Judy Canova

Acting

Judy Canova

Born 1913-11-20 · Starke, Florida, USA

From Wikipedia Judy Canova (November 20, 1913 – August 5, 1983), born Juliette Canova, (some sources indicate Julietta Canova), was an American comedienne, actress, singer, and radio personality. She appeared on Broadway and in films. She hosted her own self-titled network radio program, a popular series broadcast from 1943 to 1955. When bandleader Rudy Vallée offered the still-teenaged Canova a guest spot on his radio show in 1931, The Fleischmann Hour, the door opened to a career that spanned more than five decades. The popularity of the Canova family led to numerous performances on radio in the 1930s, and they made their Broadway theater debut in the revue Calling All Stars. An offer from Warner Bros. led to several bit parts before she signed with Republic Pictures. She recorded for the RCA Victor label and appeared in more than two dozen Hollywood films, playing leading roles as well as supporting parts, including Scatterbrain (1940), Joan of Ozark (1942), and Lay That Rifle Down (1955). In 1943, she began her own radio program, The Judy Canova Show, that ran for twelve years—first on CBS and then on NBC. Playing herself as a love-starved Ozark bumpkin dividing her time between home and Southern California. By the time her radio program ended in 1955, Canova made a smooth transition to television with appearances on The Colgate Comedy Hour, The Steve Allen Show, Matinee Theatre, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Make Room For Daddy,and other shows. In 1967, she portrayed Mammy Yokum in an unsold TV pilot adapted from Al Capp's Li'l Abner. She also worked on Broadway and in Vegas nightclubs through the early 1970s, touring with No, No Nanette in 1971. She appeared as a mystery guest on the TV show What's My Line on July 18, 1954. Canova is honored with stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to the film & television Industry.

Acting credits

Cannonball poster
5.6

Coy "Cannonball" Buckman and his blazing red Pontiac enter the Trans-America Grand Prix, an underground road race spanning the continent in which there are no rules, no speed limits and no heed for the law. En route, Buckman jockeys with an international ensemble of racers for a $100,000 purse. But there are none more important than Cade Redman, his direct competition for a guaranteed spot on the elite Modern Motors racing team.

Cannonball

1976

In Caliente poster
6.7

At a Mexican resort, a fast-talking magazine editor woos the dancer he's trashed in print.

In Caliente

1935

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn poster
5.9

From chicken thief to cabin boy, riverboat pilot to circus performer, Huck Finn outsmarts everyone on his way down the muddy Mississippi.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

1960

The WAC from Walla Walla poster
10.0

An unsophisticated country girl accidentally joins the army.

The WAC from Walla Walla

1952

Sis Hopkins poster
6.3

An unsophisticated farm girl enrolls in college and stars in the campus musical.

Sis Hopkins

1941

Sleepy Lagoon poster
5.0

Young radio personality Judy Joyner becomes mayor of the moribund town, Sleepy Lagoon, after running on an all women ticket and promptly sets out to turn the town around.

Sleepy Lagoon

1943

Untamed Heiress poster
6.5

Judy is the daughter of a famous opera singer who once bankrolled prospector Andrew "Cactus" Clayton. Now Clayton hopes to repay the favor, but first he must reclaim his stash of gold from the crooked Williams. Judy helps the old coot by taking on not only Williams, but duplicitous private detectives Walter Martin and Eddie Taylor, not to mention gangsters Spider Mike and Louie.

Untamed Heiress

1954

Broadway Gondolier poster
6.0

A taxi driver travels to Venice and poses as a gondolier to land a radio singing job.

Broadway Gondolier

1935

Singin' in the Corn poster
7.0

Judy McCoy, a fortune teller with a circus, learns she has inherited some property and heads west to collect. When she arrives in the desert ghost town, she learns that a stipulation in the will is that she has to return the property to the rightful owners, an Indian tribe, before she gets the remaining inheritance

Singin' in the Corn

1946

Oklahoma Annie poster
8.7

A spunky storekeeper is determined to clean up corruption in her small town, as well as win the heart of the new sheriff. Comedy.

Oklahoma Annie

1952

Scatterbrain poster
7.5

A Hollywood studio goofs and signs the wrong girl--a hillbilly from the Ozarks--to a movie contract. Comedy.

Scatterbrain

1940

Things You Never See on the Screen poster
5.3

Flubs and bloopers that occurred on the set of some of the major Warner Bros. pictures of 1935.

Things You Never See on the Screen

1935

Sleepytime Gal poster
9.0

Bessie Cobb, cake decorator in the kitchen of one of Miami's swankier hotels, is the central figure in an elaborate scheme by Chick Patterson, bell captain, who believes he can not only enrich Bessie, but himself, his fiancée, and the kitchen's three screwball chefs, Chef Popodopolis, Chef Petrovich and Chef Barzumium. He plans to enter Bessie in the singing contest sponsored by band-leader Danny Marlowe for a large recording company looking for new talent.. Chick has a recording made of Bessie's voice and substitutes it for that of "Sugar" Caston, who is being sponsored by a big-time gangster and is set up to win. But members of a rival gang, out to get "Sugar", mistake Besiie for her.

Sleepytime Gal

1942

Artists & Models poster
6.3

An ad man gets his model girlfriend to pose as a debutante for a new campaign.

Artists & Models

1937

Hill-billing and Cooing poster
7.3

Popeye and Olive are driving through hillbilly country; a very large woman hillbilly is in search of a man, and grabs Popeye. And when Popeye's spinach falls, it's up to Olive to save the day.

Hill-billing and Cooing

1956

Going Highbrow poster
6.5

A ditzy wife yearns to join "high society" when she and her husband become suddenly wealthy.

Going Highbrow

1935

Louisiana Hayride poster
7.5

A naïve farm girl is duped by con men who promise her movie stardom in exchange for her savings.

Louisiana Hayride

1944

Puddin' Head poster
6.5

On the day that United Broadcasting System's new building is dedicated, bumbling vice-president Harold L. Montgomery, Sr. discovers that he gave the wrong survey to the builders...

Puddin' Head

1941

Lay That Rifle Down poster
6.0

A story about a girl from the sticks doing drudge work at a hotel and dreaming of a better life.

Lay That Rifle Down

1955

Carolina Cannonball poster
6.0

Judy and her grandpa run a trolley between a train depot and a ghost town in Nevada, near the California border. Three spies intent of tracking down an atomic missile gone astray arrive. When the trolley breaks down, Judy and Grandpa unwittingly install the engine from the nearby crashed missile.

Carolina Cannonball

1955

Honeychile poster
7.5

A music publishing company tries to swindle a song from a country girl that they inadvertently recorded without her permission.

Honeychile

1951

True to the Army poster
8.0

A wire-walker, on the run from gangsters, masquerades as a soldier at her boyfriend's Army base.

True to the Army

1942

No artwork available
8.0

An uninhibited Arkansas farmgirl discovers a group of Nazis operating in the United States. Director Joseph Santley's broad WWII comedy stars Judy Canova, Joe E. Brown, Eddie Foy Jr., Anne Jeffreys and Jerome Cowan.

Joan of Ozark

1942

Chatterbox poster
10.0

While shooting a western on location, a Hollywood "cowboy" star--whose offscreen image is exactly the opposite of his onscreen one--is saved from disaster by a gregarious local girl. She winds up becoming not only his leading lady in the movie but, because of a set of nutty offscreen circumstances, his fiancé in real life.

Chatterbox

1943