Carolina Cotton on AllMovie

Her signature tune "Three Miles South of Cash in Arkansas" a huge hit in 1946, Carolina Cotton (born Helen Hagstrom) was Hollywood's favorite cowgirl yodeler in the late '40s. A vocalist with swing bandleader Dude Martin on radio station KYA in San Francisco, Cotton made her screen debut opposite fellow hillbilly performer Roy Acuff in Sing, Neighbor, Sing (1944). Signed by Columbia Pictures, she went on to enliven such studio Westerns as Texas Panhandle (1944), with Charles Starrett, Singing on a Trail (1946), with Ken Curtis, Smokey Mountain Melody (1948), with Acuff, Hoedown (1950), with Eddy Arnold, and Apache Country (1952), with Gene Autry. In between her screen yodeling, Cotton performed with Spade Cooley and Tex Williams, recorded with Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, and entertained the troops in Korea. Retiring from show business in the 1950s, she earned a master's degree in special education and became a frequent guest speaker at various Western film conventions.