She is, however, mentioned in many documentaries and books about the Harlem Renaissance, and her legendary way of singing does live on in the iconic Betty Boop character. She wears a red strapless mini dress, red heels, a garter with a heart, and gold hoop earrings. During her entire career, she was mostly only known locally in the New York City area, and she reportedly died at a very young age. Betty Boop’s outfit is iconic so it’s easily recognized when worn. In fact, she never even really achieved mainstream success. Meanwhile, the very woman who inspired the character, Baby Esther, was never compensated in any way. It's estimated that the Betty Boop franchise generated millions of dollars in revenue from televison networks and sales of merchandise. But soon after, she was transformed into a white woman and remained so until her character was finally retired. As new color cartoons made specifically for television began to appear in the 1960s, the. She appeared in at least one animated scene in the popular Popeye The Sailor Man series. The original Betty Boop cartoons were made in black and white. Initially, Betty Boop was shown in cartoons as an African American woman. Clara Bow was a famous white actress of the time: Albert Witzel / Public domain. That very same style was heavily imitated by the Betty Boop animated character. The character was originally created as an anthropomorphic French poodle. Her stage name was "Baby Esther", but unfortunately, when her character become the first and most famous sex symbol in animation she was whitewashed with most people having no idea where the original inspiration came from.īaby Esther had a popular cabaret act at the infamous Cotton Club in Harlem, New York where she sang with a unique vocal style that featured “boop-boop-a-doops” and other similar scat sounds. PBS has confirmed that Betty Boop, the popular cartoon character introduced to the world by cartoonist Max Fleischer in 1930, was actually inspired by a real-life African American jazz singer and entertainer from Harlem named Esther Jones.
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