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Sal Mineo: The Ironic End of “The Switchblade Kid”
Our salute to Sal Mineo (1939-1976) contains what may amount to revelations to some. He departed this life during a lull in his career that I feel confident would not have been permanent. But since it...
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George Houston: The Lone Rider
Today’s homily (an occasional one here) concerns the truth that Hollywood is not necessarily the be-all and end-all for all performers. Case in point: singer-actor George Houston (1896-1944). New...
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Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire (A Tale of Murder and Arson at Luna Park)
The title of this post is a little bit of a “gotcha” for Coney Island fans. The fact is, Coney Island’s Luna Park was so culturally influential that scores of amusement parks all over the world...
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50 Years Ago: My First Amusement Park
A gent named Mark Thompson took the color pix I share below; I borrowed them from his spread on the RI Memories website, which I feel okay doing since I also link you to the full page here. His...
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Jack McGowan: Of Broadway and “Broadway Melody”
A post this morning on an important but forgotten figure from vaudeville, Broadway and Hollywood history Jack McGowan (John Wesley McGowan, 1894-1977) While I’ve long known about some of the shows and...
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R.I.P. David J. Skal
I’m very sorry to hear of the passing away of author David J. Skal (1952-2024). When I signed with FSG to write my first book, one of the first things my visionary editor Denise Oswald did was hand me...
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The Journey of Julia Louis-Dreyfus
January 13 is the birthday of the great Julia Louis-Dreyfus (b. 1961). JLD has been a star now over 40 years, which is particularly painful for me to say because I’m only four years younger than she!...
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The Guy Williams Centennial
Born 100 years ago today: actor Guy Williams (Armando Joseph Catalano, 1924-1989) Our previous excuse for a post about Guy Williams was pretty much all about Lost in Space, so I thought today I’d fill...
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R.I.P. Joyce Randolph
Just got the bulletin about the passing away yesterday of Joyce Randolph (Joyce Serola, b. 1924), best known as the actress who played Trixie on The Honeymooners, both as a series of sketches on The...
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Henry Burr: The First King of Pop
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 multiple...
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The Allen Swift Centennial
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 bell, but...
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Born 150 Years Ago Today: Robert W. Service, Bard of the Yukon
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 while back...
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Benjamin Franklin: Father of American Culture
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 was a much...
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Seymour Rexite: The Wonder Boy
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, 1914-2002). Bob...
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Three Great Books for Show Biz Lovers
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 together...
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An Incomplete Appreciation of David Lynch
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 blog was...
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Happy 80th Birthday, Shelley Fabares!
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 backwards — I...
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Sid Raymond: Catskills and Katnip
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 hotels, and...
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Martin Sharp: Wizard of the Other Oz
Martin Sharp (1942-2013) is now my favorite Australian, with the obvious exception of my daughter-in-law. Sharp was kind of a psychedelic Renaissance man; I’d heard about him in one context, then...
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Malcolm McLaren, The Sex Pistols, and The Great Rock and Roll Swindle
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 marks a half...
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