The final screen credit of Verna Felton (1890-1966), as Winifred the Elephant in Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book (1967) makes a good touchstone for exploring the rest of her career. She specialized in bellowing, blustery biddies on stage, in radio, TV and film, both live action and animated. Disney loved her, and also employed her as a voiceover actress in Dumbo (1941), Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), Lady and the Tramp (1955) and Sleeping Beauty (1959). She was also recognizable as the voice of Fred Flintstone’s mother-in-law on The Flintstones (1962-63).
Felton became a professional actress in the San Francisco area at the age of 10. Billed as “Little Verna Felton”, she helped earn money for her family after the death of her physician father. For over three decades she crisscrossed America with touring stock companies. Towards the late ’30s (as she approached the age of 50) she began acting in radio and this is was what opened the floodgates for a very busy career. She was a regular on Fibber McGee and Molly, The Great Gildersleeve, The Jack Benny Program, The Abbott and Costello Show, The Joan Davis Show, The Judy Canova Show, The Red Skelton Show, and My Little Margie et al.
Live action films were fewer but Fuller had entertaining roles in several well known ones, including Northwest Passage (1940), The Fuller Brush Man (1948), The Gunfighter (1950), Little Egypt (1951), Don’t Bother to Knock (1952), and Picnic (1955). On TV she was on The Dennis Day Show and The Jack Benny Program in her radio role as Dennis’s mother; also: The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show; Where’s Raymond? (as Ray Bolger’s mother); Amos ‘n; Andy; I Love Lucy; December Bride; Peter and Gladys, etc.
In 1917 Felton appeared in her only silent film, The Chosen Prince, or the Friendship of David and Jonathan. Of course she didn’t take to acting in silent movies — no one could hear that voice!
For more on show biz history, please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous,
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