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Rehabilitating U.S. Grant

I’ve just realized a long-standing goal by reading the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885). I’ve wanted to do that since reading about them in Mark Twain’s own memoirs many decades ago. Twain had bailed out the ailing ex-President when he was on his death bed by agreeing to edit and publish his autobiography, helping provide for his family after he was gone. Grant’s wife and children were…

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#depictions #Movies #Television #Ulysses S. Grant

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Me and the "Miscellany" on the Marx Brothers Council Podcast!

Some 50 episodes after my last appearance (Look at Chicolini), I had the good fortune this week to return as a guest on the Marx Brothers Council Podcast to talk about my new book The Marx Brothers Miscellany and the upcoming Marxfest. Your correspondent had the best time chatting with Matthew Coniam and Noah Diamond (and Bob Gassel, who is now The Man Behind the Curtain, though just as involved…

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#68 #book #Council #Marx Brothers #Miscellany #podcast

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Renate Müller: The Original Viktor/Viktoria

Synchronicitously, I learned about Renate Müller (1906-1937) from two trusted sources within days of each other a few months back. One was Eve Golden, who wrote terrific articles about the Weimar/Nazi Era German movie star here and here for the L.A. Daily Mirror. The other was my wife, who was watching Müller’s best known film, the original version of Viktor und Viktoria (1933) on the Criterion…

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#actress #German #Movies #murder #Nazis #Renate Müller #Renate Muller #star #suicide #Victor/Victoria #Viktor und Viktoria

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Edward R. Murrow: Person to Person

As we wrote in our recent send-off to Robert McNeil, hard journalists are generally outside of our biographical wheelhouse on Travalanche. But celebrity journalism is a horse of a different color. We’ve certainly written about a dozen or two newspaper columnists and critics from back in the day, and the occasional character from the TV news divisions, such as Barbara Walters or Dave Garroway,…

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#broadcast #CBS #celebrity #Edward R. Murrow #journalist #Person to Person #See it Now #Show #Television

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Robert Penn Warren and "All the King's Men"

The 20th century produced so many great Southern chroniclers of crackerdom (William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Tennessee Williams, Harper Lee and childhood friend Truman Capote, James Agee, Katharine Ann Porter, Flannery O’Connor) you will perhaps forgive me for placing Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) at the back of the pack, near the likes of Margaret Mitchell and Erskine Caldwell. I remind you that…

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#All the King&039;s Men #author #book #Huey Long #movie #play #politician #Robert Penn Warren #Trinity Rep #Willy Stark

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Auditions Begin Today for a New Variety Show in Astoria

With late April and all of May clogged with events, your correspondent has been hard at work trying to get some events on the calendar for June. A couple of new book talks are in the works, but meantime, something else just fell into my lap, and I thought I’d announce it today for the benefit of readers who are variety performers. Auditions begin at 5pm today at the Hellenic Cultural Center in…

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#Astoria #audition #Cultural Center #Hellenic #Queens #variety show #vaudeville

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For World Book Day: My New One on the Marx Brothers

For obvious reasons, I was going to wait and launch promotion of my newest book at Marxfest next month, but, like a thief in the night, sales have already begun online, and today being World Book Day it seemed an appropriate time to inform the world (and also we’ll be giving away some free copies to lucky winners at Surf Coney Island this Saturday). The Marx Brothers Miscellany: A Subjective…

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#Bearmanor #book #Marx Brothers #Miscellany #Trav s.d.

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This Day in 1896: Movies Crash Vaudeville

April 23, 1896 was a pivotal date in the histories of both live vaudeville and cinematic exhibition. On that day, Koster and Bial’s Music Hall topped off their presentation of six variety acts with six short projected films by the Edison Company. As we wrote here a few days ago, movies had been introduced in New York two years earlier in the form of self-serve kinetoscope machines. These were…

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#cinema #Edison #film #Koster & Bial #Koster and Bial #Movies #projected #vaudeville #Vitascope

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60 Years Ago Today: The Opening of the 1964 New York World's Fair

Like the man says — that anniversary is today! And I’d love to share a little article about it here with you…but for the fact that I’m presenting a talk on that very topic this Sunday April 28, at 3pm. I hope you will attend, because (as I mentioned in my video) we’ll have a panel of three special guests who attended the fair, all of whom are our kind of show biz folk. They are: David Adamovich,…

