11,881 stories by "Trav S.d."
There is little to tell about actress and performer Kathryn Perry (1897-1983) aside from her credits, but she is notable in being one of the few whose life embraced both of those great Jazz …
It’s National Bird Day again! We thought we’d add to the post we’ve already done on bird acts with a special tribute to burlesque star Rosita Royce (Marjorie Rose Corrin…
No doubt in my mind that Richard Stahl (1932-2006) has many fans, despite the fact that most of them probably don’t know his name. His bald dome and dry, midwestern drawl enlivened man…
Sterling Holloway (1905-1992) was born on this day. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I first knew this amazing performer as a voice — the highly distinctive voice …
This one is a work-in-progress, and yet I suspect it is a fuller portrait than is elsewhere available of stage and screen performer/ producer/ teacher Sammy Burns. Notably, I lack the …
New Years Day was the birthday of one of the 20th century’s greatest circus clowns, Lou Jacobs (Johann Ludwig Jacob, 1903-1992). Jacobs’ influence on the form is incalculable; he…
Xavier Cugat (Francisco de Asis Javier Cugat) was one of the first people born in the 20th century — January 1, 1900 (making it very easy to calculate what was going in his life in rel…
Matthew “Stymie” Beard of Our Gang/ Little Rascals fame was born on the first day of 1925. Born in Los Angeles into a religious family (his father was a preacher) Beard was alrea…
Frederic “Fred” Hallen (1859-1920) was a popular vaudeville entertainer, who always worked as one half of a team. He had rather a succession of them. In Forty Years Observation o…
A fascinating figure was born on this day. Georgette Harvey (1882-1952) was principally a stage performer, although I first became aware of her from the 1934 voodoo movie Chloe, Love is Call…
Year’s end is a perfect time for stock taking, and as I often like to do, I made a little tally of the readers’ top ten favorite subjects on Travalanche. I pulled out some anomal…
On December 30, 1903 there occurred the worst disaster in theatre history, and the largest single building fire in American history, Chicago’s Iroquois Theatre Fire. The Iroquois had o…
Mary Alice Rice (1910-1989) came into the world on December 30. Originally from Temple, Texas, Rice was a trained soprano, and once called “one of the ten most beautiful women on the A…
Well, Good Riddance to 2017! If you’re all like me, you got the wind knocked out of you on November 8, 2016, sending you spinning in unanticipated directions, like in the iconic Coney …
Born December 29, Claire Dodd (Dorothy Dodd, 1908-1973). Born in Iowa, raised in Arkansas, it was often given out that she’d gotten her start in the Ziegfeld Follies, although there is…
Charles “Slim” Timblin was known for a single signature bit in vaudeville, a comedy monologue he did in blackface** as an African American preacher. He does the bit in the 1930 V…
I made an exciting discovery the other day; I stumbled upon a Jazz Age Broadway Chorus Girl to whom I am distantly related. Her name was Helen Herendeen. I have tantalizing fragments, and am…
Ingenue Mary Kornman (1915-1973) was born December 27. Like many of the earliest kids hired for Hal Roach’s Our Gang series of comedy film shorts, Mary was initially hired because she …
Art Deco era visual artist Russell Patterson was born the day after Christmas, 1893. Patterson had a hand in practically every kind of influential visual expression in popular culture from t…
On Christmas Day, 1977, the 88 year old Charlie Chaplin skidded around his last corner. W.C. Fields had also died on Christmas. Sometimes it is Krampus and not Santa who visits us on that da…
Born Christmas Day: dancing harp player Carlena Diamond (1900-1992). She is best remembered today for her 1929 Vitaphone short Carlena Diamond, Harpist Supreme, in which she plays her harp, …
Christmas Day was the birthday of singer and actress Frances McCoy (Franya Popowsky, 1910-1976) Born in Poland, she moved with her family to the Bronx when a young child. The family’s …
December 23 is the birthday of little person performer George Brasno (1911-1982). George started out in a vaudeville act singing and dancing with his sister Olive (also a little person), and…
Apropos of nothing except I saw a common thread of bizarreness in their work, herewith a listicle (in no particular order) of a dozen strange and eccentric comedians, one note weirdos who ma…
Happy birthday Barry Gordon! And how perfect that his birthday falls during the Holiday season, for his first claim to fame was singing the 1955 hit song “Nuttin’ for Christmas&#…
