Some of the information is Boop-Oop-a-Dooping full of SPOILERS. Boop-Oop-a-Doop! Mae Questel
Mae Questel, 444 Central Park West, called as witness in behalf of the Fleischer Studios, Inc., being first duly sworn, testifies.
What is your occupation, Miss Questel?
Mae Questel: "Actress."
How long have you been a professional actress?
Mae Questel: "About four or five years."
Before that what were you doing for a living?
Mae Questel: "I taught elocution."
How long did you do that?
Mae Questel: "About two years."
Did you participate in any Helen Kane contests?
Mae Questel: "I did."
In what year?
Mae Questel: "I think 1928 or 1929?"
In what theatre?
Mae Questel: "At the Fordham Theatre."
Did you win a prize?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
Was it first prize?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
And what was the prize?
Mae Questel: "Four days' booking at the theatre."
Did you play that theatre for the four days?
Mae Questel: "I did."
Did you ever see Helen Kane perform publicly before you entered this contest?
Mae Questel: "I did."
How often?
Mae Questel: About four or five times in theatres."
Did you ever see her in moving pictures before you went into this contest?
Mae Questel: "I did."
Do you know how often?
Mae Questel: "Well, I don't know how often, no."
Did you hear any phonograph records by Helen Kane before you entered this contest.
Mae Questel: "No."
After this engagement at the Fordham, what did you do after that?
Mae Questel: "I played in the R.K.O. theatres in vaudeville.
In this act you went in, at which you won the prize, what kind of an act did you put out, what did you do?
Mae Questel: "You mean the contest prize?"
Yes.
Mae Questel: "I just sang a song and for two days I played a single in the theatre and recited a poem."
What song did you sing in this prize performance?
Mae Questel: "The song that won the contest, with 'He's So Unsual'."
How long did you continue with the R.K.O.?
Mae Questel: "For about 10 weeks."
Will you describe your performance during those 10 weeks?
Mae Questel: "I sang cute songs, I mimicked people, and that is about it."
What songs did you sing?
Mae Questel: "I sang the song I won the contest with, 'He's So Unusual'."
Any other songs?
Mae Questel: "I sang a Chevalier song, a song about a little boy who was very naughty in school."
What did you do after this 10 weeks' engagement?
Mae Questel: "I played the other theatres and I recorded the Betty Boop pictures, and sang on the radio."
What theatres in this country have you played in?
Mae Questel: "Almost all of the New York theatres."
Were you engaged to do the recording for the voice of Betty Boop in the Fleischer cartoons?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
Who engaged you?
Mae Questel: "Mr. Diamond."
Did you sing before Mr. Diamond, before he engaged you?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
What song did you sing?
Mr. Weltz: Objected to.
The Court: Sustained.
I think you testified that you sang on the radio?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
Do you recall when you started that engagement?
Mae Questel: "I do not recall."
Was it in the year of 1932?"
Mae Questel: "I think so."
What was the name of the act which you performed on the radio?
Mae Questel: "Mae Questel, the Mimic on the Air."
After that, did you play any act on the road?
Mae Questel: "Yes, the past year."
What was the name of that act?
Mae Questel: "Betty Boop."
Mr. Weltz: "Are you talking about 1933?"
Mr. Welling: "Yes."
Are you playing at the present time, Miss Questel?
Mae Questel: "No, I just completed an engagement."
What was the name of the act?
Mae Questel: "Betty Boop."
What?
Mae Questel: "Mae Betty Boop Questel."
How long have you been playing this act, Miss Questel?
Mae Questel: "About two months."
Will you describe that act?
Mae Questel: "I sing a Betty Boop number, a few Betty Boop numbers, and in the last number I do character studies of Mae West, ZaSu Pitts, and the Old Irish Woman, also Maurice Chevalier.
Miss Questel, in these performances that you have just described, was there a placard on the stage naming the act?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
Of course you have no that placard with you, it belongs to the theatre?
