Grace Hayes was born on August 23, 1896 in Springfield, Missouri. She moved to San Francisco, California at the age of ten, and began to sing at nightclubs at the age of fourteen. In 1912 Hayes married Joseph Lind, and their son Joseph Conrad Lind (better known as Peter Lind Hayes) was born in 1915. She married twice after Lind; first to Charlie Foy, then to Robert Evan Hopkins. Hayes is best known for her career in motion pictures from 1929 to 1950, primarily for King of Jazz (1930) and Zis Boom Bah (1941).