Canova sang, yodeled and played guitar, and she was typed as a wide-eyed likable country bumpkin, often barefoot and wearing her hair in braids, sometimes topped with a straw hat.

[8] Canova's fame began when as a teenager when bandleader Rudy Vallée offered her a guest spot on his radio show The Fleischmann Hour.

[citation needed] After she starred in the 1939 Broadway musical comedy Yokel Boy with Buddy Ebsen, executives at Republic Pictures, with a customer base largely in rural areas, signed Canova in 1940 shortly after the show ended its run.

Canova quickly became Republic's leading female star, playing country women who typically blundered into trouble in such titles as Scatterbrain (1940), Sis Hopkins (1941) and Joan of Ozark (1942).

Canova left Republic in 1943 over a salary dispute and signed with Columbia Pictures for three feature films: Louisiana Hayride (1944), Hit the Hay (1945) and Singin' in the Corn (1946).

Playing herself as a love-starved Ozark bumpkin dividing her time between home and Southern California, Canova was accompanied by a cast that included voice master Mel Blanc (using voices that he later gave to cartoon characters Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester), Ruth Perrott, Ruby Dandridge, Joseph Kearns and Sharon Douglas.

[11] She also starred in The Murdocks and the McClays, a retelling of Romeo and Juliet set in the Virginia hills, which aired on ABC in August 1970 as the final installment in a three-part showcase of pilots titled Comedy Preview.

Her ashes were interred in the secluded Columbarium of Everlasting Light section at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.