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How Did Helen Kane Lose Her $250,000 Lawsuit?

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Helen Clare Schroeder Helen Kane Betty Boop Baby Esther Lawsuit 1934

Helen Kane lost her $250,000 Infringement Lawsuit against the creators of Betty Boop in court because she couldn't prove that her singing style, mannerisms and look was unique. Most flappers of the 1920s and 1930s, most notably Clara Bow, looked similar to Kane, she also was unable to prove that she originated the "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" scat singing, including the baby-talk singing style. In court it came out that a galaxy of singers had used "scat rhythm" before she did, and that the "baby-talk" singing style was a common method of singing, and that the "baby-talk" method of singing had been used since the early 1900s. In court it was proven that Helen Kane was not original, and that she had adapted her "scat singing" from other performers and or other performers had preceded her in that style.[1] Edward J. McGoldrick ruled in favor of the Fleischer Studios and Paramount Pictures after reviewing the evidence that was given in court. After losing the lawsuit, Kane appealed her case and continued to pursue the Betty Boop character, and was later told by another Judge, that being Judge Carew, that back then a voice, specially a voice that was not her own could not be copyrighted. You can also check out a scat-singing timeline here.

Footnotes

  • The origin of scat singing for female performers seems to link to Gertrude Saunders and the all-black Broadway musical Shuffle Along, whereas for males the scat singing originated from Louis Armstrong. Armstrong is said to have made scat singing famous. Scat singing antecedents in the West African practice of assigning fixed syllables to percussion patterns.
  • Baby Esther's predecessor in show business Florence Mills, who also appeared in Shuffle Along would often use a "Tooty-Tooty-Too" in her song "Baby and Me," in a higher pitch obbligato, kind of like a flute. This is the person Esther based her act on.
  • The baby-talk singing style was ruled out because it was a common method of singing, that went way back to the 1900s. Irene Franklin's recording of "I've Got the Mumps" is one of the earliest baby-talk songs.
  • Lou Bolton also testified that Helen Kane had the same booking agent as his ex-client Esther Jones, who was better known as the Florence Mills impersonator Little Esther Lee Jones, and that the booking agent Tony Shayne, and Helen Kane had both witnessed child performer Esther Jones scat sing at the obscure nightclub called the Everglades Club in 1928, and not too long after, Helen had started to scat sing in her act. Esther Jones was active in the United States in 1934, as she had returned from Europe, but Esther did not comment on the lawsuit.
  • During the suit, footage of Esther Jones scat singing from the 1928 M-G-M short went out of sync.[2] Paramount kept a taxi cab running outside all through the night, waiting to rush the repaired film to their newsreel lab, to make a new negative and composite sound print film. The new print was presented in court the next morning and was the final evidence that helped determine the case.
  • Helen's look was also ruled out because every other flapper girl of the 20s and 30s, also bore resemblance to Betty Boop, most notably Helen's rival Clara Bow, the It Girl. Helen came after Bow, not before and was once considered to be Bow's successor.
  • Helen Kane's fame had fizzled by 1931, just as her contract had ended with Paramount Pictures. It is noted that Helen was aware of the caricature but didn't take action, until the character became more famous than she did. It upset Helen that people had forgotten her "Boops" and that "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" was by then mostly linked to the animated character Betty Boop. Kane was also in debt, and was in and out of court for not paying rent, allegedly stealing money and this was due to her not managing her money well. She lived an extravagant lifestyle up until she blew most of her money by buying the finest of things.
  • During the lawsuit Kane claimed that she didn't know what "hot licks" were and lied under oath that she never heard of the term "scat singing" and claimed to not know what "scatting" in songs was. Had she not known what "scat rhythm" was, she would have never been able to interject "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" into her songs.
  • During the $250,000 Infringement Lawsuit, Helen Kane's attorney Samuel Weltz claimed that the footage of Baby Esther singing was irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial and stated that Esther Jones was a Helen Kane impersonator. He was denied by the court. It's actually a known fact that Esther Jones was a Florence Mills impersonator and had been impersonating Florence since 1928 at the Everglades. 
  • While being questioned, Helen Kane admitted that other baby-talk singers had preceded her on the stage. 
  • Helen Kane tried to lay claim to a voice that she did not own, had the vocal recordings been her actual voice, it would have been a complete different story. Which is why Kane was eventually told that she could not copyright a voice, specially a voice that she did not own. The voices in the Betty Boop cartoons were provided most notability by Margie Hines, Mae Questel and Bonnie Poe.
  • According to Mae Questel who was the official voice of Betty Boop, Helen Kane tried to negotiate with Max Fleischer by asking him to make her the official voice of Betty Boop. She told Fleischer that she would drop the suit, if she was able to voice Betty Boop. Though she most likely would have wanted a larger salary. Max Fleischer refused Kane's offer, telling her that he would only use Mae Questel. It should be noted that in 1930 several years before Questel became the official voice of Betty Boop, Helen Kane complained about her rival Questel using the "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" girl title. And she forced Questel to change her title. Had Fleischer made Kane the official voice of Betty Boop, then she would have been able to counter the Fleischers' claims had she ever thought of suing the company a second time, as Kane was well known for suing companies for money and sometimes not paying people back money she owed, and had to often be forced to pay by court orders. 

Trivia

  • Had Grim Natwick the original creator of Betty Boop, defended Helen in court, she might have won her suit against Paramount Pictures and the Fleischer Studios. Later in life, he told people in documentaries that he had in fact used a photograph of Helen Kane to create Betty Boop, and when Betty appeared in her first cartoon Dizzy Dishes, it was a play on Helen Kane, who had made "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" famous.
  • Helen Kane had been in several lawsuits about money up until the Betty Boop suit. Reason for this was, Helen was blowing all of the money she earned living the life of luxury, and she often took money from other people and didn't pay them back, and sometimes didn't pay her bills. During the trial, Bonnie Poe the voice of Betty Boop was mistaken for Helen Kane. Helen didn't pay her shopping bill at a clothing boutique, and the person who was serving refused to believe that Poe was not Kane, that is until a reporter picked up the story.  
  • Baby Esther was not the main reason as to why Kane lost her lawsuit, she was used as partial evidence, among numerous other artists. All of the evidence racked up against Kane in court, and she lost her case.
  • Other evidence used against Kane were also initial song releases by other artists. "Um-Um-Da-Da" by the Duncan Sisters, "Sam, The Ole Accordion Man" by the Williams Sisters and "When The Little Red Roses Get The Blues For You" by Al Jolson.
  • It is often noted that Helen Kane only sued Betty Boop because she was running out of money, not really the fact that she was upset, as she had a lot of imitators already taking most of the work that would have originally gone to her and did not sue them, proving that Kane needed a cash payout, only this suit backfired and she was outed as not being original, although she did make "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" famous and it was the signature style that she was best known for.
  • Kane continued to pursue Betty Boop after she lost, but it was ruled that a voice could not be copyrighted.
  • Helen even started using Betty Boop in her posters, and even played Betty Boop cartoons when she made appearances. The newspapers advised Max Fleischer to sue her, but he did not and allowed her to use Betty Boop. Reason being is because he didn't want to go back to court with Kane, as by then he hadn't a nice thing to say about her.
  • Kane even went to the length of signing a contract with King Features to rival Betty Boop in a comic strip by Ving Fuller, which was eventually replaced by Betty Boop's official comic strip series. Kane eventually gave up pursuing Betty Boop and continued to dub herself the original "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" girl, up until the day she died.

See Also

  1. ↑ Helen Kane's Idea Is Old
  2. ↑ Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Shorts: Little Esther
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