Her parents left Missouri, travelling cross-country while singing gospel music and preaching at revival meetings across the United States.

[9] They were regulars on The Hollywood Barn Dance, a successful weekly CBS Radio program broadcast on Saturday nights,[11] and hosted by Foy Willing and emceed by Cliffie Stone.

In 1945, when Eddie Dean introduced her to guitarist Les Paul,[14] she was a popular western vocalist on KXLA's Dinner Bell Round-Up Time.

After Tuttle left, Summers' older sister, Eva, sang with Earles and Widener as the Three Rays on the Jimmy Wakely Show on CBS.

[13] Colleen Summers appeared on Gene Autry's Melody Ranch CBS radio program as a cast member and featured vocalist from July through early November 1946.

In 1946–48, Summers was a regular actor in the drama portion of The All-Star Western Theatre, a radio program hosted by Foy Willing and his Riders of the Purple Sage.

[16] By 1947, Summers became romantically involved with Les Paul, whose first marriage to Virginia M. Webb was failing, as it could no longer endure the stresses and strains of his show-business career.

[5][17] In January 1948, while traveling on Route 66 through Oklahoma, the couple's car driven by Summers skidded off the road and plummeted 20 feet into a frozen creek bed.

That same year, Les Paul divorced his wife and wed Mary Ford on December 29 in a "small private ceremony without much fanfare" in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

[18] Ford and Paul were music superstars during the first half of the 1950s, putting out 28 hits for Capitol Records between 1950 and 1957, including "Tiger Rag", "Vaya con Dios" (11 weeks at No.

After extensive touring and recording, the couple decided to leave Hollywood and moved to New York City to make the crossover from radio to television.

During 1951, Ford and Paul earned $500,000, and had recorded more top ten hits for the year than Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and The Andrews Sisters combined.

In September 1952, after cutting "I'm Sitting on Top of the World", Ford and Paul sailed for London to appear at the Palladium Theatre, where they debuted before Queen Elizabeth II and the royal family.

Following the success of "Vaya con Dios", in 1953 the couple hosted The Les Paul and Mary Ford Show, their own daily television program broadcast from their Mahwah home.

Interviews and performance footage of the couple are featured in the musical documentary Chasing Sound: Les Paul at 90, directed by John Paulson (Johnny Mathis Live, An Evening with Chita Rivera).