Betty Boop’s Look and Sound was Stolen From One Singer Who Stole it From Another

Betty Boop is a well-known cartoon character if you even have a passing knowledge of them. She had a distinct, high-pitched voice and was supposed to look like a flapper in the 1930s. Nearly a century later, the character is still widely recognized as one of the first animated sex icons. Many people are unaware that Helen Kane, an actress, sued the creators of Boop for copying her voice and appearance.

I Wanna Be Loved by You, a song that Kane notably performed in 1928 and Betty Boop later made even more well-known. Even the character's creator, Max Fleischer, acknowledged that he based Boop in part on Kane. Kane had developed a distinctive vocal style that was simultaneously provocative and almost like baby talk.

Kane filed a lawsuit against the studio in 1932 accusing them of ripping off her appearance and voice, and so far, the case is all but over. However, you've never heard of Baby Esther. Before Helen Kane, who performed under the moniker Baby Esther, there was Esther Jones. There is proof that Kane saw Jones perform in the late 1920s, before she became well-known herself. She performed music at the Cotton Club in Harlem and had developed a persona that combined those silly "boop" and "doop" noises with a sensuous stage presence.

Kane was effectively suing for an act she herself had stolen, and video footage of previous Baby Esther performances was used to disprove her claim that she was the original performer. Kane lost her court case. Sadly, Baby Esther was no longer alive at that point and was assumed to have died, thus she was never able to take on the role of Betty Boop's "true" face.