Ina Ray

Ina Ray Hutton, born Odessa Cowan on March 13, 1916, in Chicago, was an American singer, bandleader, and the elder sister of vocalist June Hutton. She appeared on Broadway between 1933 and 1934, with credits including the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934 and the musical Melody. Hutton died on February 19, 1984, at the age of 67, from complications related to diabetes.

Hutton's mother was a pianist in Chicago, and Ray began performing on stage at the age of eight. By age fifteen she was appearing in the Gus Edwards revue Future Stars Troupe at the Palace Theater and in Lew Leslie's Clowns in Clover. Her Broadway work included performances in George White's productions alongside her credits with the Ziegfeld Follies.

In 1934, Irving Mills and vaudeville agent Alex Hyde approached Hutton to front an all-girl orchestra called the Melodears, at which point Mills asked her to adopt a new name. The ensemble included trumpeter Frances Klein, Canadian pianist Ruth Lowe Sandler, saxophonist Jane Cullum, guitarist Marian Gange, trumpeter Mardell "Owen" Winstead, and trombonist Alyse Wells. The Melodears appeared in short films and in the feature film Big Broadcast of 1936, and recorded six songs sung by Hutton before disbanding in 1939. The group was among the first all-female big bands.

Following the Melodears, Hutton organized an all-male ensemble, the Ina Ray Hutton Orchestra, whose members included George Paxton and Hal Schaefer. That band appeared in the 1944 film Ever Since Venus, recorded for the Elite and Okeh labels, and performed on radio. After that group dissolved, she formed a second male band. In the 1950s she assembled another female big band for television, starring in The Ina Ray Hutton Show. She retired from music in 1968.

Questions have been raised by historians regarding Hutton's racial background. Although she and some family members were thought to have been white, the 1920 U.S. Census listed her as "mulatto" and the 1930 Census listed her as "negro." Under her birth name Odessa Cowan, she was mentioned in multiple articles in the African American Chicago newspaper The Chicago Defender covering her early career, and a 1924 issue of that paper published a photograph of her as a seven-year-old dancer performing with an all-Black dance troupe.

Hutton was married five times and had no children. Her marriages included a union with traveling salesman Charles Doerwald, which was annulled because his prior divorce was not yet finalized at the time of their elopement on July 29, 1939. She subsequently married saxophonist Louis P. Parisotto on October 27, 1943, divorcing him on December 3, 1946. On April 10, 1949, she married jazz trumpeter Randy Brooks, divorcing him in June 1957. She then married Las Vegas beauty salon owner Michael Anter on May 31, 1958, with that marriage ending in 1960. Her final marriage, to tool company owner John "Jack" Franklin Curtis on April 13, 1963, ended in divorce on December 29, 1979.