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OBITUARY

GLENN LEEDY ALLEN SR.

Dec. 31, 1935 — April 19, 2004

Visitation will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Sunday in Frye Chapel & Mortuary in Brawley for Glenn Leedy Allen Sr. 68, of Calipatria, who died Monday in Pioneers Memorial Hospital in Brawley.

Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. Monday in the mortuary. Pastor Sylvester Blair of the Church of Living Water of El Centro will officiate.

Burial will be in Evergreen Cemetery in El Centro.

Mr. Allen was born Dec. 31, 1935, in Sand Springs, Okla., and moved to Phoenix when he was a toddler.

After the death of his mother, Pauline Roberson, his grandmother, Ivy Allen, adopted him and his sister, Leslie. They later changed their last name to Allen.

In Phoenix, while on a playground at age 7, a talent scout from the Walt Disney movie studios discovered and recruited him to act in movies. The family relocated to Los Angeles to help him pursue a career in films. He was featured in several films, his largest and most memorable role as "Toby" in "Songs of the South." During filming, he was tutored on the set and when filming was completed he attended public schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

He married Blanche Hill in Yuma on May 21, 1955. They had four children and separated in 1970.

Mr. Allen then married Carol Wilson on Oct. 22, 1979, and they had three children while residing in Los Angeles. They later moved to El Centro, where he found his father, Lester Leedy. He and Carol divorced in 1985.

He then met Janie Tucker in 1985, with whom he lived and raised a family of eight children. They married on Jan. 15, 1994.

Mr. Allen was preceded in death by his brother Theodore Shirley Jr.

Survivors include his wife, Janie Allen of Calipatria; children, Glennann, Glenn Jr., Ivy, Paul, Lester, Leslie and Mister Allen, Dornell Fredrick, Katherine Street, James Cody, Mary Beverly, Joseph Bradshaw and Kenny Stamp, all of the Imperial Valley; brother, Veodas A. Shirley of Los Angeles; sister, Bettye Jeanne Hurd of Tennessee; sister and brother-in-law, Leslie Kellum-Addison and the Rev. Robert Addison of Los Angeles; 29 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren and a host of nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews.

Source: Originally posted on 4/24/04 at ivpressonline.com/obituaries.

For more information on Glenn Leedy, please see his biography page.