11,841 stories by "Trav S.d."
A somewhat unusual case to contemplate today: a father and son, both of whom made well-known, well-respected and popular movies in two countries: France and America. Maurice Tourneur (Mauric…
It's quite true, although it must be pointed out that there have been three generations of Drs Bronner since the mid 20th century, and many generations of soap-making Heilbronners before tha…
Bill Mumy (Charles William Mumy Jr, b. 1954) turns 70 years old today. For someone who has nearly 100 screen credits accumulated over nearly half a century, and has distinguished himself in …
More than once here have we pointed out the real true fact the many theatrical forms that owe their origins all or in part to France: melodrama, farce, vaudeville, burlesque, revues, even th…
Oh, there's no "dirt" on Tammy Grimes, per se, only information. it's just wordplay and a shameless headline. Grimes (1934-2016) was an actress/performer whose legend was primarily in the th…
We've long since passed 100 posts on the topic of William Claude Dukenfeld, a.k.a. W.C. Fields (1880-1946) on this blog and so we thought we'd mark his birthday (January 29) with this new ha…
Yes! Google it and you will find many published books and articles with titles much like this post! I even dropped his name with reference to the many uses of the word vaudeville in my book …
If I were any kind of a guy, I'd plug every single episode of the Marx Brothers Council Podcast as they drop, but the naked truth is, I can't keep up. It's the only podcast I listen to, but …
January 27 was the birthday of stage star Benay Venuta (Benvenuta Rose Crooke, 1910-1995). Old time movie fans will probably know her best from the movie musicals Annie Get Your Gun (1950, a…
It's Australia Day, and I've already done my big Australia omnibus post, so this year I thought I would do a short piece that flows very naturally out of my recent ones on Martin Sharp and t…
January 25 is National Florida Day. Two of my brothers have retired to the Sunshine State, and they keep inviting me to come down for a visit, which I have half a plan to do. The origin of t…
I'm not sure why I never thought to scratch beneath the surface of the career of classic Hollywood director Henry King (1886-1982) before, as I love several of his films. But I'm glad I did …
January 23 is the birthday of Chita Rivera (Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero Anderson, b. 1933). I'll risk getting New Yorkers' backs up by being overexplainy about who she is, for her l…
Norman Jewison (b. 1926) has passed away at the age of 97 and so we thought it incumbent upon us to toss in a few words of eulogy, if not ululation. He's been retired for 20 years, being on …
I've long wanted to do a piece on Malcolm McLaren (1946-2010) that posited him in the impresario tradition of Colonel Tom Parker, Brian Epstein, Andrew Loog Oldham, and others. This year mar…
Happy 80th birthday to Shelley Fabares (Michele Ann Marie Fabares, b. 1944). For reasons of age (youth for once) my fandom for this star of film, television and the recording arts went backw…
Martin Sharp (1942-2013) is now my favorite Australian, by a distance of about 17,000 miles. Sharp was kind of a psychedelic Renaissance man; I'd heard about him in one context, then another…
The long life of Sid Raymond (Raymond Silverstein, 1909-2006) brought old time show biz awfully close to our time. In his early years, Raymond had worked as a tummler in Catskills resort hot…
January 20 is David Lynch's birthday. To date, our only dedicated post on this great director focused on The Elephant Man (1980), for the obvious reason that our jumping off point with the b…
Quite coincidentally, three slim and tasteful tomes have made their way to my mailbox (the real one, not the virtual) within the space of a week, so I thought it made sense to bundle them to…
This one goes out to friend Bob Berger, who told me not long ago that he was the great-nephew of the famous star of New York's Yiddish Theatre scene, Seymour Rexite (Shayele Rechtzeit, 19…
Benjamin West's 1816 portrait of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) is misleading in one significant way beyond the fact that we can assume that Ben's experiments were not guided by cherubim. He …
The British-Canadian poet Robert W. Service (1874-1958) was born this day 150 years ago. I'm quite certain I posted on him here many years ago, but later trashed it in a one-time frenzy a wh…
Born 100 years ago today, the multi-talented voice-over actor, children's entertainer and three or four other things, Allen Swift (Ira Stadlen, 1924-2010). The name may not ring an immediate…
Back in the late 20th century, though there were more important things to worry about, I was nonetheless dismissive of Liz Taylor's designation of Michael Jackson as "King of Pop", for the m…