Mae Questel: "Yes, sir."
How is the act named on the placard?
Mae Questel: "It was Betty Boop on one side, and Mae Questel on the other."
Did you make public appearances in department stores in the year 1931?
Mae Questel: "Namm's in Brooklyn."
What other department stores in New York did you appear in, in public?
Mae Questel: "Stern Brothers."
On what date?
Mae Questel: "November 28, 1931."
Did you appear in any department stores publicly in Newark?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
Did you put on an act or demonstration publicly in those department stores?
Mae Questel: "I did."
Miss Questel, you have done quite a little of mimicking during the past few years, haven't you?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
One of the characters whom you mimicked was Maurice Chevalier?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
Did you mimic Fanny Brice?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
Tell me the names of the other people that you mimicked?
Mae Questel: "I exaggerated. I made an exaggeration of the character."
When you mimicked you sang or acted in such a way as to give the impression of your impersonation of the person to whom you referred, isn't that correct?
Mae Questel: "An exaggeration of the person that I referred to."
Take Maurice Chevalier, for instance, if you mimic him would you sing the song "Hello Beautiful" these people know Chevalier as the man who sings "Hello, Beautiful"?
(Objected to. Sustained.)
When you sing in imitation of Fanny Brice, you sing or pick out the song and sing it for which she was well known, isn't that so?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
And Fanny Brice, you sing "I'm an Indian"?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
What is your age? I do not mean to be personal?
Mae Questel: "I am over 21."
Did you ever mimic Helen Kane?
Mae Questel: "Yes, I did."
When you mimicked her, you sang "That's My Weakness Now", isn't that correct.
Mae Questel: "I sang 'He's So Unusual'."
Did you also sing "That's My Weakness Now", don't you remember that?
Mae Questel: "In the cartoon?"
In the cartoon when you mimicked Helen Kane and sang "That's My Weakness Now"!
Mae Questel: "I did not mimic Helen Kane."
In question I asked you a few moments ago, I asked you whether in your personal appearance you mimicked Helen Kane, and you said yes. Is that correct?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
Then I asked you whether in mimicking Helen Kane you sang "That's My Weakness Now," and you said "No, in cartoons I sang 'That's My Weakness Now'." Isn't that correct?
Mae Questel: "I sang the song."
"That's My Weakness Now"?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
That is when you mimicked Helen Kane?
Mae Questel: "No."
Do you remember when you saw Miss Helen Kane before you entered this Fordham impersonation contest?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
You saw Miss Kane at the Paramount during her six weeks' stay there, didn't you?"
Mae Questel: "I did."
Do you remember her singing Paul Ash "That's My Weakness Now"?
Mae Questel: "I do."
She sang it rather cutely, didn't she?
Mae Questel: "I think so."
It made quite an impression on you, you seem to hesitate?
Mae Questel: "It did."
How many times did you go to see Miss Helen Kane at the Paramount when she sang "That's My Weakness Now" to Paul Ash, three or four times?
Mae Questel: "I did not go to see Miss Kane. I went to the theatre only once."
But coincidentally you saw Miss Kane?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
What song did you sing at the Riverside Theatre?
Mae Questel: "'He's So Unusual'."
You sang that again?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
And you sang that because you knew Helen Kane was popular for that song?
Mae Questel: "I learned the song to imitate."
You learned the song to imitate Helen Kane?
Mae Questel: "For the contest."
In learning the song to imitate Helen Kane, you listened to her sing that in the movies in order to imitate her character?
Mae Questel: "I saw the picture once."
In order to imitate her you observed her characteristics, didn't you?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
And you observed her gesticulations of the hands, didn't you? Yes or no.
Mae Questel: "I do not think so."
Did you observe the way she sang "Boop-Boop-a-Doop", do you remember that?
Mae Questel: "I don't remember that picture."
