11,881 stories by "Trav S.d."
August 28 is the birthday of the late Dixie Evans (Mary Lee Evans, 1926-2013). Originally from Long Beach California, Evans was already successful as a model, chorus girl, and burlesque star…
Today marks the 100 year anniversary of the release of Chumps and Chances, the first comedy short starring Larry Semon. Semon had been directing and otherwise contributing to comedies for at…
I was born in the 1960s. Around here, nostalgia doesn’t mean vaudeville, it means old television shows from the 1970s. Except when THAT turns out to be vaudeville. The other day we wen…
Filed under: Indie Theatre, PLUGS Tagged: Dream Up Festival, Theater for the New City
Happy Birthday, Valerie Harper, born this day in 1939. The most surprising thing one learns about Harper, given her long association with Jewish characters, is that she is not Jewish. She…
It’s Senior Citizens Day, a fitting time I think to briefly examine a peculiar phenomenon I have long observed: the longevity of comedians. Something about being in the laugh business …
We are at an interesting historical moment. Baby Boomers, a generation which once pegged its identity to youth, are now Senior Citizens. But it’s become difficult to know what age mean…
Because we like to swim in dangerous waters, we thought we’d ruin your Sunday by dashing off a quick listicle ranking the top ten male classic movie comedy teams of the sound era. By &…
I marked this on my calendar to write about today: 30 years ago (yesterday and today) there occurred a curious alignment of stars and planets that New Age people called “the Harmonic C…
Today is National Roller Coaster Day! It’s not nearly enough well known that Coney Island was the birthplace of the roller coaster, forgotten mostly because Coney Island amusement p…
This post was originally intended for Alfred Hitchcock’s birthday, but since it’s not actually about the Master of Suspense himself but only some of his imitators, any old day…
For Bob Woolsey’s birthday, we consolidate all of our previous posts on the films of the comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey into one big monster post. Looked at all at once, RKO&…
This is unusual post for is. It’s designed to be a kind of appendix to the talk I am giving at the Coney Island Museum today, Coney Island and the Movies. But if you weren’t at t…
I have a friend — a female friend — who never talks about Norma Shearer (1902-1983) without talking about how ugly and unappealing she finds her. I suppose my friend looks at her…
This weekend is the National Hobo Convention in Britt, Iowa. I have always been partial both to the hobo ethic itself (I’ve been working on an essay about that very thing for a while n…
August 11, 1892 was the birthday of Florence Courtney (Florence Grismer). With her sister Fay, she was one half of the vaudeville singing duo The Courtney Sisters. Joe Laurie, Jr. called the…
Jane Pickens (1908-1992) of the Pickens Sisters was born on this day. She’s chiefly on my radar because I’ve lived and recreated in Newport, Rhode island, where she was a longtim…
Having re-posted last year’s piece about “When Classic Comedy Died” yesterday and having gotten some of the usual expected chagrined replies, I offer this long-germinating …
R.I.P. Glen Campbell, who passed away today at the age of 81, and let me tell you something, that ages ME, because well do I remember our family gathered to watch The Glen Campbell Goodti…
Sylvia Sidney (Sophia Kosow, 1910-1999) was born on this day. I’m an enormous fan of this Hollywood screen actress in all her phases (which we’ll describe), but first, her surpri…
Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was a virus, a pseudo-living entity concerned primarily with self-replication and whose effect could be toxic, occasionally even fatal. Speculation that he was of ali…
Billie Hayes was born on August 5, 1932. I am precisely the correct age to be one of the WitchiePoo generation. I was four years old when Sid and Marty Krofft’s H.R. Pufnstuf originall…
The great character actor Henry Jones (1912-1999) was born on this day. Jones’ laconic manner made him perfect for rural types, though he was from Philadelphia and the grandson of a Co…
Like almost everybody, I imagine I first knew Sam Shepard as a movie star. My friends and I, as young men of 18, 19, were crazy about The Right Stuff (1983) — we must have watched it 1…
It’s true to say I think that Clara Bow (1905-1965) is one those classic early stars whom much larger numbers of people love for backstory and offscreen life and image than know her ac…
