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 Victorlabel 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, 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