Betty boop black kids trial#

Russian-American theatrical manager Lou Bolton saw her performance and took her on, with her first performance purportedly being in a Chicago revue, Opera Versus Charleston. Esther's career began in the 1920s when she won first prize at a Charleston contest in Chicago at the age of six. Career īaby Esther lived in the 'colored' neighborhood of Chicago with her mother and father.

While touring Europe in 1930, Esther had already been honored, along with Josephine Hall, as representatives of both African-Americans and the United States of America. Fleischer court case, Bolton claimed that Kane first saw Esther perform in 1928, at which time Kane had a ringside seat with Shayne at the Everglades Club on Broadway. In 1928, Tony Shayne, Jones' New York booking agent, also served as booking agent for Helen Kane. According to Bolton, Esther began using nonsense syllables in her singing between 1926 and her arrival in New York in 1928. īy 1924, she was being managed by Lou Bolton. In her act, 'Baby Esther' danced, made funny faces, rolled her eyes, and-most famously-interpolated nonsense phrases such as 'Boo-Boo-Boo', 'Wha-Da-Da', and 'Doo-Doo-Doo'. Esther was a trained scat singer, dancer and acrobat who performed regularly at nightclubs in Harlem and all over the United States in the 1920s. She was initially managed by her parents, Gertrude and William Jones. ' Baby' Esther Lee Jones, originally billed as Little, Li'l or Lil' Esther, was a child entertainer who lived in Chicago, Illinois.

Betty boop black kids trial#

Other evidence introduced at the trial included a recording by the Duncan Sisters and testimony from performers such as Bonnie Poe, Margie Hines, and Little Ann Little, who testified that she had been singing in a baby voice and using interpolations such as 'bo-de-o-do' for several years. An early test sound film of Baby Esther's performance was used as evidence. Fleischer trial that Kane saw Baby Esther's cabaret act in 1928, in which Esther used interpolated words such as 'boo-boo-boo' and 'doo-doo-doo'.

Theatrical manager Lou Bolton testified during the Kane v. In 1932, when singer Helen Kane sued Fleischer Studios, claiming that they had appropriated her persona for the voice of the cartoon character Betty Boop, the studios defended themselves by arguing that Kane's style of singing-characterized by her baby voice and use of the phrase 'boop-boop-a-doop'-was not her own invention. After gaining attention in her hometown of Chicago, she became an international celebrity before leaving the public spotlight as a teenager. 1918, date of death unknown), known by her stage names ' Baby Esther', ' Little Esther', and other similar variations, was an American singer and child entertainer of the late 1920s, known for interpreting popular songs with a 'mixture of seriousness and childish mischief'.