Judy Canova

Judy Canova, born Juliette Canova on November 20, 1913, in Starke, Florida, was an American comedienne, actress, singer, and radio personality whose career spanned Broadway, film, radio, and television. She died on August 5, 1983, from cancer at age 69, and her ashes were interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Canova was one of seven children born to Joseph Francis Canova, a businessman, and Henrietta E. Canova, a singer. Her family's origins were claimed by Canova to trace back to the Pyrenees mountains of Spain, though other sources suggest the family may have come from the island of Menorca. She launched her entertainment career through a family vaudeville act alongside her sister Annie and brother Zeke, performing as the Three Georgia Crackers. The act moved from Florida theaters to the Village Barn, a Manhattan club. Canova's stage persona was that of a wide-eyed country bumpkin, often barefoot and wearing braided hair sometimes topped with a straw hat. She sang, yodeled, and played guitar, and was billed at times as the Ozark Nightingale or the Jenny Lind of the Ozarks.

Her rise to broader recognition began when bandleader Rudy Vallée offered her a guest spot on his radio program The Fleischmann Hour while she was still a teenager. The Canova family performed frequently on radio throughout the 1930s. Their Broadway debut came in the revue Calling All Stars, and Canova went on to appear in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1931. In 1939, she starred in the Broadway musical comedy Yokel Boy alongside Buddy Ebsen, and she later toured with the revival of No, No, Nanette in 1971, with her Broadway activity spanning from 1934 to 1972.

Canova's film career began with short subjects and minor features at Warner Bros. before she signed a one-year deal with Paramount Pictures. Following the close of Yokel Boy's run, Republic Pictures, whose audience was largely rural, signed her in 1940. She became Republic's leading female star, appearing in such films as Scatterbrain (1940), Sis Hopkins (1941), and Joan of Ozark (1942), typically playing country women who blundered into comic trouble. She did not appear in Republic's film adaptation of Yokel Boy, a role that went instead to Joan Davis. A salary dispute led Canova to leave Republic in 1943, after which she signed with Columbia Pictures for three features: Louisiana Hayride (1944), Hit the Hay (1945), and Singin' in the Corn (1946). She returned to Republic in 1951, beginning with the color comedy Honeychile, and continued making films there through 1955.

In 1943, Canova began hosting The Judy Canova Show on radio, a program that ran for twelve years, first on CBS and then on NBC. Playing a version of herself as a love-starved Ozark bumpkin dividing her time between home and Southern California, she was joined by a cast that included Mel Blanc, Ruth Perrott, Ruby Dandridge, Joseph Kearns, and Sharon Douglas, with recurring appearances by Gale Gordon, Sheldon Leonard, Gerald Mohr, and Hans Conried. Though her radio and film careers wound down in 1955, Canova transitioned to television, making guest appearances on programs including The Colgate Comedy Hour, The Steve Allen Show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Danny Thomas Show, and The Mickey Mouse Club. She appeared as a mystery guest on What's My Line on July 18, 1954. In 1967, she portrayed Mammy Yokum in an NBC television adaptation of Al Capp's Li'l Abner, and in August 1970 she starred in The Murdocks and the McClays, a Romeo and Juliet retelling set in the Virginia hills that aired on ABC as part of a three-part pilot showcase called Comedy Preview. She recorded for the RCA Victor label and also performed in Las Vegas nightclubs through the early 1970s.

In 1954, Canova and her husband acquired controlling interest in Camera Vision Productions, Inc., a Los Angeles-based company that developed an automated camera technology reported to reduce television and film production costs by as much as fifty percent. Canova is honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for her film contributions at 6821 Hollywood Boulevard and one for her radio career at 6777 Hollywood Boulevard.

Canova married four times. Her first husband was New York insurance man Robert Burns, whom she married in 1936 and divorced in 1939. She was briefly married to James Ripley in 1941. Her third marriage, to Chester B. England in 1943, ended in divorce by 1950. Her fourth and final marriage, to musician Filberto Rivero in 1950, produced a daughter, Diana Canova, an actress and singer known for her television roles on Soap and I'm a Big Girl Now. That marriage ended in 1964.