BETTY BOOP WAS BLACK

Ya learn something new every day. Today, at Facebook, i learned that Max Fleischer based his Betty Boop character on "Baby Esther," Esther Jones.



A lot of people at the time thought she had been based on Helen Kane . . . including Helen Kane.



However, Kane and her manager unwisely decided to sue Fleischer in 1932. Fleischer not only testified that his Betty Boop character was based on Baby Esther, but he brought in the Jazz man who had helped Baby Esther develop her singing style, to show that it was original, and not based on Kane. (See the Wikipedia article on Baby Esther). The belief became so common, that when i went to Google to get images, i found that images of Baby Esther, Esther Jones, came up in a search for Helen Kane. People are still fooled.