Helen Kane

Helen Kane (born Helen Clare Schroeder, August 4, 1904 – September 26, 1966) was an American singer. Her signature song was "I Wanna Be Loved by You". Kane's voice and appearance were a source for Fleischer Studios animator Grim Natwick when creating Betty Boop. Kane attempted to sue the studio for claims of stealing her signature "boop-a-doop" style. However, it was revealed that Kane copied that style from Harlem jazz singer Baby Esther leading to the case's dismissal.

Early life

Kane attended St. Anselm's Parochial School in the Bronx. She was the youngest of three children. Her father, Louis Schroeder, the son of a German immigrant, was employed intermittently; her Irish immigrant mother, Ellen (born Dixon) Schroeder, worked in a laundry.

Kane's mother reluctantly paid $3 for her daughter's costume as a queen in Kane's first theatrical role at school. By the time she was 15 years old, Kane was onstage professionally, touring the Orpheum Circuit with the Marx Brothers in On the Balcony.

She spent the early 1920s trouping in vaudeville as a singer and kickline dancer with a theater engagement called the "All Jazz Revue". She played the New York Palace for the first time in 1921. Her Broadway days started there as well with the Stars of the Future (1922–24, and a brief revival in early 1927). She also sang onstage with an early singing trio, the Hamilton Sisters and Fordyce, later known as The Three X Sisters.

Kane's roommate in the early 1920s was Jessie Fordyce. The singing trio act might have become the Hamilton Sisters and Schroeder; however, Pearl Hamilton chose Fordyce to tour as a trio act "just to see what happens" at the end of the theatrical season.

Music

Kane's career break came in 1927, when she appeared in a musical called A Night in Spain. It ran from May 3, 1927, through Nov 12, 1927, for a total of 174 performances. Oscar Hammerstein's 1928 show Good Boy was where she first introduced the hit "I Wanna Be Loved by You". Then it was back to the Palace, as a headliner for $5,000 a week.

Films

In mid-1929, Paramount Pictures signed Kane to make a series of musicals at a salary of as much as $8,000 a week (equivalent to over $160,000 in 2009).

Although Helen was not the "star" of most of her pictures (with Dangerous Nan McGrew being the one exception) she was so popular that in the case of Sweetie, her name appeared over the title on the marquee when the movie premiered at the New York Paramount (although Nancy Carroll was the true star). Helen provided all the fun and she and Jack Oakie danced to "The Prep Step", a big hit along with "He's So Unusual". They even performed this dance at the very first Hollywood Bowl fundraiser in 1929.[4][better source needed] Another hit from this picture was Nancy Carroll's "My Sweeter Than Sweet".

Kane v. Fleischer

In 1930, Fleischer Studios animator Grim Natwick introduced what was alleged to be a caricature of Helen Kane, with droopy dog ears and a squeaky singing voice, in the Talkartoons cartoon Dizzy Dishes. "Betty Boop", as the character was later dubbed, soon became popular and the star of her own cartoons. In 1932, Betty Boop was changed into a human, the long dog ears becoming hoop earrings.

In 1932, Helen filed a $250,000 infringement lawsuit against Max Fleischer and Paramount for unfair competition and exploitation of her personality and image. Before his death, cartoonist Grim Natwick admitted he had designed a young girl based upon a photo of Kane. Margie Hines, Mae Questel, Bonnie Poe, Little Ann Little, and Kate Wright provided the voice for Betty Boop. They had all taken part in a 1929 Paramount contest, which was a search for Helen Kane impersonators.

It was later proven in court that Kane based her style in part on Baby Esther, an African American singer and entertainer of the late 1920s who was known for her "baby" singing style. Baby Esther performed regularly at the Cotton Club in Harlem, and theatrical manager Lou Walton testified during the Kane v. Fleischer trial that Helen Kane saw Baby Esther's cabaret act in 1928 with him and appropriated Jones' style of singing, changing the interpolated words "boo-boo-boo" and "doo-doo-doo" to "boop-boop-a-doop" in a recording of "I Wanna Be Loved By You". Kane never publicly admitted this.

Testimony was offered in court to convey the impression that Helen Kane adopted Baby Esther's boops to further her own popularity as a singer. Baby Esther made funny expressions and interpolated meaningless sounds at the end of each bar of music in her songs. Kane was nevertheless known as the "Boop" girl. In April 1928 Miss Kane and her manager attended a performance of Baby Esther in a New York night club and just a few weeks later began to "boop" at a theatre. When Kane attempted to sue Fleischer Studios for using her persona, the studios defended themselves by arguing that Kane herself had taken it from "Baby Esther" Jones. An early test sound film of Baby Esther's performance was used as evidence.

Later years

With the hardships of the Great Depression biting, the flamboyant world of the flapper was over, and Kane's style began to date rapidly. After 1931 she lost the favor of the moviemakers, who chose other singers for their films.

Death

Helen Kane battled breast cancer for more than a decade. She had surgery in 1956 and eventually received two hundred radiation treatments as an outpatient at Memorial Hospital. She died on September 26, 1966, at age 62, in her apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City. Her husband of 27 years, Dan Healy, was at her bedside. Helen Kane was buried in Long Island National Cemetery, in Suffolk County, New York.