Judy Canova

Judy Canova is best remembered today as a comic actress, but she cut her share of records from the early '30s and into the end of the '50s. As either actress or singer, however, she was a most unlikely success story. She was born Juliette Canova in Starke, FL, in 1916. By the time she was 12, she and her sister, Diane, and brother, Leon, were performing together and she had adopted the stage name Judy. The trio, known as the Three Georgia Crackers, told jokes and sang songs on the radio in Jacksonville, which led to bookings for nightclub performances in New York. The trio was signed to the American Record Company in 1931, cutting hillbilly novelty songs, and later appeared in a Broadway revue entitled Calling All Stars. Judy Canova always stood out; she was very tall, with a wide-eyed expression seemingly impressed upon her face. This made her ideal as a future foil in comedy sketches, but not attractive in the conventional sense. She tried studying classical singing only to discover that she lacked the fundamental vocal equipment needed for that repertory. She then decided to take advantage of the one gift she did have -- a loud voice. Following Calling All Stars, she made her debut onscreen as a Warner Bros. contract player, specializing in comedic material. The most notable of these early appearances was in the film In Caliente, doing a comical rendition of the then-current hit "The Lady in Red" under the direction of Busby Berkeley. Then it was back to Broadway to the Ziegfeld Follies, and then more work with her brother and sister. The trio even made it onto television before the decade was out. They were likely the first country group to perform in the new medium, courtesy of NBC's experimental broadcasting in 1939. Canova had played bit parts in movies like...