Before She Was Mrs. Day

Jack Benny’s radio show had plenty of secondary characters, many of them played by the most in-demand actors on the air in the west. People like Bea Benaderet, Sara Berner, Joe Kearns, Frank Nelson, Mel Blanc, Herb Vigran . . .

And others, such as Verna Felton.

Her best-known role was Dennis Day’s mother. Day was new to radio acting when he was hired in 1939 and the veteran Felton was brought in as kind of a comedy insurance policy since he needed a bit to time to develop. She appeared on the first four broadcasts of the 1939-40 season beginning Oct. 9, 1939, missed an episode, returned for the next two, skipped the next episode, then returned twice in December.

After that, she was brought in occasionally. Her final show was May 8, 1955, not many weeks before Benny left radio.

Felton had a lengthy stage career, starting by August 1900, before she was hired to yell “Ahhhhhh shaddap!” at Jack Benny. Hollywood Citizen-News radio-TV editor Zuma Palmer profiled her in three parts, beginning Feb. 25, 1952.

Verna Felton at Home in Television
By ZUMA PALMER
Verna Felton added just as greatly to the quality of the sec[ond] Dennis Day television show as she did to the first.
"Timing," some would say. "Experience," the gray-haired, stoutish actress would declare.
And acting experience she has had. The kind only to be gained in stock where you "were forgetting a play, acting a play and learning a play, all at the same time."
Television is more like the stage than anything else, Miss Felton believes. "It will give newcomers some of the opportunity to learn to act that stock did," she remarked. "They can start out as extras, supers and work up." Miss Felton is a native Californian. It was in our state capital that, as a child, she got her start —with the Jessie Shirley company.
* * *
Every August for 20 years Verna Felton, Clara Allen, her mother, a character actress, and other members of the stock company managed by her father, Dr. H. W. Felton, began a tour of Canada from British Columbia. They gave 10 performances a week, a different play each time. When the company reached Ontario, at least 14 new dramas were prepared for the return. The actors had only Tuesday daytime free. If not performing, they were rehearsing.
Miss Felton, Dennis Day's mother on his NBC television show, said she never had a complete script to study, just her part and cues. The pay for the stars was $50 a week which was thought to be big.
PREPARATION
Before a play went into rehearsal, the director had blocked out on a board in his hotel room every move of every actor. No time was ever wasted in the theater deciding whether, for instance, it would be better for an actor to pass in front or behind another.
Many of the theaters were about the size of the Biltmore. In one building in which they performed, there was not seating for all who wanted to see the show. The emergency was met by selling space on the actors' trunks which had been placed outdoors in front of windows.
* * *
Players who toured in stock usually have some memories which bring a chuckle. Verna Felton is one.
The roll up curtain was in use when she was starring in Canada in plays by Shaw, Ibsen and other famous writers. As she was "dying" in "Camille" one night, the curtain came down too soon, catching in the puffs of the actress bending over her. Then up it went carrying with it the girl's false hair and veil. The audience didn't burst into loud laughter as might be expected, just tittered.
Miss Felton said you know your audience in five minutes. "In 'Camille,'" she related, "we would play it low, keep dropping our voice, until we would hear a rustle of a program, then we would come up.
Lee Millar joined the company. A romance began which continued until his death a few years ago.
Miss Felton and her husband were on Broadway in "Appearances." Mr. Millar then became a director for Leo Dietrichstein who was associated with the Shuberts and Cohen and Harris. He also worked for Walker Whiteside.
TRANSITION
When theater work became more difficult to obtain, the actress suggested radio. "Radio!" Her husband was horrified at the idea. Finally she told him if he wouldn't try to get a job in it, she would. After all, there was a little matter of eating. Mr. Millar went to NBC, met someone he knew, was given a chance to act and found, to his surprise, he enjoyed being in radio. One day he carne home and told his wife Tom Hutchinson had a place for her, too.
After reading her part, which was in "Ramona," the director said, "There's no one in the back gallery." Miss Felton had to forget that before the microphone, she didn't have a farthest most seat to which to project her voice.
Miss Felton has been on numerous broadcasts since 1932 when the pay was $9 a program, in pictures and is now in television, as Dennis Day's mother.
The gifted character actress has a son, Lee Millar, an actor; a daughter-In-law, four cocker spaniels—Mike, Tracy, Hildegarde and Gus Gus, and a Persian cat, Veronica.

Ramona was broadcast on KPO, San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 1, 1932 at 10 p.m. Included in the cast were Bernice Berwin, Dorothy Desmond, Ted Maxwell, Max Waizman, Henry Shumer, J.A. Smythe and Cameron Prudhomme. (A side note: at 6:30 that evening on KGO in Oakland was a half-hour programme starring humourist John P. Medbury and an orchestra led by someone named Phil Harris.

Palmer revealed in her column of Nov. 10, 1939 that Dennis had sat in on auditions for his mother's role. Jack left the decision up to him and, out of the final two actresses, he picked Felton.

Her final appearance as Dennis' mother was on Jack Benny's TV show, June 3, 1962. She died Dec. 14, 1966 at age 76.



