Philadelphia native Carlotta Dale had her own CBS radio program in 1935 before joining Jan Savitt’s KYW studio orchestra in 1937. She remained with Savitt when he took the band national in 1938. An exceptional vocalist, she once sang on the band’s radio program from a hospital room while the musicians circled above Philadelphia in an airplane.
Dale left Savitt in 1939 and then sang with Will Bradley’s orchestra through at least March 1940. In 1942, she began her own local radio program on Philadelphia radio station WIP as a build-up to a national show on the Mutual network.
In 1938, Dale’s husband, Pearson Lessy, identified by Billboard magazine as a radio singer and by the local newspaper as a furniture salesman, divorced her, stating that she preferred a career to marriage. In May 1942, she married Edwin G. Delheim, who was not associated with the entertainment industry, and faded from the public eye.