Ray Bourbon

Ray (or Rae) Bourbon (c.1892 – July 19, 1971) was the stage name of an American female impersonator and comic entertainer noted for his "outrageous" risqué monologues. He mainly performed in nightclubs, gaining a following in the 1930s and 1940s, and issued several LPs of material during the 1950s. He died while serving time in prison, after being convicted of being an accomplice to murder.

Many details of his life are disputed, but it is thought that his birth name was either Hal Wadell (or Waddell), or Ramón Ícarez, and that he was born in Texas. He claimed to have been born on August 11, 1902, but FBI sources state that he admitted that his birth was in 1892. In a 1937 application for a Social Security card, he gave his birth name as Hal Wadell, but at different times in his life claimed that he was the illegitimate son of a Texas congressman, and/or that he was the "last of the Habsburg Bourbons" whose mother had traveled to the US shortly before giving birth. One friend stated: "Where Ray was concerned, we simply never knew what was real and what wasn't."

He claimed to have attended school in London, and to have first performed on stage there in 1913. He returned to the US around 1917 and, according to the FBI, married and had a son. Bourbon claimed to have been a stunt double for movie actresses, and an uncredited actor in several silent films, notably Rudolph Valentino's Blood and Sand in 1922. Using the name Ramón Ícarez, he may have appeared as a dancer at the opening of the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1923. He also performed in vaudeville as one half of a double act with Bert Sherry, and toured the US and England. In 1929 he worked in another double act, Scotch and Bourbon, and in 1931 (as Mr. Rae Bourbon) modeled women's dresses in a department store in Bakersfield, California. After receiving a large inheritance, he then wrote a novel, Hookers, published under the pseudonym of Richard F. Mann.

...
Wikipedia