Biography

Rosalie Allen was born Julie Marlene Bedra on June 27, 1924, in Old Forge, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania and died September 24, 2003. Allen grew up the daughter of a Polish immigrant chiropractor in a large, impoverished Pennsylvania family. Inspired by the singing cowboys of the 1930s, she taught herself to sing and play her brother's guitar, then began working on the radio in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and later performed on Denver Darling's Swing Billies pseudo-western radio show in New York City.