Verna A. Felton

Verna Arline Felton was born on July 20, 1890, in Salinas, California, to Horace Wilcox Felton, a physician, and Clara Winder Felton. Her father died shortly before her ninth birthday, and when her mother reviewed his accounts afterward, she found no records of patient payments and no cash in his office, leaving the family in financial difficulty. Around the time of her father's death, Felton had performed in a local benefit for victims of the Galveston Flood, and her singing and dancing drew the attention of a road show manager then working in San Jose. Her mother, facing the family's changed circumstances, accepted the manager's offer of employment for her daughter, and Felton entered professional performance at a young age, growing up in the theater.

By August 1900, a newspaper advertisement for Fischer's Concert House in San Francisco listed her as "Little Verna Felton, the Child Wonder." She was acting with the Allen Stock Company by 1903, the year the troupe toured the West Coast and performed in Vancouver, British Columbia. By 1907 she had advanced from child performer to leading lady within the same company. Playwright Herbert Bashford wrote The Defiance of Doris specifically for Felton, and the Allen company included it in their productions in 1910. In the late 1920s she performed at the Empress Theatre in Vancouver, taking lead roles in Goldfish, Stella Dallas, and The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. Lee Millar, who directed the band for those productions and who was born in 1888, later became her husband; he died in 1941.

Felton appeared on Broadway in 1929 in the play Appearances. Her stage work formed the foundation of a career that expanded substantially into radio during the 1930s and 1950s. Among her radio roles were the children's mother on the serial The Cinnamon Bear, Junior the Mean Widdle Kid's grandmother on Red Skelton's radio series, Hattie Hirsch on Point Sublime, and a recurring presence on The Great Gildersleeve. She was also heard on The Abbott and Costello Show and in dramatic roles on The Lux Radio Theatre. Her most prominent radio role was Mrs. Day, Dennis Day's mother on The Jack Benny Program, a character she played from 1939 to 1962 on both the radio and television versions of the show. She also played Hilda Crocker on the radio version of December Bride two years before the television production began.

Felton's screen career began with the 1917 silent film The Chosen Prince, or The Friendship of David and Jonathan. During the 1940s and early 1950s she worked as a character actress in films including If I Had My Way (1940), Girls of the Big House (1945), The Fuller Brush Man (1948), Buccaneer's Girl (1950), Belles on Their Toes (1952), and Don't Bother to Knock (1952). In 1955 she appeared as Mrs. Potts in the film adaptation of William Inge's stage play Picnic, in which her character served as a surrogate mother to William Holden's.

Felton became a frequently employed voice actress at Walt Disney Studios. Her Disney credits included the Elephant Matriarch and Mrs. Jumbo in Dumbo (1941), the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella (1950), the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland (1951), Aunt Sarah in Lady and the Tramp (1955), Flora the red fairy in Sleeping Beauty (1959), and Winifred the elephant in The Jungle Book (1967), which was released posthumously as her final role. Her son voiced the character Jim Dear in Lady and the Tramp, and also voiced the dogcatcher in the same film. She additionally voiced the Fairy Godmother in Walt Disney's Cinderella recordings for RCA/Camden in 1949 and 1954.

Her television work began with a 1951 appearance on The Amos 'n Andy Show. She played a recurring role as the mother of Ruth Farley on the ABC sitcom Where's Raymond?, which ran from 1953 to 1955. Her guest appearances included episodes of The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show and I Love Lucy. She continued her radio role of Hilda Crocker when December Bride moved to CBS television, where she played the character from 1952 to 1959. For that performance she received nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in both 1958 and 1959. She subsequently continued the Hilda Crocker role on the December Bride spin-off Pete and Gladys, which starred Harry Morgan and Cara Williams. Felton voiced Fred Flintstone's mother-in-law as a semi-regular character in seasons two and three of Hanna-Barbera's The Flintstones between 1962 and 1963; the character was not named during Felton's run, with the surname Slaghoople introduced in season four when Janet Waldo took over the role. In the 1963 series finale of CBS's Dennis the Menace, Felton played John Wilson's aunt in an episode titled "Aunt Emma Visits the Wilsons." Her son Lee Millar Jr. appeared in the same series, playing Tommy Anderson's father.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Felton served as Honorary Mayor of North Hollywood for several years. She died of a stroke at her home on December 14, 1966, at the age of 76, one day before the death of Walt Disney. The Jungle Book, her final film, was released in October 1967. She is interred at Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.