With Marjorie Hines of Freeport the situation is reversed. Usually it is the young and ambitious girl who craves fame on the stage, while the family protests. Marjorie (Betty) Hines, Doll-Voiced and Baby-Eyed, Doesn't Crave the Heartaches-Versatile Freeport Miss Happy in Kitchen Hines testified “she won a preliminary contest before she ever heard Miss Kane.” 4Īs for Hines herself, here’s an unbylined story from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of Septemabout her. Hines, Questel and Bonnie Poe, the other Boop voicer, all showed up in court to watch Kane lose her case there is an Associated Press photo of them together in an old post on this blog. To add to the confusion, Variety called Bimbo “a mouse waiter.” 3 So much for the drawings being “clear and effective,” as the trade paper proclaimed.ĭiamond referred to the lawsuit by Helen Kane, who basically claimed Paramount and the Fleischer studio stole her persona, affecting her ability to work. To me, Betty looks more doggish than cat-like in Dizzy Dishes. Diamond is amused by the idea of a "Betty Boop in Blunderland," carefully named so that it will not interfere with the West Coast feature, "Alice in Wonderland." And there must be so many new short subjects each season.
Novelty, of course, is the great problem of short subject producing. Diamond seems more amused than worried by the suit. All three have sung on the radio under the cartoon name, and no one seems to have noticed the difference.įor all that, Helen Kane is now bringing legal complaint that the cartoon is a burlesque of her. Marjorie Hines, the first Betty Boop, was succeeded later by May Questel. The feline personality called for a childish voice. Then the animators began experimenting, subduing the ears a bit, touching up the face, dropping the tail and ears entirely at last, and leaving only the round bright-eyed face. She was drawn originally as a cat, a cat with ears, tail and a kittenish voice. "A cartoon figure that was clapped just for making a bow."īetty, oddly enough, didn't start off as the pert little flapper she is now. To her creators' amazement, the audience replied with a hearty round of applause. Miss Boop ran out on the screen, bowed and threw a kiss to the audience. We didn't think she was anything particular at first, just another novelty." Diamond, "'Mutt and Jeff and 'Bringing Up Father' among them. "There have been lots of other human figures," said Mr. Diamond explains with justifiable pride, the first human figure ever to make a hit with cartoon fans. Max and Dave Fleischer, veterans of the animated cartoon business, and two brothers are responsible for Betty.
That little routine business fact has nothing to do with moviegoers' delight in the antics of Betty Boop and her pen-and-ink friends. That three minutes repeated several times a day can make quite a difference in the overtime salaries of the theater employees. Of the others the cartoons are still the most generally popular.Īudiences like them as much if not more than ever, and producers are pleased because a six-minute cartoon can chop three minutes off the program length of a nine-minute one-reeler. Newsreels are of course practically a necessity in any picture house. Notice at the end the deference paid to a certain Mouse cartoon producer on the West Coast about a feature that wouldn’t be on screens for several years. Margie gets a brief credit, more than she ever got on screen.
The New York Sun’s Eileen Creelman wrote about Miss Boop in its story about Paramount’s short subjects on May 22, 1933, quoting the studio’s overseer of one and two-reelers, Lou Diamond. Census lists her occupation as “singer, theatrical.” She had appeared on radio on WMRJ in Jamaica in 1929 1, the same year she won a Helen Kane contest in Brooklyn 2 (Questel had won the same contest in Manhattan). Margaret Louise Hines was born in Queens, New York on Octoto Andrew and Cecilia M. She married the swab who voiced the character, Jack Mercer. But there was someone else, someone who provided Boop-like voices for Van Beuren cartoons as well.įor a time, she was also Mrs. Mae Questel wasn’t the only woman to voice Betty Boop and Olive Oyl for Max Fleischer, but she’s certainly the best known and, no doubt, best loved.
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