Still frame from the short film "Swing, Hutton, Swing" 1937, (Image - youtube)
During the 1930s she gained notoriety for both her music and her seductive stage persona, earning her the nickname ''Blonde Bombshell of Rhythm.''
Hutton was born Odessa Cowan on March 13, 1916, and grew up with her younger sister June (also a successful singer) in a black neighbourhood on Chicago's south side.
Her parents were Marvel Svea (meaning "Swede") Williams and Odie Daniel Cowan. By 1918, Marvel and her husband Odie, along with their daughter Odessa, lived at 440 E. 40th Street located north of the Hyde Park area where Odessa and June would later go to High School.
Marvel was a pianist and played professionally in Chicago ballrooms and clubs as "Marvel Ray." Odessa was taught some piano by her mother, however Marvel preferred to teach her to dance and sing instead. Odessa went to study dance under Hazel Thompson-Davis, a renowned dance instructor and choreographer in Chicago.
During the early 1930s she appeared in The George White Scandals and The Ziegfeld Follies.
While performing in The Ziegfeld Follies, Ina Ray dazzled Irving Mills, the man who discovered the likes of Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. Along with Alex Hyde, Mills convinced Ina Ray to come work for them in a new venture they had in mind, an all-girl orchestra.
It wasn't until she jumped on board with Hyde and Mills in their all-girl band venture that she added the name Hutton, to take advantage of the notorious reputation of the Woolworths heiress Barbara Hutton who made all the headlines back then.
Still frame from the short film "Star Reporter" 1936, (Image - youtube)
The Melodears were an instant hit, touring solidly for five years and appearing in several Paramount film shorts, including Feminine Rhythm (1935), Accent on Girls (1936) and Swing, Hutton, Swing (1937). The latter included the excellent Truckin'. Ina Ray does her best to tap dance in a tight black gown that pretty much glues her knees together.
Although she was a great dancer and performer, she was not a musician let alone a bandleader. She played the piano only partially, but her personality and entertainment value was what made the band a success. It was quoted that the girl band members never followed her waving arms. At that point in time, she was an "artificial" bandleader, meaning it was "all show."
She went from being a $50 a week dancer, to making $3,500 a week with her band. After some time though, Ina started studying music because she knew she couldn't carry on the charade forever. It took her years to learn music but eventually she felt confident enough to conduct the band as a real bandleader.
Eventually, Ina felt that an all-male orchestra was better and more lucrative than the girls, so she dropped her original band in 1939 and started a new band comprised of only male band members. "Although an all girl band was easier to look at, the all male band is easier to listen to" - Ina's own words quoted in an article published in The Evening Independent, March 27, 1944.
She also decided to drop all the sexy, lacy get-ups and the blonde hair for more appropriate attire. She was finally in control and wanted to be taken seriously, not just as a sex kitten parading in front of a band, but to be recognized as "Ina Ray Hutton - Bandleader".
Down Beat magazine April 15, 1940, Ina Ray Hutton on cover
She continued to perform with her all-male band until 1946, but in the early 1950s, after being approached about having her own television program, "The Ina Ray Hutton Show", she revived her original act that made her famous, bringing back an all-girl band.
The show aired in California from 1951-1955, having a brief stint on national television in 1956.
Besides her Big Band career and her own television show, Ina appeared in several films: The Big Broadcast of 1936 and Ever Since Venus (1944).
Ina Ray Hutton was married four times. She never had any children and died fairly young at the age of 67, from complications of diabetes on February 19, 1984.
Several decades after her death, Ina Ray Hutton became a subject of controversy. An enterprising news reporter from Seattle named Phyllis Fletcher started to investigate Ina's ethnicity and discovered she was mixed race. Hutton's skin colour was light enough to pass as white without people suspecting that she was in fact a mulatto.
In the 1920 census she is listed as "mulatto," then in 1930 she is recorded as "negro." Her parents' records also showed inconsistencies in race.
Fletcher tried another direction to determine Hutton's race. She used Hutton's birth name, Odessa Cowan, to search for records of Hutton as a child.
She examined the archives of the Chicago Defender, a national black newspaper in circulation since 1905, for the birth name. If the star-to-be or her family members were mentioned in this newspaper it would indicate that they were part of the black community. This turned out to be the key to revealing Hutton's race.
Fletcher typed "Odessa Cowan" into the archive and up popped a list of articles mentioning the starlet as a child. There she was in articles about her recitals – she started her career as a tap dancer. And in 1924, the paper published a "Dancing Beauties" photo of the budding star at age 7 with two other black girls, all wearing dance costumes.
1924 'Dancing Beauties' photo published in the national black newspaper The Chicago Defender - Odessa Cowan stands in the middle
The mentions of Hutton and her family in the Chicago Defender showed that they "socialized as black in a segregated city in a segregated time," Fletcher said.
It's known for certain that Ina Ray's father Odie Daniel Cowan was white caucasian while her mother, Marvel Svea Williams may have been Afro-American. Either way, throughout their lives, Ina Ray Hutton and her sister June identified themselves as 'White' or Caucasian.
Below, 20 year old Ina Ray Hutton sings and dances to Truckin'
References:
ForumBiodiversity.com
Hollywoodland Forever Stories
