1929 HELEN KANE Betty Boop He's so Unusual I'd do anything for you VICTOR 22080

$

35

A series of great  PERSONALITY Records from Movies, Vaudeville, Minstrel and Humor  on 78 rpm Victrola Records

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Click this link for more great Personality and Humor Records in my other listings!

Betty Boop made her first appearance on August 9, 1930 in the cartoon Dizzy Dishes, the sixth installment in Fleischer's Talkartoon series.  The character was modeled after a combination of Helen Kane, the famous popular singer of the 1920s and contract player at Paramount Pictures, the studio that distributed Fleischer's cartoons and Clara Bow who was a popular actress in the 1920s The character's voice was first performed by Margie Hines,

HELEN KANE - the presumed MODEL FOR BETTY BOOP

in her great Recording:

in another ballad of sexual dependency (with the ba-ba-ba-boop filling in for love making)

It seems that in most of her songs, Helen Kane impersonates a girl who will bend over backwards (metaphorically in the lyrics, literally by implication) to please her guy. Quite risque for 1929

Condition:

Fleischer Studios animator Grim Natwick used Kane (along with Clara Bow) as the model for his studio's most famous creation, Betty Boop.

 Early life
Born as Helen Schroeder, she attended St. AnselmÆs Parochial School in the Bronx. Her German father's employment was questionable at times and her Irish mother worked in a laundry.

Kane's mother, Ellen Dixon Schroeder, reluctantly contributed $3 for her daughter's costume as a queen in the youth's first theatrical role at St. Anselm's. Fairy's gowns in the same production cost fifty cents, a not-inconsiderable amount of money back in those days. By the time she was 15 years old, Helen was onstage professionally, touring the Orpheum Circuit with the Marx Brothers.

Helen 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 here as well with the Stars of the Future (1922-24, and possibly a brief revival in early 1927). She also sang onstage with an early girl harmony singing trio - The Hamilton Sisters and Fordyce.

Helen's roommate was Jessie Fordyce at this time. Though this trio could have been the Hamilton Sisters and Schroeder, Pearl Hamilton had chosen Jessie instead to tour as a trio act "just to see what happens" during the end of a theatrical season, around 1924.

[edit] Music
The big break of Helen Kane's career came in 1927, when appearing in a musical called A Night in Spain. Although the musical was a flop, closing after only 22 performances, the band conductor, Paul Ash, put her name forward for a performance at New York's Paramount Theater).

Kane's first performance at the Paramount Theater in Times Square proved to be her defining moment and career's launching point. Kane was singing the popular song That's My Weakness Now, when she interpolated the scat lyrics ôboop-boop-a-doop.ö The rather odd gamble paid off, resonating with flapper culture and, four days later, Helen KaneÆs name went up in lights.

Overnight, the world changed for Helen. KaneÆs agent, Harry Besney got her $5,500 a week in Oscar HammersteinÆs 1928 show Good Boy (where she first introduced the hit, "I Wanna Be Loved by You" ). From there it was back to the Palace, but this time as a headliner for $5,000 a week. Helen rejoined her pals from vaudeville The Three X Sisters of NBC radio fame (aka The Hamilton Sisters and Fordyce) for one night, during a live stage performance in 1935 she harmonized with their unique banter to a novelty tune "The Preacher and the Bear".

She had excellent diction, intonation and timing, acquired during her apprenticeship in vaudeville. These were put to good use, as her songs have a strong word focus; they also capitalise on her pert, coquettish voice. She blended several styles which were fashionable at the end of the 1920s. These included scat singing, a kind of vocal improvisation, and also blending singing and speech; sprechgesang, or "speech-song" was fashionable at this time in the German Weimar Republic in both nightclubs and in serious music.

Kane made 22 song recordings during the height of her fame, during 1928-1930. After 1930 and up to 1951, she made only five more, including a re-release of "I Wanna Be Loved by You"[2]