Felton has an accomplishment from that era rarely spoken about. It was reported in the Victoria Times, on Sept. 9, 1933.

Verna Felton is NBC Announcer
Verna Felton, popular actress, who formerly had a stock company in Victoria, who has a host of friends among western Canada theatregoers, has gained radio fame in her appointment as the first woman announcer of a sponsored series of programmes over the National Broadcasting Company network.
Word has been received from San Francisco of Miss Felton’s assignment to the new and popular programme “Do You Believe in Ghosts,” heard Thursday evenings at 7:15 and Sundays at 9 p.m. over the coast network. The programme is written by Harold Burdick, former Seattle newspaperman, who is also narrator.
Miss Felton and her husband, Lee C. Millar, have been appearing in NBC productions for some time.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s radio writer, James Adam, caught the first broadcast and commented on Sept. 5, 1933 he didn’t like Hal Burdick's show or Felton. All we can say is “Ahhhhhh shaddap!”

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.

A 1945 TV Sitcom

Today’s quiz—what was the first television sitcom starring a woman?

“I Love Lucy” (1951) might come to mind. Maybe “The Goldbergs” (1949). Afraid not. There was at least one before them, before there was coast-to-coast network television, a time when only nine stations were on the air.

In 1945, W6XAO in Los Angeles aired a live situation comedy called “Oh, Miss Tubbs.” It starred Verna Felton, who you may know better as Dennis Day’s mother on radio and Wilma Flintstone’s mother on television (both were pretty much the same character). “Tubbs” had a terrific cast of radio veterans—Jane Morgan, Arthur Q. Bryan, Walter Tetley, Earle Ross and Eddie Marr. I wish I could tell you if more than one episode aired. The Los Angeles Times is silent on any W6XAO programming that year. Various sources on the internet say the station was only operating every other Monday for several hours (and old films made up a good part of the schedule). All I can find out about the show is in these shots taken for the September 30, 1945 of Radio Life magazine. Unfortunately, the scans are ultra low-resolution, but they give you a flavour of the show, which aired August 6th.



Felton is at the blackboard. Tetley is in the chair.



Eddie Marr is to the left of Felton. Marr did a fair amount of dramatic work on radio, but he’s was also the crook who spat out “Your money or your life” to Jack Benny (in a routine later repeated with other actors).



The moustached man who seems to be doing a Gale Gordon impression is Joe Granby. In the second photo, Selma Stern is to the left of Tetley; she plays a housekeeper.



Granby has it out with Earle Ross in the photo on the left. Ross appeared on The Great Gildersleeve as nemesis Judge Hooker. “Ahhhh...SHADDAP!” was pretty much a Felton catchphrase, thanks to her role on the Benny show.



“Oh, Miss Tubbs” had a life after W6XAO. According to the not-always-reliable Internet Movie DataBase, CBS took an option of the show, and it was reworked into a radio sitcom in 1948 called “Our Miss Brooks,” which proved to have more longevity than poor Miss Tubbs. A whole new cast was assembled (though Jane Morgan won a different part). Verna Felton went on to provide the spark in Spring Byington’s “December Bride” sitcom, but she never starred in a TV show again.

Before She Was Dennis Day's Mother

She was the mother who cared so much for her son, she’d turn to his employer and bellow “Ah, shaddup!”

Verna Felton was perfectly cast as Dennis Day’s mother on “The Jack Benny Show.” So perfect, more than 20 years later she was hired to play the same kind of battle-axe mother on TV, haranguing and berating Fred Flintstone for being such a crummy husband for her daughter, Wilma.

Day was virtually a radio rookie when he made his debut on the Benny show on October 8, 1939. Benny’s show was a top-rated coast-to-coast affair, not some local music show like the kind Day had periodically appeared on in New York City. So Benny let Day grow into his role by hiring someone with experience to, basically, do the talking for him for a number of shows. Benny hired Verna Felton, who had already appeared on his programme in a variety of roles, including the mothers of orchestra leader Phil Harris and announcer Don Wilson.

Felton was a true veteran. But she wasn’t a vaudevillian like Benny. She honed her craft on the legitimate stage, travelling from town to town. She was getting top billing in San Francisco in 1900, when she was barely 10 years old. At age 13, she was billed as a “dainty” actress, a word that would never be used to describe Dennis Day’s longshoreman-like mother.

Although Mary Livingstone spent part of her childhood in Vancouver’s West End, Felton was the Benny cast member with a big Canadian connection. Her family lived for a time in both Vancouver and Victoria. Her older brother, actor George Clayton Felton, was married in Victoria in 1914 and settled in Ladysmith on Vancouver Island; Verna was a guest of the town in 1958 during the British Columbia Centennial celebrations and showed off her collection of 150 hats.

Here’s a story from the Vancouver Sun of August 2, 1952 about Felton’s early show business career, the one few fans of the Benny show probably know about.

