Built in 1913 as the flagship for the big time vaudeville circuit run by E.F. Albee and Martin Beck, manager of the Western Vaudeville Managers Association, the Palace was the perfect showpl…
And also a dog skipping rope, and a guy getting kicked by a mule! It’s from the collection of the Library of Congress. To find out more about the history of vaudeville, consult …
Billed as “The Wizard of the Mandolin”, Italian-born Bernardo de Pace (1886-1966) divided his time equally among vaudeville, radio and the Metropolitan Opera. He won an internati…
Rare are the times you will fine me gushing about mainstream contemporary pop culture on this blog, but – Is it just me or does the New York Comedy Festival look like it’s shapin…
Today is the birthday of the magnificent Marie Dressler, often paired on screen with the equally comical Polly Moran. (See a full profile of the former here and the latter here). Here they a…
As you can see in the photo above, in this case the name Pauline refers not to a lady, as in The Perils of Pauline, but to a fellah. Big time vaudeville’s premiere performing hypno…
It’s Ed Wynn’s birthday today (go here for full bio) and what an awesome find! This terrific clip is from Wynn’s short lived 1949 tv show, and his guests are The Three Stoo…
Today is the birthday of Hal Roach funny man Snub Pollard, who started out in silents but whose career extended well into the talking picture era. (See full bio here). In honor of the day we…
A bit of self indulgence on my birthday. An excerpt from some autobiographical writing I periodically return to. I don’t know that it’ll wind up being an “autobiographyR…
Today is the birthday of the truly remarkable Sadakichi Hartmann (see more on him here). In honor of the day we post this very rare scrap of him either doing a bizarre interpretive dance, or…
Never mind the zombie apocalypse; what you really need to be concerned about is Ventageddon, the looming ventriloquist dummy diaster. I’ve written about recent manifestations of the co…
I startled myself when I did a little stock-taking this morning and realized that I had seen (and written about) close to 500 westerns since 2007. The undertaking began as research for a scr…
Today is the birthday of Lotta Crabtree (see here for her full bio). She retired from the stage in 1891 so there is no footage of her performing. Instead, we resort to attaching a portray…
Today is Ole Olson’s birthday (for more on him and his partner Chic Johnson, go here). The team is most famous for their long-running review Hellzapoppin. Here’s the first four I…
Today is the birthday of composer/ bandleader John Philip Sousa (for full bio and his connection to vaudeville go here). In honor of the day, we attach this clip. The song is led off by …
I’m sorely tempted to go to Bridgeport this afternoon for this talk on two key theatres built by vaudeville entrepreneur Sylvester Poli: Bridgeport’s Theatre Legacy: Lecture &…
Today and tomorrow (and apparently every weekend) the brand new Canal Park Playhouse (508 Canal Street) will be screening Little Rascals shorts at 4pm. Today the three pictures are: Waldo…
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The news that Olivia Harrison (George’s widow) will be reading from her new book George Harrison: Living in the Material World tonight (7pm) at the 82nd & Broadway Barnes and Noble…
Today is the birthday of the greatest American ever (or damn close), Will Rogers. See my full bio on him here. A lot of people know of him as a performer or a monologist, a columnist, as a r…
The Countess and I are always ones to embrace High Culture wherever it resides, and that’s why last night we stopped by the Bo0-Hooray Gallery to see the exhibition Ed Wood’s Sle…
Well, if Dorothy Parker gets a New York, so too should everybody else! Here’s one man’s version — and it happens to be an expert one. For many years, downtown performer/pla…
Ford Sterling (born this day in 1880) is best known today as the Chief of the Keystone Cops. A Wisconsin native, he ran away from home when still a boy to join John Robinson’s circus, …
Tonight at 6:30pm at the Mid-Manhattan Library (4oth Street & Fifth Ave), Kevin Fitzpatrick of the Dorothy Parker Society is giving this free talk based on his book A Journey into Doroth…