Barbara Jo Allen

Acting

Barbara Jo Allen

Born — Died

1906-09-02 — 1974-09-14

Place of birth

New York City, New York, USA

Known for

Acting

Credits

59 titles

From Wikipedia Barbara Jo Allen (September 2, 1906 – September 14, 1974) was an actress also known as Vera Vague, the spinster character she created and portrayed on radio and in films during the 1940s and 1950s. She based the character on a woman she had seen delivering a PTA literature lecture in a confused manner. As Vague, she popularized the catch phrase "You dear boy!" Allen's acting ability first surfaced in school plays. Following her high school graduation, she went to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. Concentrating on language, she became proficient in French, Spanish, German and Italian. After the death of her parents, she moved to Los Angeles where she lived with her uncle. In 1…

Known for

Maverick poster
7.0

The Maverick boys - Bret, Bart, Beau and Brent - are a clan of well-dressed dandies, gamblers who'd much rather make their money playing cards than messing up their fine clothing with actual work. Sly and clever, none of the Mavericks are much for acts of derring do, but they can be courageous when the situation calls for it. Most often, however, they live by their wits and considerable charm.

Maverick

1957

Sleeping Beauty poster
6.9

Cursed to die by the evil fairy Maleficent when she was a baby, Princess Aurora is sent into hiding under protection from three good fairies. As she grows up far away, Maleficent becomes increasingly determined to seal the princess's fate.

Sleeping Beauty

1959

Surfside 6 poster
6.3

Surfside 6 was an ABC television series which aired from 1960 to 1962. The show centered on a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat and featured Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield II; Van Williams as Kenny Madison; and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne. Diane McBain co-starred as socialite Daphne Dutton, whose yacht was berthed next to their houseboat. Margarita Sierra also had a supporting role as Cha Cha O'Brien, an entertainer who worked at The Boom Boom Room, a popular Miami Beach hangout at the Fontainebleau Hotel, directly across the street from Surfside 6. Surfside 6 was in fact a real address in Miami Beach, where an unrelated houseboat was moored at the time; it can also be seen in the sweeping aerial establishing shot of the Fontainebleu in 1964's Goldfinger.

Surfside 6

1960

The Sword in the Stone poster
7.2

Wart is a young boy who aspires to be a knight's squire. On a hunting trip he falls in on Merlin, a powerful but amnesiac wizard who has plans for him beyond mere squiredom. He starts by trying to give him an education, believing that once one has an education, one can go anywhere. Needless to say, it doesn't quite work out that way.

The Sword in the Stone

1963

No artwork available
7.8

The George Gobel Show is an American television series hosted George Gobel that aired on NBC from 1954 to 1960.

The George Gobel Show

1954

Broadway Melody of 1940 poster
6.9

Johnny Brett and King Shaw are an unsuccessful dance team in New York. A producer discovers Brett as the new partner for Clare Bennett, but Brett, who thinks he is one of the people they lent money to, gives him the name of his partner.

Broadway Melody of 1940

1940

Film credits

1960s · 2 titles

1950s · 9 titles

Sleeping Beauty poster
6.9

Cursed to die by the evil fairy Maleficent when she was a baby, Princess Aurora is sent into hiding under protection from three good fairies. As she grows up far away, Maleficent becomes increasingly determined to seal the princess's fate.

Sleeping Beauty

1959

The Opposite Sex poster
5.4

Former radio singer Kay learns from her gossipy friends that her husband, Steve, has had an affair with chorus girl Crystal. Devastated, Kay tries to ignore the information, but when Crystal performs one of her musical numbers at a charity benefit, she breaks down and goes to Reno to file for divorce. However, when she hears that gold-digging Crystal is making Steve unhappy, Kay resolves to get her husband back. The Opposite Sex is a remake of the 1939 comedy The Women.

The Opposite Sex

1956

Mohawk poster
5.6

An artist working in a remote army post is juggling the storekeeper's daughter, his fiancée newly arrived from the east, and the Indian Chief's daughter. But when a vengeful settler manages to get the army and the braves at each other's throats his troubles really begin.

Mohawk

1956

Born to Be Loved poster
5.6

Director Hugo Haas reprises the theme of romantic love in this routine yet innocent story of matchmaking. The setting is an overcrowded tenement building in which the residents seem to live beyond the reach of muggers or drug dealers or trigger-happy gangs because they mingle and mix in the halls as they energetically interact with each other.

