11,919 stories by "Trav S.d."
We’re very excited back here at Trav S.D. Laboratories about the two talks we have lined up this week, one more connected with my first book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book …
Filed under: Dixieland & Early Jazz, Music, PLUGS Tagged: jazz, Rudy Wiedoeft, saxophone
Today is the birthday of one of my favorite screenwriters, Charles B. Griffith (1930-2007). Almost the entirety of Griffith’s career was spent working for Roger Corman from the mid 195…
Originally posted in 2010 This photo of Mickey Rooney was taken just last week. No, no… Judy Garland's pal from the Andy Hardy movies was also in vaudeville with his vaudevill…
Today is the birthday of Typhoid Mary (Mary Mallon, 1869-1938), the Irish cook who stubbornly plied her trade, eluding authorities and infecting dozens of people with Typhus. A fitting time …
Today is the birthday of Si Jenks (Howard Jenkins, 1878-1970). Jenks clowned for years in both circus and vaudeville (with a brief interlude of service in the Spanish-American war), playing …
In honor of John Houseman’s birthday (see full tribute here). From 1978 to 1986, Houseman reprised his role as the SOB with a secret heart of gold Harvard Law School professor Charles …
Today is the birthday of John Houseman (Jacques Haussman, 1902-1988). Born in Romania to an English/Irish/Welsh mother and an Alstacian-Jewish father (hence that French first name and German…
Today is the birthday of the great silent film comedian Billy West (Roy B. Weissburg, 1892-1975). In the unlikely event that you were wondering, that’s West in the photo above which I …
Today is the birthday of Dave Dreyer (1894-1967). Dreyer was an accompanist in vaudeville, playing for the likes of Al Jolson, Sophie Tucker, Belle Baker and Frank Fay. He wrote or -co-wrote…
According to my excellent reference boo Monarchs of Minstrelsy, from “Daddy” Rice to Date by Edward Roy Le Rice, today is the birthday of one of American show business̵…
Today is the birthday of the awesome character comedian Henry Gibson (James Bateman, 1935-2009). His stage name was a play on that of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. To give you some idea…
Filed under: Contemporary Variety, PLUGS, Singers Tagged: Al Jolson, Don't Tell Mama, Jack Crosley
When I was a kid, my FOURTH favorite movie (after The Wizard of Oz, The Poseidon Adventure and The Ten Commandments, in that order) was the 1953 George Pal version of H.G. Wells’Â Th…
This nice lady has a large stein of delicious beer, and you can too! Much like New York’s German American community itself, the German American Steuben Parade maintains kind …
Today is the birthday of “Captain” Herbert Roman Gustav Proske (1898-1972). Â The child of Viennese aristocrats he ran away from home at age 13 with no other aim than becoming …
Today is the birthday of Maurice Barrymore (Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe (1849-1905). Born a British colonial in India, he chose the theatre as a career against his family’s wish…
Today is the 75th birthday of one of the worst natural disasters ever to hit the United States, the Great Hurricane of 1938. Because Ground Zero for the destruction was my home state of Rhod…
John Bunny was America's first comedy star, and the first in that long line of beloved comedy fat men, a lineage that would include Rosco "Fatty" Arbuckle, Oliver Hardy, Jackie Glea…
I’ve kicked myself many a time over the past decade and a half (not daily, but more than once) for having missed Assurbanipal Babilla’s monologue Something Something Uber Alle…
Today is the birthday of the great comedy writer and directer Clyde Bruckman (1894-1955). For many years, Bruckman seemed to have almost a charmed career. After having only contributed to a …
Originally published in 2012 Today is the birthday of the great actress/comedienne Anne Meara, best known as the female/ Irish/ tall half of Stiller and Meara. Stiller and Meara were p…
Today is the birthday of the great Broadway showman John Murray Anderson (1886-1954). Anderson was a kind of Renaissance man of theatre and film: dancer, director, producer, designer writer,…
Today is the national release day of Shane Salerno’s new documentary about J.D. Salinger (he also released a related book ). This is a fitting time to recall (and thanks…
Today is the birthday songwriter Roy Turk (1892-1934). He started out in vaudeville writing special material for the likes of Nora Bayes, Sophie Tucker and the team of Rock and White. Among …
