Barbara Jo Allen
Also Known As: Vera Vague, Marian Barbara Henshall
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.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: New York City, New York, USA
Adult: No
Birthday: September 02, 1906
Age: 118 years old
Gender: Female
Deathday: September 14, 1974
Popularity:
Known For:
Sleeping Beauty
Overview: 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.
Genres: Fantasy Animation Romance Family
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1959-02-17
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The Mad Doctor
Overview: A reporter sleuths the mystery behind an oft-married Viennese doctor whose wives met mysterious fates.
Genres: Crime Romance Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-12-20
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Moving Vanities
Overview: Leon Errol moves because of a rent increase.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-05-05
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Larceny, Inc.
Overview: Three ex-cons buy a luggage shop to tunnel into the bank vault next door. But despite all they can do, the shop prospers...
Genres: Comedy Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-04-24
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Goliath II
Overview: 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.
Genres: Animation
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1960-01-21
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Girl Rush
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy Music Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-10-21
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Kiss the Boys Goodbye
Overview: 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.
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-08-01
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Ice-Capades
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy Music Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-08-19
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Born to Be Loved
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1959-06-01
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Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-10-01
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Snafu
Overview: A 14-year-old boy lies about his age and enlists in the United State Marine Corps without his family's consent or knowledge. He is sent into battle in the Pacific war-zone, decorated, and spotted in a newsreel by his family. The family asks the War Department to discharge him and send him home.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1945-11-22
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Mohawk
Overview: An artist working in a remote army post is juggling the storekeeper's daughter, his fiancée newly arrived from the east, and the Indian Chief's daughter. But when a vengeful settler manages to get the army and the braves at each other's throats his troubles really begin.
Genres: Action Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1956-04-01
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Moon Over Las Vegas
Overview: A beautiful woman goes to Las Vegas in a scheme to make her husbnd jealous, but once she gets there she becomes involved with another man.
Genres: Romance Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-04-01
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Rosie the Riveter
Overview: In this romantic wartime comedy, four female defense plant workers share a house with four male workers. The situation is on the up and up as the men and women work different shifts and they are only making do because there is a housing shortage. Unfortunately, they soon begin to fight about who gets the house during certain hours. Romance ensues.
Genres: Comedy Music Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-04-08
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Henry Aldrich Plays Cupid
Overview: High-school student Henry Aldrich hopes to improve his grades by finding a sweetheart for his unmarried teacher.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-04-01
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The Women
Overview: A happily married woman lets her catty friends talk her into divorce when her husband strays.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-09-01
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Hiss and Yell
Overview: Vera thinks she's witnessed a man decapitating his wife. Actually, she's only seen magician Bluebeard the Great rehearsing his act. Still convinced that the magician is a killer, Vera goes through all sorts of comic agony when she is forced to share the same train compartment with Bluebeard (who doesn't help matters when he offers her a sandwich consisting of "scrambled brains and tongue").
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-02-14
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Village Barn Dance
Overview: Dan Martin, an unemployed college graduate, drifts into the town of Lyndale, only to learn that the town and everything in it are dominated by Minerva Withers, a tight-fisted, old skinflint whose welcome does not extend to tramps.
Genres: Comedy Romance Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-01-30
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Earl Carroll Sketchbook
Overview: An aspiring singer and her lover, a songwriter who has desperately resorted to writing radio jingles, have many conflicts on their road to success...
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-08-22
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Broadway Melody of 1940
Overview: Johnny Brett and King Shaw are an unsuccessful dance team in New York. A producer discovers Brett as the new partner for Clare Bennett, but Brett, who thinks he is one of the people they lent money to, gives him the name of his partner.
Genres: Music Romance Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-02-09
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Ice Capades Revue
Overview: Promoter Ann Porter decides to start her own Ice Show despite the efforts of ex-racketeer Duke Baldwin who owns a rival show. Jeff Stewart, a rich, suave young Broadwayite, falls in love with Ann and aids her in her fight against Baldwin.