Born to Be Loved

1959

Columbia Laff Hour poster
7.0

A Columbia Pictures feature, featuring 4 unedited shorts, released between 1947-1956, featuring Shemp Howard.

Columbia Laff Hour

1956

No artwork available
8.0

Vera Vague, in the All-StarComedy works for the district attorney, and when his two-timing fiancee and her boyfriend try some trickery, Vera steps in with some effective wrestling holds.

Nursie Behave

1950

No artwork available
8.0

Vera's fiancee tries to cure her of her hypochondria.

She Took a Powder

1951

No artwork available
9.0

Nurse Vera is hired by a patient to help him get rid of some unwelcome relatives living at his house.

Happy Go Wacky

1952

Square Dance Katy poster
4.0

In this musical, an ambitious young singer and her band leave their small hometown to head for the Big Apple in hopes of finding fame and fortune.

Square Dance Katy

1950

1940s · 38 titles

Broadway Melody of 1940 poster
6.9

Johnny Brett and King Shaw are an unsuccessful dance team in New York. A producer discovers Brett as the new partner for Clare Bennett, but Brett, who thinks he is one of the people they lent money to, gives him the name of his partner.

Broadway Melody of 1940

1940

Kiss the Boys Goodbye poster
6.5

New York chorus girl Cindy Lou Bethany becomes frustrated when she prepares for an audition for a Broadway musical, but the auditions close and her roommate, Gwen Abbott, is hired to be secretary to Top Rumson, the show's financial backer. Gwen tells Cindy that the director, Lloyd Lloyd, and composer, Dick Rayburn, have been sent to the South on a talent search for a classic Southern belle type to star in the show, although their shows usually feature Myra Stanhope, an actress whose style is hopelessly inappropriate for this show. Desperate for work, Cindy returns to her aunt Lily Lou and uncle Jefferson Davis Bethany's home in the South and schemes to get Lloyd and Rayburn to audition her.

Kiss the Boys Goodbye

1941

The Mad Doctor poster
6.2

A reporter sleuths the mystery behind an oft-married Viennese doctor whose wives met mysterious fates.

The Mad Doctor

1940

Larceny, Inc. poster
7.1

Three ex-cons buy a luggage shop to tunnel into the bank vault next door. But despite all they can do, the shop prospers...

Larceny, Inc.

1942

Girl Rush poster
6.0

During the California Gold Rush, two down-on-their-luck vaudevillians attempt to become wealthy by bringing a girlie show to an all-male western mining town.

Girl Rush

1944

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch poster
5.0

In the shanty town called the Cabbage Patch, Mrs. Wiggs scrabbles for survival with her brood of children and hopes for the return of her husband, who left many years before.

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch

1942

Design for Scandal poster
5.1

A newsman (Walter Pidgeon) falls in love on Cape Cod with the judge (Rosalind Russell) his angry boss (Edward Arnold) expects him to discredit.

Design for Scandal

1941

Cowboy Canteen poster
8.0

Song and comedy revue, featuring Western talents, along with a theatrical troupe taking their vacation on the Lazy B Ranch run by Steve Bradley. Steve is about to enter the army and he and Tex Coulter compete for the love of Connie Grey.

Cowboy Canteen

1944

Henry Aldrich Plays Cupid poster
10.0

High-school student Henry Aldrich hopes to improve his grades by finding a sweetheart for his unmarried teacher.

Henry Aldrich Plays Cupid

1944

Clunked in the Clink poster
10.0

Vera's husband thinks she ahs been killed in a plane crash, unaware she has been arrested for speeding on the way to the airport.

Clunked in the Clink

1949

Buy Me That Town poster
6.3

A gangster and his mob buy a small-town in this warm comedy. They, tired of trying to make it as big city hoods, buy the town to use as a hideout. The leader of the gang begins to have a change of heart after he begins falling for a local girl.

Buy Me That Town

1941

Priorities on Parade poster
7.0

Band leader Johnny Draper auditions his band, the Dixie Pixies, at the Eagle Aircraft Co., hoping to be hired to play for the workers in the plant. However, personnel manager E. V. Hartley can only offer them regular jobs, and when Johnny inspires the Dixie Pixies to work in the plant, lead singer and dancer Donna D'Arcy leaves the band for a singing job at the Club Martel in downtown Los Angeles.

