A woman masquerading as a man isn’t the most original idea. The Greeks did not allow women to perform in plays, so men were women by default, more or less. Shakespeare had the same challenge – men played the women’s parts – but he tried the idea of a woman being mistaken for a man more than 400 years ago with Twelfth Night. In this tradition, Hollywood offered True to the Army in March of 1942. The star, the de facto male, was Judy Canova (1913-1983).
How could this happen? After all, this is a Hollywood musical comedy. She is forced to seek safety with her boyfriend Private J. Wethersby “Pinky” Fothergill (Jerry Colonna), who is stationed at a mythical stateside military base where the emphasis seems to be entertaining the troops rather than shooting the enemy. If you are in the Army in 1942, you are a male. If our heroine wants to stay – gangsters are out to get her – she must be male, at least for a time.
Simple trick: cut your hair and wear a uniform. It helps that our girl, named Daisy Hawkins in the script, is also a sharpshooter. This comes in handy when the gangsters show up during a musical number.
Judy Canova’s background included both vaudeville, Broadway, and early radio. Beginning with a sibling act — the Three Georgia Crackers –she was a recording artist and comedienne who adopted and never completely managed to escape her early typecasted persona.
To a portion of the movie-going audience she would remain a “man-lovin’, pigtail-braidin’, straw hat-wearin’ country bumpkin.” Her early films were popular with fans but not necessarily the critics. In 1946, she almost quit the movies to focus on a radio career and family.
The family part involved four husbands and two children. By 1955, her radio show had ended, and TV guest appearances (“The Colgate Comedy Hour,” “Make Room for Daddy” and “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”) introduced her to a new generation. She died in 1983 at age 69.