Verna Felton Is Still Tops
Veteran B.C. actress rates high in movies, radio, TV
By BOB WILLETT
VETERAN actress Verna Felton, an American who credits Canada with her continued success in movies, radio and television, lived in British Columbia for twenty years. During that time she toured from Victoria to Toronto annually. She knows more about Canada than about her native California.
“I spent a third of my life as a Canadian entertainer,” she relates. “Met my husband in the Dominion and gave birth to my boy in Vancouver. I’ve been drawing on my Canadian experiences ever since.”
Miss Felton is best known as the domineering mother of Dennis Day on his radio and television programs. In the twelve years she has been mothering the singer on the air, she has received hundreds of letters from fans offering advice on how to raise a son. Whether or not, she took any of it, she has been successful as the real-life mother of Lee Millar, Jr., who is active in television production.
Since the death of her husband a few years ago, Verna has lived with Lee and his wife, a cat named Veronica and four cocker spaniels known as Mike, Tracy, Hildegarde and Gus Gus. The last-named canine is called after a mouse created by Walt Disney, for whom his mistress has worked for several years. She has been the voice of such delightful Disney characters as a mother bunny in “Bambi,” an elephant in “Dumbo” and the fairy godmother of “Cinderella.”
Versatile Verna has been a regular on radio since 1932 and is one of the highest-paid performers in the business. Apart from acting with Dennis Day, she has portrayed the grandmother of “mean widdle kid,” Red Skelton. The comedian, who once kiddingly suggested that they team for vaudeville as Felton and Skelton, still calls her Grandma.
She is also known as old-time movie star, Patsy Pierce, on the Judy Canova radio show and her appearances with comedian Eddie Cantor on television. Her screen credits include important parts in such pictures as “Gunfire,” “The Fuller Brush Man” and “Buccaneer’s Girl.”
Born in Salinas, California, Verna began her career as Little Lord Fauntleroy, touring with the old Jessie Shirley stock company with her mother, Clara Allen. When she was 17, her father, Dr. J.W. Felton, organized a stock company in which her mother was featured and called it, The Allen Players. Soon after the group was formed, they journeyed to Vancouver to begin a Canadian tour of what they hoped might be of three or four months’ duration.
They were so popular they sold seats on their wardrobe trunks in an effort to accommodate crowds. Canada became their career and they travelled from B.C. to Ontario and back annually. In the twenties and thirties, they were on the road each season from August until the following spring. In between tours, they did summer stock at the Empress and Vancouver Theatres in Vancouver. The Feltons had a summer home in Ladysmith, but didn’t spend much time at it.
“We used to do a different drama every night for three weeks while we were on tour,” Verna recalls. “Our repertoire included 21 plays. We had no complete scripts, just our parts with cues. As a result, memorizing for television is easy for me.”
In 1928, the family troupe closed its trunks for the last time. Verna had married Lee Millar, an actor who had joined the company several years before, and they decided to try their luck on Broadway. In New York, Verna and Lee made a joint appearance in “Appearances,” after which he was hired as a director of Blesaco and Shubert productions. During the depression, when the stage went the way of everything else, they moved to California and, more or less in desperation, turned to radio. It proved a fortunate turn. Lee went to work for NBC in Hollywood and eventually arranged an audition for his wife.
“I’ll never forget it,” Verna avers. “After I read for a part in a broadcast of ‘Ramona,’ the producer pointed out that, while the program would be heard for many miles away, it was not necessary for me to try to reach the listeners without taking the transmitter into consideration. I had to overcome the habit I had acquired of projecting to the last row in the theatre. When I did, I was hired for a series of shows—at nine dollars per program.”
At home, in an England manor type house in North Hollywood, Verna minds her menagerie, cultivates camellias and knits. At radio and TV rehearsals and between scenes of movies, she is never without her knitting.
“It keeps me out of trouble,” she says. “When I was a teenager, an older actress once asked me what I did with my spare time around the theatre. When I admitted that I did nothing, she advised me to get a hobby that would keep my hands busy.
“All the years since, whenever I’ve wished to avoid seeing or hearing something going on around me, I’ve just put my head down and purled like mad.”
Verna still corresponds with friends in British Columbia and gets a special kick out of fan mail from Canada, particularly when someone remembers seeing her on stage.
“A letter postmarked Saskatoon, Sask., brought back memories of my most embarrassing moment,” she told me. “I was doing the death scene in ‘Camille’ at a theatre there and the curtain went down ahead of schedule, then right back up. It was one of those roll-up affairs and, when it went up, it took the wig and veil of the actress bending over me. That was the only time I ever died laughing!”

There were many mothers on network radio in the ‘40s: Harriet Nelson, Blondie Bumstead, Peg Riley, Janet Archer (Corliss’ mom), all gentle, intelligent women with loving and occasionally-firm advice for their youngsters. And then there was Lucretia Day, the boisterous former Golden Gloves boxer who verbally fought Jack Benny on the air and usually won, the mother who loved her son Dennis so much she moved away on several occasions without telling him. We can do no better than to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day. The wonderful actress who played her passed away in 1966, but Verna Felton’s best-known character lives on in the minds of old-time radio fans.