Verna Doesn't Fuss With Old Age

Between the time she was Dennis Day’s mother and Fred Flintstone’s mother-in-law, Verna Felton was the comedy highlight of a TV show starring Spring Byington called December Bride. Felton played Byington’s best friend Hilda Crocker, and got some of the best lines. She even got to do physical comedy.

Felton wasn’t exactly an ingénue when the show debuted in 1954. She had been on the stage at the turn of the century and spent a good part of the next three decades in touring companies, especially one based in Western Canada (Felton’s son, Lee Millar, was born in Vancouver).

Here’s an unbylined newspaper feature story from May 9, 1958, one of those “age is just a number” pieces.

Life Begins at 60 Plus For TV's Verna Felton
"Tarnation! What's all this fuss about old age?" asks Verna Felton, who takes the role of Spring Byington's accomplice in TV's "December Bride" series. "Just because the calendar says you've hit the mid-century mark, you don't just stop living.
"It seems to me that getting on in years would be enjoyable. When else in your life can you have such freedom? At 60 plus you can first begin to do what you please. There are no more responsibilities to growing children, home and family."
Reason for Rating
Verna Felton who approaches her seventieth year, has provided some of the most entertaining moments in the "December Bride" series. She is one of the reasons why the comedy series has been so highly rated in the past years.
She credits her spirit of youth to Walt Disney, Spring Byington and the roles she has taken in the entertainment world. "Without all three I might have become a doddering old woman," she says. Her voice, once described as a cross between Tallulah Bankhead, Wallace Beery and Ethel Merman, has been used for many of Mr. Disney's cartoon characters. "It's hard to be "old" when working for Mr. Disney," she says. "And working with Spring Byington—she's younger than me, you know—one has to keep herself going. Can't let a youngster like Spring get ahead of me."
Because she has always been cast as a mother, older woman or grandmother, Miss Felton has learned to keep her youth. "After playing Dennis Day's mother, Bob Hope's mother and Red Skelton's grandmother, anyone would start feeling ancient even when she left the program. I simply reverse attitudes after every role and I've been young ever since," she says.
Off Screen Humor
As humorous off screen, as on, Verna couples her amazing youth with dry wit that keeps the crew and staff in a state of helpless laughter during the long hours of filming the show.
Often, she is the butt of harmless practical jokes which go on continuously, sparked usually by Harry Morgan who plays Pete Porter, the caustic next-door neighbor.
Verna, who has more pep than a sixteen-year-old cheer leader, believes that she was destined for comedy. "With the start I had—she played Little Lord Fauntleroy in her first stage appearance—how could it be anything else?"
Born in Salinas, California on July 20, 1890, the brown eyed silver-haired actress augments her radio and TV careers with occasional motion picture parts. She drew critical praise for her role as the neighbor in "Picnic."
Away from work, she enjoys her swimming pool and loves to spoil her pets. She has three cocker spaniels, a big grey cat named "Veronica" and a talking parakeet which answers to the name of "Mama's Baby Bird." The delights of her life are her grandchildren, the two children of her son Lee Miller and his wife Edith. The amazing quality about Verna Felton is that she never ages. "I do add a few wrinkles, but that's about all. It's a shame that so many women seem to slow down for no reason once they grow old."

This short story from November 16, 1957 illustrates the dangers of live-to-film.

Verna Felton Loses Cue In Coffee
by RON BURTON
HOLLYWOOD (UP)—Shop talk: Verna Felton, a clever actress with a habit of putting cue lines in 1,001 places, received a setback the other day in the course of a CBS-TV show in the "December Bride" series.
The place this time for her cue line to help her remember her lines was in a coffee cup. It was part of the set, and Miss Felton wrote in the memory-jogging line with a crayon. The only trouble was that when the crucial time came, she looked into the cup and saw the line no longer just coffee. She drank the coffee but there was still no cue line.
It seems the prop man had filled the cup, and the hot coffee had melted away her crayoned words.

Tinkering ended Felton’s career as Hilda Crocker. Pete and Gladys was spun off when December Bride went off the air. Felton and Harry Morgan moved over from the old show, but then a “Gladys” had to be added. Cara Williams was hired for the role. She was to be the comedy star of the show; there was no need for Hilda, who was shuffled off after one season because creator Parke Levy didn’t feel there was a logical reason for her to be part of the plot.

“I would rather not go into detail about it,” Felton said about her firing, telling columnist Hal Humphrey in October 1961: “I'm too old to fight. Tell my fans they'll see me soon on a Jack Benny show, and I hope some other shows, too.” Indeed, Jack Benny called her one more time to yell “Aaaaaah Shaaaaadup!” at him like in the olden days on radio. She appeared with Cara Williams (that must have been uncomfortable) on a CBS-TV special starring Henry Fonda and then Joe Barbera came calling to see if she’d yell “Aaaaaah Shaaaaadup!” at Alan Reed as Fred Flintstone.

Felton’s career was fading, though. She died on December 14, 1966, the day before the man who brought the world feature cartoon versions of Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Dumbo, Sleeping Beauty and Lady and the Tramp—all films she appeared in for Walt Disney.