page_title: Judy Canova
section_title: Stardom: Radio, films, and recordings
hierarchical_section_title: Judy Canova / Biography / Stardom: Radio, films, and recordings
caption_attribution_description: Judy Canova
context_page_description: Judy Canova, born Juliette Canova, was an American comedian, 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.
context_section_description: 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 specialty appearances in short subjects and minor features before she signed with Paramount Pictures for one year.
  Republic Pictures, whose customer base was largely in rural areas, signed Judy Canova in 1940. She quickly became the studio's leading female star, playing country gals who always blundered into trouble, in such titles as Scatterbrain (1940), Sis Hopkins (1941), and Joan of Ozark (1942). She left the studio in 1943 over a salary dispute and was quickly signed by Columbia Pictures for three feature films, each released annually. Republic wooed her back in 1951 to star in comedy features, now in color, and she made six more pictures through 1955.
  She recorded for the RCA Victor label. 
  In 1943, she began her own radio program, The Judy Canova Show, that ran for 12 years: first on CBS and then on NBC. Playing herself as a love-starved Ozark bumpkin dividing her time between home and Southern California, Canova was accompanied by a cast that included voicemaster Mel Blanc as Pedro (using the accented voice he later gave the cartoon character Speedy Gonzales) and Sylvester (using the voice that later became associated with the Looney Tunes character); Ruth Perrott as Aunt Aggie; Ruby Dandridge as Geranium; Joseph Kearns as Benchley Botsford; and Sharon Douglas as Brenda. Gale Gordon, Sheldon Leonard, Gerald Mohr, and Hans Conried also appeared sporadically. 
  During World War II, she closed her show with the song "Goodnight, Soldier" ("Wherever you may be... my heart's lonely... without you") and used her free time to sell U.S. War Bonds. After the war, she introduced a new closing theme that she once said she remembered her own mother singing to her when she was a small child:
  Go to sleep-y, little baby.
  Go to sleep-y, little baby.
  When you wake
  You'll patty-patty cake
  And ride a shiny little pony.
caption: Photo from 1944 advertisement for the Judy Canova Show
exif: {}