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#1964 #1965 #64 #65 #Flushing #Meadows #New York #Queens #theatre #worlds fair

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For Earth Day: On "The Fire Next Time" (1993)

True fact: over a period of 16 years, through 8,000 blogposts, I have only used the phrase “bad movie” on Travalanche eight times, and in most of those cases, I either put the phrase in quotes (indicating it’s a phrase that OTHER people use) or I’m using it to explain…well, what I’m explaining right now, which is that to me there is no such thing, not to the extent that they should be dismissed…

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#climate change #Craig T. Nelson #global warming #mini-series #The Fire Next Time #tv movie

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On the Other Loudermilks

The title of today’s post is to clarify that is not about the excellent recovery sit-com (2017-2020) starring Ron Livingston and my man Mat Fraser. Though it would be very hip to learn that co-creators Peter Farrelly and Bobby Mort named their Loudermilk after these other real-life Loudermilks. Ira Loudermilk (1924-1965) was born 100 hundred years ago today. With his younger brother Charlie…

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#Charlie #Cherokee People #country #Indian Rservation #IRA #J.D. #John D. #Loudermilk #Louvin Brothers #Satan is Real #Singers #songs #songwriter #Tobaccoa Road

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Your Harold Lloyd Finding Aid

For Harold Lloyd’s birthday, a new finding aid to help you navigate our nearly four dozen posts on the great silent comedian: Poster Boy for the 1920s (Main Biographical Post) Selected Shorts The Old Monk’s Tale (first movie, 1913) The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914) Just Nuts: Harold’s Oldest Surviving Comedy (1915) Miss Fatty’s Seaside Lovers (1915) Court House Crooks (1915) A Submarine…

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#actor #comedian #comedies #Harold Lloyd #Movies #silent #star

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Go Dutch, Young Man: A Post for Dutch-American Friendship Day

I head this post with Rembrandt’s 1662 painting The Syndics of the Drapers Guild naturally because since 1911 the image has been used to represent Dutch Masters cigars, famously associated with the great Ernie Kovacs — a Hungarian who only smoked Cubans! There were a few different actors and suchlike I might have written about today but I found myself more jazzed about the fact that April 19 is…

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#Dutch #Dutch-American #Friendship Day #Netherlands #New Amsterdam #New Netherland #New York

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Conan O'Brien Must Go

Comedian Conan O’Brien (b. 1963) has been in show business for about 40 years, and he’s been known to the wider public for about 30 of those. By rights, I ought to hate him more (I’ll get to why), yet I don’t like him with any great mountain of enthusiasm, either. Long is the list of comedians and television hosts who amuse me or speak to me more. Perhaps Conan exists because the canvas needed a…

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#background #comedian #Conan O&039;Brien #late night #Must Go #new show #Television #Tonight Show #writer

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George Seaton: Of Marxes and Miracles

As I pen this, it’s the 500th anniversary of Verrazzano’s historic discovery of New York harbor, But I’ve already blogged about that, on my other blog. So now we treat of the screenwriter/director George Seaton (George Stenius, 1911-1979). We Marx Brothers fanatics have a way of tarnishing the memories of those directors, producers, and screenwriters who we associate with lesser Marx Brothers…

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#A Day at the Races #Airport #director #George Seaton #Miracle on 34th Street #producer #screenwriter #Song of Bernadette

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R.I.P. Robert McNeil

PBS’s Robert McNeil (1931-2024) passed away back on April 12. On the Newshour, Jim Lehrer, like most of McNeil’s friends and colleagues, used to call him “Robin”, but I’ll refrain from taking that liberty. I don’t usually memorialize straight-up news reporters here, but I have a couple of reasons for fudging it in this case. One is McNeil’s nine part educational tv series The Story of English…

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#MacDowell Colony #news #Newshour #PBS #Robert MacNeil #Story of English #Television

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A Charlie Chaplin Finding Aid

With the exception of the Marx Brothers (and there are five of them) Charlie Chaplin (1889-1975) is the stage and screen performer about whom I’ve written the greatest number of articles on Travalanche. Chaplin is easily the classic comedian, movie comedian, and vaudeville veteran about whom I am the most obsessed. Today we introduce this finding aid to assist in navigating these many posts. Stay…

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#actor #articles #biography #Charlie Chaplin #comedian #Comedy #director #Movies #silent #star