Canova Family Had Show-Business Ties

Jacksonville produced its fair share of show business stars. One was Judy Canova. She came from an old Florida family. In the 1700's, the Canova family arrived in St. Augustine with other immigrants from Spain, Portugal and Minorca. They began to populate the state like the little gold balls in the orange groves they owned. 

One Canova family lived with their large family in Bradford County. The children studied music in Jacksonville to become accomplished musicians. Some settled in the city.

Judy Canova Album Cover

The musical genetics of the Canovas passed to the grandchildren and notably to Judy Canova, the yodeling hillbilly, famous on stage, screen and radio in the 1930s, '40s and '50s. Juliette Canova, born in 1913, took Judy as her stage name.

A popular, musical comedienne who maintained her country persona throughout her performing life, she was sometimes overlooked by critics and big city audiences. Nonetheless, her radio show rated in the top ten nationwide.

Judy Canova studied music in Jacksonville, as had Canova children before her. Her professional career began as a child, with her brother and sister playing and singing as the Three Georgia Crackers or the Canova Cracker Trio on Jacksonville radio.

Canova preferred to be a concert singer, as was her mother, but decided to rely on what she believed were the most valuable musical assets she possessed: her volume and her yodeling. From Jacksonville radio, the Crackers moved to New York City Night Clubs and vaudeville. Some say popular singer of the day Rudy Vallee heard their act and invited her to appear on radio with him.

Judy maintained her cornpone, dumb-as-a-fox character, dressed in bobby sox, outsized ankle boots, checkered blouse and straw hat. The pigtails she sported through adulthood became a popular college fashion for young women.

While Canova made several notable appearances in feature films, her real popularity lay in a series of comedies in which she starred as the man-chasing, under-appreciated but audience-favorite country bumpkin.

Radio was her greatest success, as she performed with Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergen and on the Chase & Sanborn Hour. She also cut a number of records.

The Canova career was rounded out by 12 years of The Judy Canova Radio Show, consisting of jokes, songs and corny characters. In 1953, it passed with the demise of old-time radio. She made many guest appearances on television and took small film roles until her death from cancer in 1983.

One of the first women to negotiate a share of her films' profits and special rights for her production company, Canova was anything but dumb. She was honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for radio and for movies. Her daughter, an actress, was named Dianna for Canova's Baker County grandmother. 

• Judy Canova on YouTube
  
• Internet Movie Database: Judy Canova  

Old Canova home in Baker County
Courtesy Florida Photographic Collection. (Public domain)

The Canova Family's former properties in Jacksonville's Springfield neighborhood. 
1985 Survey Photo

A recent view from Google Maps: