12,223 stories from Trav S.D.
5:00pm (EST): Little Murders Today is Alan Arkin day on TCM, and as everyone I’ve ever met agrees, Alan Arkin is one of our great comic actors, and has quietly, diligently maintaine…
Wow, I can’t believe I’ve let my “Forgotten Shows” series languish for nine months! Just plum forgot about it. But I’ve wanted to do a post on The Great Grap…
Opera soprano Emma Trentini (1878-1959) was brought to the United States from her native Italy in 1906 by Oscar Hamnerstein to appear at his Manhattan Opera House. She soon began appearing a…
For someone so legendary in his own time, tantalizingly little information is readily available about Joe “Banjo” Roberts. (If anyone out there has more information than we have …
Orville Harrold (1878-1933) was a rare singer in that he had extensive credits in opera, operetta, musical theatre and vauideville (i.e. moving freely up and down between “high” …
Filed under: Contemporary Variety, PLUGS, SOCIAL EVENTS Tagged: benefit, Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, gala, Hovey Burgess
A brief shout-out for Brent Monahan’s 1997 novel The Bell Witch: An American Haunting which mysteriously appeared at the foot of my bed a few days ago. I guess I’m giving out …
Today is the birthday of frequent Laurel and Hardy comedy foil Charlie Hall (1899-1959) A native of Birmingham, England, Hall was trained as a carpenter (his father’s trade) and also l…
We watched Gone with the Wind on TCM last night and into this morning. This is the fifth time I’ve seen the movie, I think. The first time was on its first network television bro…
This post grew out of my conviction that the prevailing trope of there being a “Big Three” or a “Big Four” among silent film comedians is a false portrait of reality,…
Mae West was a pro — she had been in show business for several decades. In fact, it would be technically accurate to say that she had been a professional actress and performer s…
In continuing celebration of Mae West’s birthday….a little post about a historical event which occurred on December 12, 1937. That is the date on which Mae appeared on The Cha…
Here’s a little tidbit that should be known not only to every classic comedy fan — but to every soul, living or dead who has ever spent time on planet earth. For God’s Sake…
Continuing with our series of posts honoring Mae West in celebration of her birthday, herewith is my entirely subjective ranking of her films. As with the Marx Brothers, her output was far t…
For over 80 years, Mae West has ruled the screen, as one of the pantheon of so-called “classic comedians”, as one of the top female comedians of all time, and as a boundary break…
 My first paid acting job was in a production of an educational history play about the migration of settlers from Connecticut to the Western Reserve of Ohio in the early 19th century. It…
As readers of this blog know, an area of especial interest to us is the connection between the ancient art of theatre (with all its myriad manifestations…(clowning, high melodrama, vau…
Today is the birthday of that key member of the Algonquin Round Table Edna Ferber (1885-1968). Like many popular American writers, Ferber wasn’t so much any kind of literary geni…
Today is the birthday of Mary Nash (Mary Ryan, 1884-1976). Her stage name comes from her stepfather Philip F. Nash, an important vaudeville booker for F.F. Proctor, B.F. Keith and the Uni…
Today is the birthday of Emma Calve (Emma Rosa Calvet, 1858-1942). Calve, a soprano, was the most famous French opera singer of the Belle Epoque. Originally from Aveyro, she studied in Franc…
So much for labor saving! One of the happy benefits of having written a popular book (and now a popular blog) is that I have accrued pen pals all over this great land of ours. Hudson Valley …
Today is the birthday of Bill Wolfe (1894-1975) that cadaverous looking scarecrow whom W.C. Fields used to stick in a lot of his movies. In the accepted vaudevillian fashion, Fields loved us…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Charlie Chaplin comedy Recreation (1914). Though amusing in spots, it’s one of Chaplin’s less distinctive efforts, b…
All day tomorrow, as part of their Summer Under the Stars series, Turner Classic Movies will be screening films starring Groucho Marx, with and without his equally famous brothers. It’…
I came across the names of African American comedy team Moss and Fry (i.e., Arthur G. Moss and Edward Frye), a.k.a. “A Couple of Blackbirds” in the terrific book The Palace…
