Verna: USO Girl is a teleplay

Television movie

A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...

 by Albert Innaurato

Albert Innaurato

Albert Innaurato is an American playwright, theatre director, and writer.Innaurato was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1947. After graduating from California Institute of the Arts, Innaurato attended the Yale School of Drama...

.

Based on a Paul Gallico

Paul Gallico

Paul William Gallico was a successful American novelist, short story and sports writer. Many of his works were adapted for motion pictures...

 story, it focuses on untalented singer-dancer Verna Vain, who fervently believes that a U.S.O.

United Service Organizations

The United Service Organizations Inc. is a private, nonprofit organization that provides morale and recreational services to members of the U.S. military, with programs in 160 centers worldwide. Since 1941, it has worked in partnership with the Department of Defense , and has provided support and...

 tour overseas will put her on the road to superstardom. Although she's more willing than able, her brave self-confidence wins the hearts of the beleaguered GI audiences. They embrace the dauntless Verna because she, like them, is risking her life for the sake of the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 dream.

Verna's fellow troupe members include Eddie, a second-rate vaudevillian, and would-be chanteuse Maureen, who encourages Verna (of whom she observes, "She's invented a new way to sing flat and dance clumsy") to set aside her show business fantasies and accept a proposal of marriage offered by Army

Army

An army An army An army (from Latin arma "arms, weapons" via Old French armée, "armed" (feminine), in the broadest sense, is the land-based military of a nation or state. It may also include other branches of the military such as the air force via means of aviation corps...

 engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

 captain Walter.

Filmed in military

Military

A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...

 training areas in Hammelburg

Hammelburg

Hammelburg is a town in the district of Bad Kissingen, in Lower Franconia, Bavaria, Germany. It is situated on the river Franconian Saale, 25 km west of Schweinfurt...

 and Baumholder

Baumholder

Baumholder is a town in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, in the Westrich, an historic region that encompasses areas in both Germany and France...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 by director Ronald F. Maxwell

Ronald F. Maxwell

Ronald F. Maxwell is an independent film director and writer from Clifton, New Jersey. He is most famous for writing and directing the American Civil War epics Gettysburg, 1993 and Gods and Generals, 2003....

, it stars Sissy Spacek

Sissy Spacek

Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...

, William Hurt

William Hurt

William McGill Hurt is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School, and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in the science-fiction feature Altered States , for which he received a Golden Globe nomination...

, Howard Da Silva

Howard Da Silva

Howard Da Silva was an American actor.-Early life:He was born Howard Silverblatt in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Benjamin and Bertha Silverblatt. His parents were both Yiddish speaking Jews born in Russia. He had a job as a steelworker before beginning his acting career on the stage...

, and Sally Kellerman

Sally Kellerman

Sally Clare Kellerman is an American actress and singer known for her role as Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan in the film MASH , for which she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.-Early life:...

. Period songs featured in routines created by burlesque

Burlesque

Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...

 comic Joey Faye and choreographed by Donald Saddler

Donald Saddler

Donald Saddler is an American choreographer, dancer, and theatre director.-Biography:Born in Van Nuys, California, Saddler studied dance at an early age to regain his strength after a bout of scarlet fever...

 include "I'll Get By," "Jeepers, Creepers," and "Since You Went Away."

Produced by Thirteen/WNET New York

WNET

WNET, channel 13 is a non-commercial educational public television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey. With its signal covering the New York metropolitan area, WNET is a primary station of the Public Broadcasting Service and a primary provider of PBS programming...

, Verna: U.S.O. Girl was broadcast nationwide by PBS

Public Broadcasting Service

The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

 as part of the Great Performances

Great Performances

Great Performances, a television series devoted to the performing arts, has been telecast on Public Broadcasting Service public television since 1972...

series on January 25, 1978. Da Silva won the Emmy Award

Emmy Award

An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

for Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy or Drama Special, and Maxwell's direction and Innuarto's script received nominations.