Barbara Jo Allen | WatchedThis
Barbara Jo Allen
Acting
Biography
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 1937, she debuted on network radio drama as Beth Holly on NBC's One Man's Family, followed by roles on Death Valley Days, I Love a Mystery and other radio series. According to Allen, her Vera Vague character was “sort of a frustrated female, dumb, always ambitious and overzealous… a spouting Bureau of Misinformation.” After Vera was introduced in 1939 on NBC Matinee, she became a regular with Bob Hope beginning in 1941. Allen appeared in at least 60 movies and TV series between 1938 and 1963, often credited as Vera Vague rather than her own name. The character she created was so popular that she eventually adopted the character name as her professional name. From 1943 to 1952, as Vera, she made more than a dozen comedy two-reel short subjects for Columbia Pictures. In 1948, she did less acting and instead opened her own commercial orchid business, while also serving as the Honorary Mayor of Woodland Hills, California. In 1953, as Vera, she hosted her own television series, Follow the Leader, a CBS audience participation show. In 1958, she appeared as Mabel, the boss of the flight attendants, in Jeannie Carson's syndicated version of her situation comedy Hey, Jeannie! The program aired only six episodes in syndication. Allen's first marriage was to actor Barton Yarborough. They had one child together. In 1946, the couple co-starred in the two-reel comedy short, Hiss and Yell, nominated for an Academy Award as Best Short Subject. In 1931-32, Allen married Charles H. Crosby. In 1943, she married Bob Hope's producer, Norman Morrell. They had one child and were married for three decades, until her 1974 death in Santa Barbara, California.
Filmography Movies
Acting
Sleeping Beauty
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.
The Mad Doctor
A reporter sleuths the mystery behind an oft-married Viennese doctor whose wives met mysterious fates.
Moving Vanities
Leon Errol moves because of a rent increase.
Larceny, Inc.
Three ex-cons buy a luggage shop to tunnel into the bank vault next door. But despite all they can do, the shop prospers...
Goliath II
Goliath II is a 6-inch-tall elephant (son of the huge Goliath). He's a big disappointment to his father, but mom is proud of Goliath II anyway. Goliath II is constantly getting into trouble because he's so small. In particular, the tiger Raja looks for every opportunity to try a bite-size taste of elephant. After one incident where he ran away and his mother scolded him, he runs away. After he's rescued, the rest of the elephants are terrified of a mouse, but Goliath II stands his ground.
Girl Rush
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.
Kiss the Boys Goodbye
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.
Ice-Capades
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.
Born to Be Loved
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.
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch
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.
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