You remember the way she sang the "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" in interpolations in the "That's My Weakness Now" at the Paramount?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
And when you sang at the Fordham you used "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" in interpolations, didn't you?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
You were introduced as Mae Questel, the winner of the Helen Kane impersonal "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" contest, isn't that true?
Mae Questel: "No."
What was it?
Mae Questel: "Mae Questel, the winner of Helen Kane tri-borough contest."
You were the winner of three-boroughs contest?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
That is, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan?
Mae Questel: "Yes, sir."
You do your hair, or you have your hair combed like Miss Kane, isn't that true?
Mae Questel: "I have always had my hair combed this way."
But you have it now combed like Miss Helen Kane.
Mae Questel: "I don't know."
Will you take off your hat, you have spit curls on the side and the forehead like Miss Kane, is that right?
Mae Questel: "I think so."
Do you know that Margie Hines has her hair done that way too?
Mr. Welling: "Objected to."
Mae Questel: "I don't know."
I will show you the photograph, I want to show you the coincidence.
The Court: "No, you must proceed with questions."
Did you ever see Bonnie Poe?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
Bonnie Poe has her hair combed like Miss Kane did?
Mae Questel: "Up to date?"
When you saw her she did?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
Have you any photographs that were taken of you before you entered the Helen Kane amateur contest?
Mae Questel: "I don't know."
Perhaps I can show you one. Do you recognize this picture?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
That is a picture of you when you won the conest, isn't that right?
Mae Questel: "No."
Just a little before the contest?
Mae Questel: "About a year after the contest."
Where was this picture taken?
Mae Questel: "At the White Studio, on 42nd Street, I think."
Have you any pictures of you that were taken in 1928?
Mae Questel: "I do not think so."
What other singer did you imitate in your mimicking during the theatrical appearances that you made?
Mae Questel: "Irene Bordoni."
What song did you sing?
Mae Questel: "I sang' There Is Danger in Your Eyes, Cherie'."
Did you know that was the song that Irene Bordoni had sung?
Mae Questel: "No. I only saw Miss Bordoni sing it once."
Do you keep abreast of the theatrical things that occur?
Mae Questel: "As much as I can."
You are quite an educated young landy, you read quite a bit?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
Don't you know that Irene Bordoni is known for her singing of that song that you just mentioned?
When you impersonated Helen Kane, what characterization did you mimic or exaggerate?
Mae Questel: "Her face."
Was it the rolling in her eyes?
Mae Questel: "No."
What else?
Mae Questel: "Her gestures."
Was it the way she sang "Boop-Boop-a-Doop", wasn't that one of the things, too?
Mae Questel: "I sang 'Boop-Boop-a-Doop' in the song."
Didn't you try to sing it the way that Helen Kane would sing "Boop-Boop-a-Doop"?
Mae Questel: "I sang it a little differently."
But in intonations of Helen Kane?
Mae Questel: "(No answer.)
In singing the "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" interpolations in imitation of Helen Kane, didn't you endeavor to sing it as Helen Kane sang it, isn't that true?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
What other songs did you sing of Helen Kane?
Mae Questel: "In imitation of her, that is the only one I sang in imitation of Helen Kane."
When you said you tried to imitate her face, didn't you mean by that her facial expression?
Mae Questel: "Her pout."
When you say pout, you mean the pushing forward of the lips?
Mae Questel: "Yes."
The pout that people knew her for, is that right?
Mr. Welling "Objected to."
Mr. Weltz: "Question withdrawn."
What else did you do facially other than Miss Kane's pout?
Mae Questel: "I don't know."
You don't know?
Mae Questel: "I never study my own face in the mirror."
I presume that is so. I do not question it, without looking in the mirror cannot you tell us how you make the imitation, your facial expression, I mean?
Mae Questel: "No."
When did you start singing for the Betty Boop cartoons?
Mae Questel: "I think about the year 1931."
What is that?
Mae Questel: "I am not sure of the date."