- Born
- Died
- Birth nameOdessa Cowan
- Nickname
- The Blonde Bombshell of Rhythm
- Height5′ 2″ (1.57 m)
- Ina Ray Hutton, daughter of pianist Marvel Ray, sang and danced in stage revues from the age of 8, culminating in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934. In mid-1934, she organized an "all-girl" band, the Melodears, featuring hot swing music and Ina Ray's hot dancing in sexy gowns. Ina Ray starred with her band in several Paramount musical shorts, 1935-37, and appeared as herself in a few feature films, but her chief claim to film fame is the starring role in a Columbia musical, Ever Since Venus (1944) (1944). The Melodears broke up in 1939 and Ina Ray organized an all-male band which played through the forties. She was the only woman to lead a prominent Big Band in that era. From 1951-1956 her new all-female band had a show on regional TV, with a brief national network run in 1956. She retired from music in 1968; she was divorced from her fourth husband, businessman 'Jack Curtis' when she died at age 67 of complications from diabetes.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
- SpousesJohn Franklin (Jack) Curtis(April 13, 1963 - December 28, 1979) (his death)Randy Brooks(April 10, 1949 - June 26, 1957) (divorced)Louis Paul Parisotto (Lou Parris)(October 27, 1943 - December 3, 1946) (divorced)Charles Oscar Doerwald(July 29, 1939 - February 1, 1940) (annulled)
- ParentsOdie Daniel CowanMarvel Shea Williams
- Stepsister-in-law of Axel Stordahl and Kenneth Tobey.
- First husband, Lou Parris, a saxophonist in her band; second, 'Randy Brooks' (not the actor), a fellow bandleader; third unknown; fourth, 'Jack Curtis' a businessman.
- In stage appearances 1933-4 she used stage name 'Ina Ray'.
- You'd be surprised how hard it is to find a good female trumpet player.
- I'm selling the show as a music program, not on a sex appeal basis, but if curves attract an audience, so much the better.
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