Spoiler : Born in Shreveport, Louisiana. Married and divorced to Todd Ford. The daughter of a mother that played piano, and father that invented the Gray Gas and Oil Seperator vital to the oil drilling business. At age 17 she moved to Dallas, Texas with her family where she sang on radio station WFAA's Early Bird Show where Lawrence Welk hired her to be his first Champagne Lady when he formed his Champagne Music Makers in 1930-?. For one week Jan Garber hired her to sing with his "Idol of the Airlanes" band in Chicago, then was hired by Ted Weems which was performing at the Bismark Hotel in Chicago. Gray became the singer in Hal Kemp's band from 1932 to 1940, from 1932 to 1934 the group performed at the famous Blackhawk Resaurant appearing on the Monday Night Midnight Fliers program broadcast on WGN-Radio. During the the middle 1930s, while appearing with Kemp's band at the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles, she met Tommy Lee, son of Don Lee that owned 30 radio stations in California known as the Don Lee Mutual Network. At that time, Lee built station W6SKO, the first experimental television station on Hollywood mountain. Gray had the distinction of being "the first lady of TV" in pioneer telecasts from the station. During Kemp's band return to Chicago, the train crashed severly injuring Gray. After healing, she joined Kemp's band in New York which was appearing in the Waldorf Astoria's Starlight Room. After a week Kemp fired her. She moved to Los Angeles, where she sang with the Alvino Rey on Alvino Rey Presents for Mutual-Radio, which became Maxine Gray Entertains from 8/16/1939 to 12/1/1939. Gray was teamed with composer/arranger David Rose appearing on broadcast on California Melodies 3/28/1940 to 3/3/1943 for the Don Lee-Mutual Radio Network.

Spoiler : From the middle 1940s to the early 2000s, she has owned a music store in Laguna Beach, California. In the 1950s, she helped (Lawrence) Welk Enterprises open a gift shop in the Welcome Inn in Escondito, California. She moved to Hawaii where she worked as a private investigator for Allstate Investigations, sold caskets for Memorial Park, and managed Zales Jewelry Stores. She also bought homes and an an apartment, which she later sold. During that time, she appeared on an early morning news show with Eddie Saks, called "Turtle (Dove) and Maxine." As of 2003, she was retired, living on Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, Honolulu, Hawaii.

Spoiler : Maxine Gray (Ford) and I lived in the same town, Whittier, CA and became pretty good friends. About 35 years ago Maxine decided to move to Hawaii. She asked me if I would transfer her Transcription Discs (about 300 of them) and make a few cassette copies for her. I kept in contact with her until she died in 2006. Maxine was known as the first Lady of Television, having made television appearances beginning in 1938 or 1939 and was Lawrence Welk's first "Champagne Lady." Although she did quite a bit of radio, she is best known for starring with Dave Rose in the 1940's "California Melodies" series. Dave Rose became the Music Director of KHJ and launched the new "California Melodies" series on March 28th, 1940 titled "Meet Dave Rose." His singer was Betty Jane Rhodes. Because of an earlier commitment, Maxine didn't become the permanent singing star of the series until the second episode on April 18th, 1940. She remained until April 7th, 1943. I have several of Maxine's other radio performances including, "Alvino Rey - Maxine Gray Show (which became the "Maxine Gray - Alvino Rey Show"),"Maxine Gray Entertains," "Nobody's Children," "Charlie McCarthy Show," "Lady Esther Serenade." If there's any interest, I may post a few of them at some point. Outside of her Radio and Television careers, Maxine was the lead singer with the Hal Kemp Band, a role she told me she really enjoyed and had wonderful things to say about Kemp. The picture at the left is one that Maxine autographed for me. At the top is Maxine with Hal Kemp and the bottom picture is Maxine when dating Tommy Lee, whose Dad, Don Lee owned KHJ and thirty other West Coast stations known as the Don Lee Network and the Mutual Don Lee Network. I have put a great many of these programs into circulation already, but I don't believe this is one of them. From November 9th, 1940, here is the 24th episode of "California Melodies:"