Genres: Music Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-12-24
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Melody and Moonlight
Overview: Jane Frazee made her starring film debut in the Republic B-plus musical Melody and Moonlight. The plot is motivated by the show-biz aspirations of bellboy Danny O'Brien (Johnny Downs). With the help of a wealthy chiropodist (Jerry Colonna), O'Brien not only gets to star on a big-time radio show, but also sprinkles stardust upon his sweetheart Kay Barnett (Jane Frazee)-who, unbeknownst to everyone but the audience, is the daughter of the show's sponsor.
Genres: Music Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-10-10
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Square Dance Katy
Overview: In this musical, an ambitious young singer and her band leave their small hometown to head for the Big Apple in hopes of finding fame and fortune.
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1950-03-25
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Sing, Dance, Plenty Hot
Overview: In this musical, a con man makes a good living by promoting bogus charity shows. He gets the communities all revved up and then skips town with all their money. But then he meets three earnest people wanting to garner financial support for an orphanage. This time the con man's loyal assistant finally catches on to the wicked scam and turns him in to the police. Meanwhile, the newly reformed assistant and one of the charity workers fall in loves.
Genres: Music Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-08-10
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Get Going
Overview: Judy King, newly arrived in Washington, applies for a secretary job with a government agency and while being interviewed by Bob Carlton, an agent with the bureau, jokingly hints she may be a spy. While investigating her, he clears Judy and falls in love with her... and then uncovers a real Nazi spy ring.
Genres: Music Adventure Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-06-21
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Buy Me That Town
Overview: A gangster and his mob buy a small-town in this warm comedy. They, tired of trying to make it as big city hoods, buy the town to use as a hideout. The leader of the gang begins to have a change of heart after he begins falling for a local girl.
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-10-03
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Cowboy Canteen
Overview: Song and comedy revue, featuring Western talents, along with a theatrical troupe taking their vacation on the Lazy B Ranch run by Steve Bradley. Steve is about to enter the army and he and Tex Coulter compete for the love of Connie Grey.
Genres: Music War Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-02-09
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The Opposite Sex
Overview: Former radio singer Kay learns from her gossipy friends that her husband, Steve, has had an affair with chorus girl Crystal. Devastated, Kay tries to ignore the information, but when Crystal performs one of her musical numbers at a charity benefit, she breaks down and goes to Reno to file for divorce. However, when she hears that gold-digging Crystal is making Steve unhappy, Kay resolves to get her husband back. The Opposite Sex is a remake of the 1939 comedy The Women.
Genres: Comedy Music Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1956-11-15
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Melody Ranch
Overview: His Arizona hometown of Torpedo invites Gene back to be the honorary sheriff of the Frontier Days Celebration.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-09-15
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Columbia Laff Hour
Overview: A Columbia Pictures feature, featuring 4 unedited shorts, released between 1947-1956, featuring Shemp Howard.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1956-01-01
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Lake Placid Serenade
Overview: On a peaceful, pre-war winter in Czechoslovakia, the genial godfather, Jaroslav Haschek, of Vera Hascheck, presents the young girl with her first pair of ice skates. Soon, she astonished the warm-hearted people of her village with her skill, and she is acclaimed a marvel-on-ice.
Genres: Romance Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-12-23
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Happy Go Wacky
Overview: Nurse Vera is hired by a patient to help him get rid of some unwelcome relatives living at his house.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1952-02-07
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Doctor, Feel My Pulse
Overview: Vera, a hypochondriac, mistakes an escaped lunatic for a physician who can help "cure" her.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-01-22
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The Jury Goes Round 'n' Round
Overview: Vera is one of many of a group of jurors who must work together to come up with a decision whether or not a man is guilty of murder.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1945-06-01
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Strife of the Party
Overview: Vera Vague (Barbara Jo Allen) locks herself in her garage and has to be freed by her neighbor. Later, she discovers that the wife of her husband's boss has lost a necklace, and Vera suspects the neighbor.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-10-13
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You Dear Boy!
