Ray Bourbon

Ray Bourbon, born Hallie Board Waddell on August 11, 1902, in Texarkana, was an American entertainer who worked as a female impersonator, vaudeville performer, and nightclub comedian. He appeared on Broadway between 1944 and 1949, with credits including Diamond Lil and Catherine Was Great. He died on July 19, 1971, in Brownwood, Texas, while incarcerated on a murder-related conviction.

Many facts about Bourbon's life remain difficult to verify, as he was widely regarded by those who knew him as an unreliable narrator who told contradictory stories throughout his life. Research published in 2021 identifies his birth name as Hallie Board Waddell. After his mother, Elizabeth Waddell, remarried, he appeared in the 1910 census as Hallie Hughes and in the 1920 census as Hal Hughes, both times in Texarkana. He used numerous names over the course of his life, among them Hal Wadell, Hal Hughes, Richard Mann, and Ramón Ícarez. In a 1937 Social Security application he listed his birth name as Hal Wadell, and FBI records indicate he once claimed a birth year of 1892 rather than 1902. He also claimed at various points to be the illegitimate son of a Texas congressman and to be descended from the Habsburg Bourbons, assertions that appear to have no factual basis.

Bourbon claimed to have attended school in London and to have first performed on stage there in 1913, though this also appears to be false. According to FBI records, he returned to the United States around 1917. He asserted that he had worked as a stunt double for film actresses and appeared uncredited in silent films, including Rudolph Valentino's Blood and Sand in 1922. Under the name Ramón Ícarez, he may have performed as a dancer at the opening of the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1923. He worked in vaudeville as part of a double act with Bert Sherry, touring both the United States and England, and in 1929 participated in another double act called Scotch and Bourbon. In 1931, billed as Mr. Rae Bourbon, he modeled women's dresses at a department store in Bakersfield, California. Following what may have been a large inheritance connected to his mother's death in 1929, he wrote a novel titled Hookers, published under the pseudonym Richard F. Mann.

By 1932, Bourbon was working full-time as a female impersonator. In 1933, he headlined a show called Boys Will Be Girls at Tait's Café in San Francisco. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, he performed in hundreds of gay nightclubs across the United States, with notable engagements in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami Beach. He performed his own material as well as songs written specifically for him, and his accompanists included Chet Forrest and Bart Howard. He also staged a sold-out midnight revue, Don't Call Me Madam, at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Around 1945, he issued a recording titled Hilarity From Hollywood. In 1944, Mae West hired Bourbon to perform in her Broadway production of Catherine Was Great, and he also appeared in her production of Diamond Lil, which toured until 1950.

By the early 1950s, Bourbon faced increasing legal pressure and declining commercial prospects. He was arrested in Los Angeles on a charge of impersonating a woman, and authorities shut down the club where he was performing on the grounds of indecency. Following an arrest in New Orleans in 1956, he claimed to have undergone gender reassignment surgery in Mexico, a claim widely considered a publicity stunt, though he may in fact have had an operation related to cancer. He subsequently insisted on being billed as Rae rather than Ray Bourbon and incorporated the claim into his performances and promotional material, including an album titled Let Me Tell You About My Operation. During this period he released a series of spoken-word albums on his own UTC label, sold at performances and through mail order.

In December 1968, Bourbon was accused of being an accomplice to murder. He had been traveling with approximately 70 pet dogs in a trailer pulled behind his car, and when the vehicle broke down in Texas, he left the animals in the care of a kennel owner named A. D. Blount. When Bourbon failed to pay for the dogs' upkeep, Blount disposed of them, most likely to an animal shelter. Believing the dogs had been killed, Bourbon hired two men, Bobby Eugene Chrisco and Randall Craneto, to assault Blount. During the attack, Blount was shot once in the chest and died. Bourbon was arrested ten days later, pleaded innocence, and was convicted alongside the two men. He received a 99-year prison sentence and died in a hospital in Brownwood, Texas, in 1971 while still incarcerated.