11,881 stories by "Trav S.d."
Happy birthday and Chag Sameach to Gabe Kaplan (b. 1945). I was a tween during his pinnacle years, the perfect age at which to appreciate his youth-oriented sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter w…
Shirley Jones (b. 1934) was one of those many people who were on television in the 1970s about whom I, a child at the time, had no idea regarding an illustrious background. Though Jones̵…
Thanks to Travalanche’s top benefactor Bruce Schaffer for relating the sad news that theatre scholar/author Mel Gordon has passed on at age 71. To clarify: this is not the swing era so…
Passover begins at dusk, so there’s still a few hours left to be sacrilegious. And by that, I mean irreverent towards the worship of cinema. Well do I remember the poster advertising W…
Yeah, I gotta rise to the defense of something as palpably awesome as the new season of Roseanne. There’s an army of trash-talk about it going on among pundits and on social media, and…
L. Lawrence Weber (1869-1940) was a major entrepreneur of the stage, screen and sports worlds, with a hand in everything going at the time: minstrelsy**, burlesque, vaudeville, legit theatre…
Roseanne Barr is debuting the long awaited season ten of her seminal sitcom tonight and since we semi-coincidentally binge-watched the whole of the original series (1988-1997) over the last …
Somehow Alan Arkin (b.1934) managed to become one of America’s most acclaimed and accomplished actors, with a track record that is positively breathtaking, without (except for a brief …
I musta been daydreamin’! My second book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickleodeons to Youtube turned five years old several days ago and I missed the anniversary…
Happy birthday, Ernest Lee Thomas (born 1949). I celebrate him today for being the star of a sitcom I loved when I was a kid, What’s Happening!! (1975-1979). Culture matters. What&#…
The Stroud Twins, Claude and Clarence with a pair of identical Texas brothers born on March 26, 1907. When they were 19, they developed an acrobatic comedy act for vaudeville and toured the …
Edith Hallor (1896-1971), born today, was the oldest of three theatrical siblings, the younger ones being Ray Hallor and Ethel Hallor,whom we wrote about here. Originally from Washington, D.…
Movie buffs all know that Ed Begley, Jr.s dad, Ed Begley (1901-1970) was an Oscar-winning character actor. The elder Begley’s years prior to his film career might be less well known, b…
Okay, as I only yesterday started a dedicated Houdini section of Travalanche in honor of Houdini’s birthday, and today is Paul Michael Glaser’s birthday it seemed especi…
For Paul Michael Glaser’s birthday, a little tribute to a favorite show of my tweenhood, Starsky and Hutch (1975-1979). S&H was an interesting transitional show, from the gritty re…
Unlike most everybody, I imagine, when I think of Norman Fell (Norman Feld, 1924-1998) my first thought is not of his most famous role, that of the dirty-minded, nosy landlord Mr. Roper on T…
Actually I have more than 15 filmmakers here I think, I just titled this post that for the alliteration. And since some of them aren’t directors per se, perhaps it evens out. The photo…
Lori Williams (b. 1946). We give her the nod today because she is the third member of the head-stompin’ yet curvaceous trio in Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) a…
March 22 is the birthday of Karl Malden (Mladen George Sekulovich, 1922-2009). Malden was a Serbian-Czech steelworker from Gary, Indiana who took classes at the Goodman in Chicago, then came…
Break out the balloons, it’s the birthday of Russ Meyer (1922-2004)! But already we do him an injustice. Meyer is best known, perhaps virtually only known for his obsession with a cert…
Mark Hellinger (1903-1947) had one of the more unusual career trajectories in show business…from newspaper writer to top movie producer. Along the way he touched many of our customary …
Three cheers for one of my favorite western character actors Edgar Buchanan (1903-1979), whose birthday it is. I just did something I have never done before: watched an episode of Petticoat …
A treat for your Sunday, the traditional day of the week when all the comic strips come out in color and stretch their legs for a bit. In my books No Applause and Chain of Fools, I wrote a l…
Legendary ragtime piano player and composer Mike Bernard (Michael Barnet Brown, 1875-1936) was born of a St. Patrick’s Day. Like Ben Harney, who introduced him to ragtime circa 1896, B…
Happy birthday to the late, lamented Jerry Lewis. I wrote an earlier appreciation of the comedy auteur here and I hope to do much more at some point. His work merits a book length exam…
