Carolina Cotton (October 20, 1925 – June 10, 1997) was an American singer and actress known as the "Yodeling Blonde Bombshell", the "Girl of the Golden West", and the "Queen of the Range."

Early life

Cotton was born Helen Hagstrom October 20, 1925 in Cash, Arkansas, to a farming family who moved to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. She took dancing classes and became a child singer, and gradually accompanied traveling shows.

Career

At the age of 16, she was a high school student who would visit a radio station to watch Dude Martin’s Roundup Gang. When the band's yodeler left to get married, Martin asked her whether she could

yodel Yodeling (also jodeling) is a form of singing which involves repeated and rapid changes of pitch between the low-pitch chest register (or "chest voice") and the high-pitch head register or falsetto. The English word ''yodel'' is derived from th ...

. She replied, "Sure I can! Why not?" — though she had never before yodeled. Martin gave her her nickname "Carolina" because he reckoned that Arkansas was not so well recognized in California The surname "Cotton" came later thanks to fans and a radio disc jockey named Cottonseed Clark. In 1944, while in Hollywood to pick up costumes, she bumped into songwriter

Johnny Marvin John Senator Marvin (July 11, 1897 – December 10, 1944) was an early American recording artist and musician, starting in 1924 and covering a twenty-year period for many record labels. Early years Born in Butler, Oklahoma Territory in 18 ...

. He offered her a part in a film called '' Sing Neighbor Sing'' that led to a kid-sister speaking part and a song specialty in ''

I'm from Arkansas ''I'm from Arkansas'' is a 1944 American musical comedy film directed by Lew Landers. Plot summary The town of Pitchfork, Arkansas makes national headlines when Esmeralda the sow gives birth to 18 piglets. Among the visitors to Pitchfork are ...

''. She was then asked to join the

Spade Cooley Donnell Clyde "Spade" Cooley (December 17, 1910 – November 23, 1969) was an American convicted murderer and former Western swing musician, big band leader, actor, and television personality. In 1961 he was arrested and convicted for the Ap ...

Orchestra, where she doubled on bass fiddle. In 1945 she married western bandleader Deuce Spriggens. The marriage lasted only three months, but it was important to her career because she began making appearances with Spriggens in feature films for

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...

. Columbia signed her as an actress, and she appeared opposite the studio's cowboy stars

Ken Curtis Ken Curtis (born Curtis Wain Gates; July 2, 1916 – April 28, 1991) was an American singer and actor best known for his role as Festus Haggen on the CBS western television series ''Gunsmoke''. Although he appeared on ''Gunsmoke'' earlie ...

Gene Autry Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998), nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American singer, songwriter, actor, musician, rodeo performer, and baseball owner who gained fame largely by singing in a crooning s ...

, and

Charles Starrett Charles Robert Starrett (March 28, 1903 – March 22, 1986) was an American actor, best known for his starring role in the ''Durango Kid'' westerns. Starrett still holds the record for starring in the longest series of theatrical features: ...

. She stated she stopped making films only when they no longer made B Westerns. Cotton hosted a program called ''Carolina Calls'' twice a week on the Armed Forces Radio Services in the late 1940s and early 1950s and made tours of Germany and Korea.McNutt, Randy ''King Records of Cincinnati'', Arcadia Publishing, 27/05/2009, p. 17. She made a variety of television appearances (a planned series, ''Queen of the Range'' never came to be), and she was featured opposite superstar western bandleader

Bob Wills James Robert Wills (March 6, 1905 – May 13, 1975) was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the founder of Western swing, he was known widely as the King of Western Swing (although S ...

in a series of

Snader Telescriptions Snader Telescriptions, produced for television from 1950 to 1952, were film versions of popular and classical music performances. Singers, dancers, orchestras, and novelty acts appeared in the Snader musicals. They were produced by Louis D. Snader, ...

, three-minute videos made for television. Inspired by meeting many children around the world during her travels, Cotton decided to become a teacher, but still performed occasionally, especially at western film festivals. She retired from Mount Vernon Elementary School in Bakersfield, California, in early 1997, and died in June, after battling ovarian cancer for three years.

References

External links

*
Encyclopedia of Arkansas entry
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cotton, Carolina 1925 births 1997 deaths 20th-century American actresses 20th-century American singers 20th-century American women singers Actresses from Arkansas American radio personalities Deaths from cancer in California People from Craighead County, Arkansas Singing cowboys Western (genre) film actresses Yodelers 20th-century American male singers