She was really a big star on radio, but she made several films and is one of those celebrities known by two names…. Barbara Jo Allen, and the character she created, Vera Vague.
How did this happen? Allen, born in 1906 to a moneyed family (she grew up on New York’s Fifth Ave. and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris) once found herself at a PTA meeting which featured a world literature lecture from a well-meaning but totally scatterbrained woman.
Eureka. Allen’s Vera Vague, the prim, club-woman caricature — a talky, shrill-voiced and man-hungry spinster — was born. She parleyed Vera into countless radio visits, to a long-term professional relationship with Bob Hope, and introduced a delightfully wacky character to mainstream American audiences. (There she is at the radio mike below.)
Apart from Vera, Allen logged a pretty extensive movie career, appearing in more than 50 pictures. In all she is credited with a total of 71 movies and tv appearances over a 25-year career. She is, for example, billed under her own name in George Cukor’s 1939’s drama, The Women, starring Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford.
At Columbia Pictures, Allen made a number of well-regarded comedy short films as Vera, beginning in 1943. In addition to being real audience pleasers, a pair of the shorts were nominated for Academy Awards. Moviegoers may have forgotten Barbara Jo Allen but Vera Vague lives on.
Two of the movies my special needs son obsesses over feature Barbara Jo, Sleeping Beauty and Larceny, Inc. She would be surprised to know she is a fixture in a home in the 21st century.
Just listened to all of the nearly 20 years of Bob Hope’s radio shows, and the years that featured Vera Vague were particularly fun. She was a HUGE crow pleaser — the servicemen greeted her as enthusiastically as they did Frances Langford, just for different reasons.
And she squeezed every possible laugh from her catchphrase, drawling in response to a variety of Hope’s double entendres, “Oooooooh, you deeeear boy…”
It’s funny, of all the topics, of all the movies and genres, and of all the actors that CLASSIC MOVIE CHAT brings to you each day…
Who would’ve thought one VERA VAGUE would get 2 comments on here, when everything else seems to get none!
But at least they’re COMMENTS and that’s GOOD!
VERA VAGUE, Barbara Jo Allen… She certainly worked a lot, and it appears her radio work resonated with her fans more than her movies.
I must confess, she doesn’t make much of an impression on me, I’m more of a MARY WICKES fan, but we all have different tastes, different experiences.
But the irony is, I’m not alone in having not seen many of her films, as I’d say her biggest audience would remember her better for her voice work for Disney, with SLEEPING BEAUTY and THE SWORD IN THE STONE.
And Vera’s third husband Norman Morrell, why he’s famous for co-producing the 1968 ELVIS Comeback special on TV.
She was once honorary Mayor of Woodland Hills,near where I live.
And what is not noted in the short tribute above, is that she was a very passionate vocal advocate for animals which she loved so much, even writing a children’s book on them, and her concern for the environment and ecology.
Vera or rather Barbara, retired and moved to Santa Barbara with her husband Norman, and there she died at age 68.
Mary Wickes a true comedic icon, never married and worked till the very end of her life at age 85.
I don’t recall Joe & Frank doing a piece dedicated solely to MARY WICKES, maybe they did, but if not…
VIENNA’S CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD did a good article on her -August 21, 2018
It’s GOOD to hear from someone else with those COMMENTS!