Priorities on Parade

1942

Ice Capades Revue poster
6.0

Promoter Ann Porter decides to start her own Ice Show despite the efforts of ex-racketeer Duke Baldwin who owns a rival show. Jeff Stewart, a rich, suave young Broadwayite, falls in love with Ann and aids her in her fight against Baldwin.

Ice Capades Revue

1942

Moon Over Las Vegas poster
10.0

A beautiful woman goes to Las Vegas in a scheme to make her husbnd jealous, but once she gets there she becomes involved with another man.

Moon Over Las Vegas

1944

Melody and Moonlight poster
7.5

Jane Frazee made her starring film debut in the Republic B-plus musical Melody and Moonlight. The plot is motivated by the show-biz aspirations of bellboy Danny O'Brien (Johnny Downs). With the help of a wealthy chiropodist (Jerry Colonna), O'Brien not only gets to star on a big-time radio show, but also sprinkles stardust upon his sweetheart Kay Barnett (Jane Frazee)-who, unbeknownst to everyone but the audience, is the daughter of the show's sponsor.

Melody and Moonlight

1940

Hi, Neighbor poster
10.0

A financially strapped college is transformed into a summer holiday resort with the help of music and radio stars.

Hi, Neighbor

1942

No artwork available
9.0

In this musical, a con man makes a good living by promoting bogus charity shows. He gets the communities all revved up and then skips town with all their money. But then he meets three earnest people wanting to garner financial support for an orphanage. This time the con man's loyal assistant finally catches on to the wicked scam and turns him in to the police. Meanwhile, the newly reformed assistant and one of the charity workers fall in loves.

Sing, Dance, Plenty Hot

1940

Ice-Capades poster
5.9

Bob Clemens is a cameraman for newsreels. Assigned to shoot the Swiss ice skater Karen Vadja, he arrives too late, so decides to film a woman skating on a different New York rink and pass her off as Karen. The scheme backfires when promoter Larry Herman takes a look at Bob's film and decides to make the skater a star. Unfortunately, it's actually amateur (and illegal immigrant) Marie Bergin in the newsreel footage, not the great figure skater from Switzerland. Chaos ensues as Bob tries to straighten everybody out.

Ice-Capades

1941

Swing Your Partner poster
10.0

Caroline Bird, the crotchety and stingy owner of Bird Milk Products, is not amused when her employees at the Dairyville factory, the oldest plant in the company, broadcast a special radio program in honor of her birthday. Employees Lulubelle, Scotty and Vera Vague, fed up with the terrible working conditions at Dairyville, cut into the broadcast, and Lulubelle asserts that Caroline is a "big hunk of cheese." Lane, the factory manager, cannot find the culprit, and so Caroline goes with her secretary, Dale Evans, to Dairyville.

Swing Your Partner

1943

Wha' Happen? poster
9.0

Suffering from amnesia, Vera thinks she's responsible for a burglary.

Wha' Happen?

1949

Melody Ranch poster
6.2

His Arizona hometown of Torpedo invites Gene back to be the honorary sheriff of the Frontier Days Celebration.

Melody Ranch

1940

Village Barn Dance poster
8.0

Dan Martin, an unemployed college graduate, drifts into the town of Lyndale, only to learn that the town and everything in it are dominated by Minerva Withers, a tight-fisted, old skinflint whose welcome does not extend to tramps.

Village Barn Dance

1940

Lake Placid Serenade poster
10.0

On a peaceful, pre-war winter in Czechoslovakia, the genial godfather, Jaroslav Haschek, of Vera Hascheck, presents the young girl with her first pair of ice skates. Soon, she astonished the warm-hearted people of her village with her skill, and she is acclaimed a marvel-on-ice.

Lake Placid Serenade

1944

Rosie the Riveter poster
5.3

In this romantic wartime comedy, four female defense plant workers share a house with four male workers. The situation is on the up and up as the men and women work different shifts and they are only making do because there is a housing shortage. Unfortunately, they soon begin to fight about who gets the house during certain hours. Romance ensues.

Rosie the Riveter

1944

The Jury Goes Round 'n' Round poster
10.0

Vera is one of many of a group of jurors who must work together to come up with a decision whether or not a man is guilty of murder.