Overview: Vera pretends to be insane in order to get out of a prearranged marriage.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-11-04
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She Snoops to Conquer
Overview: Vera Vague (Barbara Jo Allen) is a reporter aiming to march her editor boss down the aisle. He agrees to marry her if she can uncover a key spy. She nets a whole ring of spies.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-12-30
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Calling All Fibbers
Overview: Vera pretends to have been injured in an auto accident in order to get out of two conflicting engagements.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1945-11-29
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Headin' for a Weddin'
Overview: Vera and Claire vie for the affections of a handsome millionaire cowboy.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-08-15
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Reno-Vated
Overview: After Vera divorces her husband, she marries her lawyer.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-11-21
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Cupid Goes Nuts
Overview: Vera plays twin sisters of opposite personalities.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1947-05-01
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Miss in a Mess
Overview: Vera Vague marries a man who is the twin-image of an escaped ax-murderer. The key word here is "escaped", as that guarantees that Vera will get involved with the ax-murderer thinking he is her husband.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1949-01-13
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She Took a Powder
Overview: Vera's fiancee tries to cure her of her hypochondria.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1951-08-11
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Nursie Behave
Overview: Vera Vague, in the All-StarComedy works for the district attorney, and when his two-timing fiancee and her boyfriend try some trickery, Vera steps in with some effective wrestling holds.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1950-05-11
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Clunked in the Clink
Overview: Vera's husband thinks she ahs been killed in a plane crash, unaware she has been arrested for speeding on the way to the airport.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1949-07-13
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Wha' Happen?
Overview: Suffering from amnesia, Vera thinks she's responsible for a burglary.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1949-11-10
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Priorities on Parade
Overview: Band leader Johnny Draper auditions his band, the Dixie Pixies, at the Eagle Aircraft Co., hoping to be hired to play for the workers in the plant. However, personnel manager E. V. Hartley can only offer them regular jobs, and when Johnny inspires the Dixie Pixies to work in the plant, lead singer and dancer Donna D'Arcy leaves the band for a singing job at the Club Martel in downtown Los Angeles.
Genres: Music Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-07-23
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The Sword in the Stone
Overview: Wart is a young boy who aspires to be a knight's squire. On a hunting trip he falls in on Merlin, a powerful but amnesiac wizard who has plans for him beyond mere squiredom. He starts by trying to give him an education, believing that once one has an education, one can go anywhere. Needless to say, it doesn't quite work out that way.
Genres: Animation Family Fantasy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1963-12-25
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Design for Scandal
Overview: A newsman (Walter Pidgeon) falls in love on Cape Cod with the judge (Rosalind Russell) his angry boss (Edward Arnold) expects him to discredit.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-12-01
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Swing Your Partner
Overview: Caroline Bird, the crotchety and stingy owner of Bird Milk Products, is not amused when her employees at the Dairyville factory, the oldest plant in the company, broadcast a special radio program in honor of her birthday. Employees Lulubelle, Scotty and Vera Vague, fed up with the terrible working conditions at Dairyville, cut into the broadcast, and Lulubelle asserts that Caroline is a "big hunk of cheese." Lane, the factory manager, cannot find the culprit, and so Caroline goes with her secretary, Dale Evans, to Dairyville.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-05-20
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Kennedy the Great
Overview: A short film about a family man who realizes he's a bore at social gatherings so he purchases a trunk full of magic tricks hoping to soon be the life of the party.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-12-08
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Disney’s Coyote Tales
Overview: Through redubbed footage of The Coyote's Lament, the coyote's relationship with man and dog is shown from the coyote's point of view, as seen in various Disney cartoons.
Genres: Family Animation
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1991-11-11
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The Three Stooges Follies
Overview: Released to theaters in 1974, this collection of vintage Columbia short subjects included: "Yes, We Have No Bonanza" with The Three Stooges; "Violent Is the Word for Curly" with The Three Stooges; "You Nazty Spy!" with The Three Stooges (replaced by "Men in Black" for the nontheatrical reissue); "Nothing But Pleasure" with Buster Keaton; "Strife of the Party" with Vera Vague; Chapter 1 of the 1943 "Batman" serial with Lewis Wilson and Douglas Croft; and "America Sings with Kate Smith."
Genres: Comedy Action Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1974-11-01
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