I wondered about that too. In the movie it seemed like there was one wife that Ray was married to between the early 1950's and at least 1979 when the state of Georgia apologized to him for degrading him during the 1960's. (The same wife was with him during the ceremony in the Georgia State Capitol.) Then we read in IMDB that that he'd fathered a baby previously in a marriage that lasted about 5 or 6 years in the early fifties So the real-life Ray was not so skittish about holding a baby as the movie implied; he'd already fathered a baby and had had a wife previously.
I really hate it when biographies are done in the movies with a lot of "sea changes" in the facts. Did the woman who played Ray's gentle and kind Christian wife from the early 1950's stay with him in real life? It was clear that she came to know about at least one other woman who he'd fathered a child with while married to her
It sounds like he was with the "movie" wife for many, many years, even though he had deceived her over and over again. And they really never gave an explanation as to WHY in the world the woman was either so self-hating, over-religious, or dumb or just satisfied with the comforts of the money he earned- ? that she stayed with him. I guess what came closest to explaining the phenomenon was that Ray viewed his home life and his road life as completely separate entities meaning he could play around while on the road but was a faithful husband at home
Except that the road life kept creeping in on him while he was at home, and really came crashing down on him when his girlfriend who he'd fathered a child with O.D.'d and he seemed genuinely in love with her too
Especially given Ray's Christian background, I am not sure I understand the man.
Lack of Fidelity didn't seem to bother him
Flanagan

They showed Rays FIRST EVER wife in the movie? He had his FIRST wife when he was about 18 or so and they had a child - they eloped because her parents thought they were too immature to stay together and Ray came from a broken home as such..
as for Marlene the character in the film RAY - that was a made up character to add an emotional/controversy narrative to the film
The reason Ray in fact left The McSon Trio is because Ra2000y was getting all the attention and he felt after a while that he'd better move on - especially after Atlantic bought his contract for 3000$ from Swing Time and Down Beat - but don't think badly of Brother Ray, he did in fact play with Milt Garret (The Bass player of the trio) later in his career, he didnt just forget about the,
hope thish elped a little
pz

• Silva