The Jury Goes Round 'n' Round

1945

Get Going poster
7.0

Judy King, newly arrived in Washington, applies for a secretary job with a government agency and while being interviewed by Bob Carlton, an agent with the bureau, jokingly hints she may be a spy. While investigating her, he clears Judy and falls in love with her... and then uncovers a real Nazi spy ring.

Get Going

1943

No artwork available
10.0

Vera Vague marries a man who is the twin-image of an escaped ax-murderer. The key word here is "escaped", as that guarantees that Vera will get involved with the ax-murderer thinking he is her husband.

Miss in a Mess

1949

No artwork available
7.0

Vera pretends to be insane in order to get out of a prearranged marriage.

You Dear Boy!

1943

Snafu poster
7.0

A 14-year-old boy lies about his age and enlists in the United State Marine Corps without his family's consent or knowledge. He is sent into battle in the Pacific war-zone, decorated, and spotted in a newsreel by his family. The family asks the War Department to discharge him and send him home.

Snafu

1945

Earl Carroll Sketchbook poster
8.0

An aspiring singer and her lover, a songwriter who has desperately resorted to writing radio jingles, have many conflicts on their road to success...

Earl Carroll Sketchbook

1946

No artwork available
8.0

Vera Vague (Barbara Jo Allen) is a reporter aiming to march her editor boss down the aisle. He agrees to marry her if she can uncover a key spy. She nets a whole ring of spies.

She Snoops to Conquer

1944

No artwork available
10.0

Vera and Claire vie for the affections of a handsome millionaire cowboy.

Headin' for a Weddin'

1946

No artwork available
10.0

After Vera divorces her husband, she marries her lawyer.

Reno-Vated

1946

No artwork available
10.0

Vera pretends to have been injured in an auto accident in order to get out of two conflicting engagements.

Calling All Fibbers

1945

Hiss and Yell poster
5.0

Vera thinks she's witnessed a man decapitating his wife. Actually, she's only seen magician Bluebeard the Great rehearsing his act. Still convinced that the magician is a killer, Vera goes through all sorts of comic agony when she is forced to share the same train compartment with Bluebeard (who doesn't help matters when he offers her a sandwich consisting of "scrambled brains and tongue").

Hiss and Yell

1946

No artwork available
7.0

Vera Vague (Barbara Jo Allen) locks herself in her garage and has to be freed by her neighbor. Later, she discovers that the wife of her husband's boss has lost a necklace, and Vera suspects the neighbor.

Strife of the Party

1944

No artwork available
3.3

Vera, a hypochondriac, mistakes an escaped lunatic for a physician who can help "cure" her.

Doctor, Feel My Pulse

1944

No artwork available
9.0

Vera plays twin sisters of opposite personalities.

Cupid Goes Nuts

1947

Series credits

Maverick poster
7.0

The Maverick boys - Bret, Bart, Beau and Brent - are a clan of well-dressed dandies, gamblers who'd much rather make their money playing cards than messing up their fine clothing with actual work. Sly and clever, none of the Mavericks are much for acts of derring do, but they can be courageous when the situation calls for it. Most often, however, they live by their wits and considerable charm.

Maverick

1957

Surfside 6 poster
6.3

Surfside 6 was an ABC television series which aired from 1960 to 1962. The show centered on a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat and featured Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield II; Van Williams as Kenny Madison; and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne. Diane McBain co-starred as socialite Daphne Dutton, whose yacht was berthed next to their houseboat. Margarita Sierra also had a supporting role as Cha Cha O'Brien, an entertainer who worked at The Boom Boom Room, a popular Miami Beach hangout at the Fontainebleau Hotel, directly across the street from Surfside 6. Surfside 6 was in fact a real address in Miami Beach, where an unrelated houseboat was moored at the time; it can also be seen in the sweeping aerial establishing shot of the Fontainebleu in 1964's Goldfinger.

Surfside 6

1960

No artwork available
7.8

The George Gobel Show is an American television series hosted George Gobel that aired on NBC from 1954 to 1960.

The George Gobel Show

1954

General Electric Theater poster
6.8

General Electric Theater is an American anthology series hosted by Ronald Reagan that was broadcast on CBS radio and television. The series was sponsored by General Electric's Department of Public Relations.

General Electric Theater

1953