Scarce vintage blue fountain pen signature on a 3x4-inch portion of a tan autograph album page, acquired in-person in the 1930s. Some minor crinkling; otherwise, in good condition for its age and nice for matting with a favorite photograph. The daughter of pianist Marvel Ray, gorgeous Ina Ray Hutton sang and danced in stage revues from the age of 8, culminating in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934. That same year, she organized her famous "all-girl" band, the Melodears, which backed her with hot swing music while she danced frenziedly in revealing gowns. The wildly popular group appeared in several Paramount shorts in the late 1930s, and Hutton made cameos in a few feature films, landing only one starring role, in the 1944 musical Ever Since Venus. When the Melodears broke up in 1939, Hutton organized an all-male band, which she led through the 1940s, becoming the only woman to lead a prominent big band in that era. She apparently wasn't an obliging signer and her autograph is elusive in any format.

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