Biography

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).

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>

Stepsister-in-law of Axel Stordahl and Kenneth Tobey.

Older half-sister of June Hutton, singer, seen with Charlie Spivak's band in Pin Up Girl (1944).

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.