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The Block Island Sound: Horror On My Home Turf
And now, since it’s both National Rhode Island Day as well as the Halloween season, news of a spooky film set on a small island in the smallest state. I caught The Block Island Sound (2021) on Netflix...
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Tales of Spooky Rhode Island
Previously posted on Travalachanche and restored for National Rhode Island Day and the Halloween season. Today we continue our series of Rhode Island Day/ Halloween posts by relating some dead...
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I Come from Rhode Island
Yes, yes, I know the title sounds like a Michael Feinstein song (people are forever explaining my own damn jokes and literary devices back to me, as though the very productions of my own mind had...
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The Magic of Mitchell Leisen
The second act of Mitchell Leisen (1898-1972) has arrived posthumously, but to misappropriate an attrocious line of Robin Williams, beter latent than never? Numerous in-depth articles about Leisen...
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The Tragedy of Alfredo Codona
October 7 was the birthday of Alfredo Codona (1893-1937), the most celebrated (and later mourned) member of an international, multi-generational dynasty of showfolk. Originally spelled Codoni, the...
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I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill
October 7 will always be remembered for the atrocity that happened in Israel a year ago, but it has another humanitarian significance as well, for it was the birthday of legendary labor activist and...
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Kirk Alyn: The Cinema’s First Superman
Today, a salute to an actor whose career is an illustration of the vagaries of fate when it comes to the breaks it dispenses to actors, Kirk Alyn (John Feggo, Jr., 1910-1999). A New Jersey native,...
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Happy Birthday, Rona Barrett
Well, I’ve written about many of the classic, old time gossip columnists here (Walter Winchell, Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, Earl Wilson, Dorothy Kilgallen, etc) so why stop at the later ones? So...
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The Americanization of Edward Bok, or, For God’s Sake, Swim Against the...
Above please note my first edition copy of a Pultitzer Prize winning autobiography from around a century ago The Americanization of Edward Bok. I acquired and read this now highly obscure book for the...
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Judy Tyler: The Girl James Dean
Here’s one I learned about by way of Eve Golden’s “Youtube Theatre” column at the Los Angeles Daily Mirror. When I refer to Judy Tyler (Judith Mae Hess, 1932-1957) as the “Girl James Dean“, I...
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The Ed Wood Centennial
Born 100 years ago today, the one and only writer/actor/producer/director Edward D. Wood, Jr! We are a huge fan of his oeuvre, and have been for well over 30 years. (As it happens, it is also the 30th...
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An experiment in media in honor of the birthday of the great actress Helen Hayes in further exploration of the legacy of her friend and “Boswell”, Mari Lyn Henry. The audio in the video above is not...
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What a Piece of Work Was Alice Mann
My word but there were a lot of Alices running around a century and more ago! I’ve always been interested in the phenomenon because it was my mother’s middle name, after her aunt, who herself was...
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Mourning Steve Gordon (Director of “Arthur”)
When I say I mourn Steve Gordon (1938-1982) I don’t mean to imply that I knew him or that he only recently died. The writer/director passed away over 40 years ago, worlds away from my little New...
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Honoring Eleanor Roosevelt
How perfect is it that the International Day of the Girl Child falls on the birthday Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)? She’s one of my top female heroes; we’ve needed her or someone like her for decades,...
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The Randy Stuart Centennial
Born 100 years ago today, actress Randy Stuart (Elizabeth “Betty Jane” Shaubell, 1924-1996). Stuart started out with her parents in a small time vaudeville act that toured the South and Midwest, with...
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Reflections on National Farmers Day
Me in my vegetable patch, circa age 8 It’s National Farmers Day. For the occasion, I am restoring a post I published here in 2017, then moved over to Medium when I did a big purge of all the non-show...
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The Joyous Genius of Jack McGowran
Jack MacGowran (1918-1973) was what it’s all about: a muse for many of the best creative minds of the 20th century, an indispensible character actor, and a career most of us would die for, with major...
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On Columbus, His Day, and His People
Originally posted on my other blog the Trav-a-log, the contents of which I am in the process of transplanting here, so that it will all live in one place! In 1492 most well educated people in Europe,...
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The Italians in Show Biz
That’s Jimmy Durante — of course, I’m going to give him pride of place among Italian Americans in show business. He’s kind of the “Adam” of it all, a musician, a singer, a comedian, an actor, an all...
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