11,925 stories by "Trav S.d."
The great puppeteer/ one-man theatre company Kevin Augustine (Lone Wolf Tribe) has just announced his fundraising campaign for a new season that will include shows at La Mama and Dixon Place…
Filed under: Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Coney Island, The Loose Caboose, Throwdini
Today is the birthday of comedienne Ruth Buzzi (b. 1936). I’ve always felt a special connection to her because she was born in the same hospital as me (Westerly Hospital, Rhode Island)…
Bert Nelson (Cardbert Nelson Snyder) worked with big cats in vaudeville, circuses and films in the 20s and 30s. Nelson learned how to train large carnivores at L.A. area zoological parks lik…
Today is the birthday of Arthur Treacher (1894-1975). We don’t usually bother celebrating fast food magnates on this site, but Treacher does possess some relevance to our usual t…
Today is the birthday of one of the first female tin pan alley songwriters Blanche Merill (Blanche Howard, 1895-1966). Sometimes working with collaborators, Howard wrote special material and…
Opening tonight in the NY Musical Theatre Festival (nymf.org) is  Castle Walk, a new musical about Vernon and Irene Castle. And if you don’t know who the Castles are, shame on yo…
Today is the birthday of Bobby Sherman (b. 1943). Sherman is one of the last of a long line of old school teen heart throbs that goes back in a way to Rudy Vallee, leading through Bing Crosb…
Today is the birthday of the great American realist painter Edward Hopper (1882-1967). I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Hopper painting that I haven’t loved. Â We reviewed …
Today is the birthday of Ernest R. Ball (1878-1927). One of the great songwriters of the tin pan alley era, he was also fortunate in his associations, having co-written “When Irish Eye…
Today we celebrate the birthday of the great film director James Whale (1889-1957). While chiefly known, revered and loved for his gothic horror films (infused with a layer of dark humor and…
Today is the birthday of Gus Elen (Ernest Augustus Elen, 1862-1940), one of the first of the so-called “coster comedians” of the English music hall. A cockney lad himself he had …
Today is the birthday of the great circus impresario John Robinson (1807-1888). Those dates are a matter of controversy (some give as early as 1802) as is the place of his birth a matter of …
Today is the birthday of Jesse Donald Knotts (1924-2006). Our big revelation is contained in the photo above. A West Virginia farm boy, Don Knotts began his performing career as a ventriloqu…
Today is the birthday of the legendary Harry Relph, a.k.a. “Little Tich” (1867-1928), star of English music hall and pantomime, and a much loved guest artist in American vaudevil…
JOE LAURIE, JR. "THE PINT-SIZED COMEDIAN" Remembered today as "the Homer of Vaudeville" because of two important books he wrote on the subject, Laurie is much more important to posterity for…
Today is the birthday of the prototypical American stage Irishman, Chancellor “Chauncey” Olcott (1858-1932). Starting out in minstrel shows, he had moved up to Broadway by the tu…
Elsie St. Leon (1884-1976) was one of the pre-eminent equestriennes of her day, a star of both circus and vaudeville. A third generation member of an Australian circus dynasty formed …
Originally posted in 2010 Harry Kellar's official successor was a man who billed himself simply as "Thurston" (his first name was actually Howard). Like Kellar, he made the leap from reli…
Originally from Hungary, the Spessierts anglicized their name to Spessardy and had a small travelling circus and menagerie, sometimes containing tigers and bears, sometimes (as in American v…
Filed under: African American Interest, Blackface & Minstrelsy, Comedy, Contemporary Variety, Jews/ Show Biz, Music, PLUGS, Singers Tagged: Fried Chicken and Latkes, Rain Pryor, Richard …
On Saturday, July 20th at 2:30, The Silent Clowns Film Series presents: photo courtesy Niles Essanay Film Museum Edward Everett Horton " in " “Helen’s Babies” Persnickety E…
Anthony Slide lists Adgie and Her Trained Lions as one of vaudeville’s top animal acts. The photo above, which demonstrates that part of her act was to do a ballet dance amongst the bi…
Today is the birthday of French painter Edgar Degas (1834-1917), often associated with, but not quite of the impressionists. Over half of the paintings in Degas’s oeuvre de…
Today is the birthday of Johaann Nepomuk Hofzinser (1806-1875), famous as a close-magic sleight of hand man, and inventor of many lasting illusions. A minor functionary in the Austrian-Hunga…
