea Heermance, 1904-1968). June was the older sister of Bud Collyer, who voiced the character of Superman on radio and in animated c…
Three cheers today for James Millhollin (1915-1993), a character actor mostly associated with supporting roles as nervous, sweaty, punctilious, uptight, and pop-eyed clerks and bureaucrats. …
Buster Keaton fans know this well but it may be news to the wider public: Buster's younger brother Harry, a.k.a "Jingles" (1904-1983) was in the family vaudeville act for a time and also…
Today we raise a pint bottle to Hal Smith (1916-1994), best remembered for playing Otis, the town drunk on The Andy Griffith Show (1960-66). The gag was that he was generally the only regula…
Autumn is soon upon us and that means Old School is back in session " virtually, like all the other schools. Today being the 3rd anniversary of the passing of Jerry Lewis, seems a propitious…
Pete Hamill passed away on August 5. Like many New Yorkers, I had read his columns and articles for years in the Daily News, New York Post, Newsday, New York Magazine and the Village Voice, …
It's National Aviation Day! To observe the occasion, I thought I would take a look at a genre that specifically celebrates professional aviators and those that support them: pilots, mechanic…
Today we celebrate suis generis Caucasian comedian and kindred spirit Martin Mull (b. 1943). Can I say enough good things about Martin Mull? No. No, I can't. Originally from Chicago, as w…
