12,143 stories from Trav S.D.
Back when I began doing biographical posts on this blog over a decade ago, on days when there were multiple subjects who shared a birthday, I'd fold them into a single post a la this one. Af…
Character actor Henry Silva passed away on September 14, just one day shy of his 96th birthday. Upon seeing the name, my immediate reaction was to confuse him with two other character actors…
Happy 70th birthday to Mickey Rourke, perhaps the unlikeliest star I'll ever cop to going ga-ga over, to the extent of even emulating him for two minutes when I was at the appropriate age to…
As I type this on September 16, 2022, stage and screen star Janis Paige (Donna Mae Tjaden) turns 100 years old. The photo above captures her at the mid-point, not just to demonstrate that sh…
I may well have never done a post on this topic, but a tweet from Penelope Ann Miller conveyed the news that her father, actor Mark Miller (1924-2022) just passed away on September 9, and I …
I obviously have a thing for tall Balkan beauties (I married one) so of course I was touched to learn that the world lost another one yesterday, Greek actress Irene Pappas (b. 1926). Pappas …
Word about the passing of artist/photographer/film-maker William Klein (1926-2022) has trickled out slower than that of his colleague and (adopted) countryman Godard. He passed away three da…
Stage and screen actress/comedienne Kay Medford (Margaret Kathleen Regan, 1919-1980) is best known for playing Fanny Brice's mother in the original Broadway production of Funny Girl (1964) a…
An actor may be judged by the roles he has exceled at and in this regard Nicol Williamson (1936-2011) very early ascended to the status of legend. He was Hamlet in Tony Richardson's critical…
We have just learned that Jean-Luc Godard has passed away. The method was assisted suicide and why not? It was, to bastardize the title of one of his movies, "His Life to Live". As it happen…
Edwina Booth (1904-1991) was indeed a movie star " technically " though I'll be very impressed if you've seen her in anything, for her time in the sun was brief. And, as we shall see, it was…
It was 150 years ago today that the Folies Trévise (built 1869), changed its name to the now immortal Folies Bergère. Both handles refer to nearby streets; "folies" of course to the wacky,…
Like Alice Lake, Maurice Chevalier, Ben Blue, H.L. Mencken, Billy Gilbert, Dickie Moore, Cynthia Myers, Nora Lane, Walter B. Gibson, Shep Fields, and Sir Ian Holm, stage and screen actre…
David Angell (1946-2001) and his wife Lynn were among the first victims on September 11. The pair had been vacationing in Cape Cod, and were returning home to Los Angeles via American Airlin…
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the premier of One Terrible Day, the very first short in Hal Roach's Our Gang series, which later became known as the Little Rascals. Why aren't Spanky, …
Robert Wise (1914-2005) is one of those major Hollywood directors who seems rarely mentioned in discussions of "Greats" but when you do an inventory of his body of work, you are astounded to…
A little thing on Truman Virgil "Pinky" Tomlin (1907-1987), a nationally known pop culture figure for decades, who has since swallowed up by the sink hole of history. Born in Arkansas, raise…
…Or 2,000 years ago, depending on your point of view. September 9, 1972 saw the debut of the Hanna-Barbera animated show The Roman Holidays. The title is obvious a play on the 1953 romanti…
Good looks and good luck were to be the portion of actor Neil Hamilton (1899-1984), whose best known credit is likely known to you anyway so let's just save it 'til the end as an aid to real…
There are other photos I might have chosen to illustrate this post on Hillary Brooke (Beatrice Sofia Mathilda Peterson, 1914-1999), but this one nails that same quality of projected superior…
Tom Murray (1874-1935) appeared in fewer than two dozen films, most of them silent comedies, but some of them are so significant that we understate to say that he rates attention here. Murra…
When I see that someone has a surname that I recognize from my family tree I immediately do a bit of research to see if if we're related. Make no mistake; we're all related. That's not just …
The screen career of Kathleen Burke (1913-1980) was short, but notable, especially for lovers of classic horror and mystery. Burke had done some radio and modeling in Chicago when she was pi…
Ventriloquists, much like clowns, feature in horror as well as comedy, for they are not just funny, but more than a little uncanny and strange. Accordingly TCM has programmed an interesting …
I'm with Burt Mustin in that Brady Bunch episode; why the movies ever romanticized a bloody scoundrel like Jesse James (1847-1882) is beyond me. Well, no, it's not beyond me, I understand wh…
