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Please Support Travalanche — Some OTHER Day
Giving Tuesday — what a dumb idea! To have every charity in the country beg for money all at the same time! I’d be interested to know if it actually works. I should think you’d have LESS success with...
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The Many Incarnations of Jimmy Jewel
OMG, in the UK they give plaques for “Comic Heritage”? What a civilized nation! December 4 was the birthday of British comedian and actor Jimmy Jewel (1909-1995). The name is virtually unknown in...
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100 Years Ago: The Premiere of Von Stroheim’s “Greed”
The title of this post has given me no end of agida. After all, it wasn’t precisely VON STROHEIM’S Greed which premiered on December 4, 1924. HIS version was over 8 hours long. The version that was...
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Virginia Lee Corbin: The Dresden Doll of the Movies
Virginia Lee Corbin (1910-1942) became a movie star twice, and was getting her toe wet in movies yet a third time when she died tragically young of TB at age 32. Corbin was the daughter of a Precott,...
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Cutting Up Custer (Pop Culture Takes on a Controversial Cavalryman)
Having just done a post on his battlefield opponent Sitting Bull, and this year marking the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book My Life on the Plains (1874), we thought this might be the...
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150 Years Ago Today: The Birth of Leo Sulky
There were at least a half dozen other people I might have written about today. I keep a daily tickler, and today’s entry contained several folks I haven’t written about, nearly all of whose names...
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World War 2 on Broadcast TV
By my headline, I don’t mean television programming during World War Two, though believe it or not there was such a thing. The major combatants all had some version of TV up and running during the...
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R.I.P. Paul Maslansky, The Mind Behind the “Police Academy” Films
We’ve just learned from the Herald of Quietus Eve Golden that film producer Paul Maslansky has passed (1933-2024). The Maslankian oeuvre is a motley one; but in light of the fact that his most...
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Goodnight, Irene: The Life, Death, and Previous Career of the Famous...
Irene Lentz (1901-1962), often known professionally simply as “Irene”, or later sometimes “Irene Gibbons” after her second marriage, has over 200 screen credits as a Hollywood costume designer and...
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The Moralizing Melodrama of Milton
We have just passed the 350th anniversary of the passing John Milton (1608-1674). Milton died on my birthday (November 8), a nugget I intend to dine out on going forward, as is the fact that Milton...
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A Counter-Spell for “A Cursed Man”
What a delightful coincidence! Liam Le Guillou’s new documentary A Cursed Man opened yesterday at the Regal Union Square and the film begins with a quote from Milton (whom we just blogged about, for...
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The George MacDonald Bicentennial
This post on Scottish author and clergyman George MacDonald (1824-1905) may be a Travalanche first: a post about an artist whose work I don’t know at all. We take the risk on account of the...
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On Some Notable Passings, and Some Resurrections
We got a triple whammy of death notices yesterday. Typically when we learn of a death and we’ve already written about the subject, rather than penning a new obit I’ll go ahead and share the existing...
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The Elusive Evelyn Sherman
I’d like to have more to tell about character actress Evelyn Sherman (Eva Mae Spear, 1882-1974), but I consider that what is known is of sufficient interest to rate a post here. Sherman was from a...
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A Frank Sinatra Finding Aid
I’m pretty sure I’ll never undertake a single comprehensive post about Francis Albert Sinatra (1915-1998). The idea of writing a piece that includes all of his hit songs and all of his movies and all...
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The Legendary Lou Adler
It’s been a joy assembling all the various pieces of the multipartite career of producer Lou Adler (b. 1933) who managed to remain on the leading edge of pop culture for a quarter of a century. His...
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For National Day of the Horse: Eight Western Wonder Horses
In celebration of National Day of the Horse, we add to our existing store of equine related posts with this little gallery of top eight horse stars of the days of silents, serials, and kid oriented TV...
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For Monkey Day: On the History of Performing Monkeys
December 14 has been designated Monkey Day, and who am I to argue? By now I have done many designated posts on various animals, mostly ones known to have performed in circuses and vaudeville, or ones...
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John Augustus Stone: The Man Who Gave Us Metamora
The date December 15 has a dual significance; it was the birthday of actor and playwright John Augustus Stone (1801-34) and it was also the date of the premiere of his best known play by far,...
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Young Frankenstein Turns 50
December 15, 1974 was the release date of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein. Very often, I cite Young Frankenstein as my favorite Mel Brooks comedy, but I actually have three, because Brooks has made...
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