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The Endeavors of Edna Murphy
Some brief acknowledgement this morning of the career of silent and early talking film actress Edna Muphy (1899-1974). This fetching colleen started her life in New York City. Work as a model led to...
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Truly Unruly, Jack Lescoulie
I count it as a measure of how quickly show business will bury you that though I was born around the time Jack Lescoulie (1912-1987) was drifting out of network television, I never heard of him — at...
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The Howards of Hollywood
The title of this post is of course a play on The Howards of Virginia (1940) See how clever? They radiate about as much Americana as the fictional Virginians in that Cary Grant movie. Though, in their...
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Lee Strasberg Reconsidered
“Look! I can pretend I’m writing without looking at the paper!” Never having met the man, I have never been quite certain why the very idea of Lee Strasberg (1901-1982) has always filled me with knee...
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On Native American Clowns
November is Native American History Month; next year (2025) will mark the 350th anniversary of King Phillip’s War, the beginning of the end for the native people as the dominant polity on this...
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Pile-Up on Tobacco Road
November is Native American History Month; next year (2025) will mark the 350th anniversary of King Phillip’s War, the beginning of the end for the native people as the dominant polity on this...
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Accentuating Johnny Mercer
How so major a show biz figure as Johnny Mercer (1909-1976) has escaped our attention here on Travalanche ’til now is a head-scratcher (I think it’s because he was essentially a post-vaudeville...
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The Curse of Clawson
November is Native American History Month; next year (2025) will mark the 350th anniversary of King Phillip’s War, the beginning of the end for the native people as the dominant polity on this...
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Larry King: A Good Face for Radio
Broadcast legend Larry King (Lawrence Zeiger, 1933-2021) passed away so recently that this post can almost serve as an obituary. We lost him during the Covid pandemic, though at age 87, as in so many...
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For Fifth Avenue’s 200th Birthday: On the Misnamed Fifth Avenue Theatre
Hungry I guess for any kind of positive story to tell, local press in New York is trumpeting the news that Fifth Avenue has now reached its bicentennial as one of the city’s main thoroughfares...
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For World Children’s Day: “The Lost Children”
November is Native American History Month; next year (2025) will mark the 350th anniversary of King Phillip’s War, the beginning of the end for the native people as the dominant polity on this...
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Sitting Bull and the Show Business
November is Native American History Month; next year (2025) will mark the 350th anniversary of King Phillip’s War, the beginning of the end for the native people as the dominant polity on this...
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Come See Me in a Movie of a Play of What Some Say was a Charade Tomorrow Night!
From late 2018 through late 2019 I had the honor of performing in Jason Trachtenburg’s Lee Harvey Oswald musical Me and Lee at a bevy of off-off locations throughout NYC, including Sidewalks, Dixon...
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The Geraldine Page Centennial
Today would have been the 100th birthday of the great stage and screen actress Geraldine Page (1924-1987). This is the second of a projected trio of pieces I’m doing the mark the occasion. The first...
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I Will Fight No More Forever: The Story of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce
November is Native American History Month; next year (2025) will mark the 350th anniversary of King Phillip’s War, the beginning of the end for the native people as the dominant polity on this...
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Redbone: Come and Get Your Love
November is Native American History Month; next year (2025) will mark the 350th anniversary of King Phillip’s War, the beginning of the end for the native people as the dominant polity on this...
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Harpo Marx on Television
November 23 was the birthday of the great clown Harpo Marx (1888-1964). Harpo’s gotten a lot of coverage here in the past, in my main post on him, on a movie he made without his brothers, on his wife...
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The Eileen Barton Centennial
Born 100 years ago today: singer and radio/tv personality Eileen Barton (1924-2006) Barton was a second generation vaudevillian, reported to have joined her parents act at age 2 1/2. Her parents Benny...
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Charlie Hill: Pathbreaking Native American Comedian
November is Native American History Month; next year (2025) will mark the 350th anniversary of King Phillip’s War, the beginning of the end for the native people as the dominant polity on this...
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Candy Darling Would Be 80 Today
Until quite recently, Candy Darling (1944-1974) was the most beautiful male-to-female trans person most people had ever seen. She wasn’t just gorgeous, but she possessed a studied, graceful femininity...
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