Baby Esther


Esther Lee Jones, known by her stage names "Baby Esther" and "Little Esther", was an American singer and child entertainer of the late 1920s, known for her "baby" singing style. After rising to fame in her hometown of Chicago, she became an international celebrity before leaving the public spotlight as a teenager. Theatrical manager Lou Bolton testified during the Kane v. Fleischer trial that Helen Kane saw Baby Esther's cabaret act in 1928 with him and appropriated Jones' style of singing, changing the interpolated words "boo-boo-boo" and "doo-doo-doo" to "boop-boop-a-doop" in a recording of "I Wanna Be Loved By You." While Kane never publicly admitted her borrowing, Jones' style—as imitated by Kane—went on to become the inspiration for the voice of the cartoon character Betty Boop.
When Kane attempted to sue Fleischer Studios for using her persona, the studios defended themselves by arguing that Kane herself had taken it from "Baby Esther" Jones. An early test sound film of Baby Esther's performance was used as evidence. In court, it was presumed that Jones was still in Paris.

Biography

"Baby" Esther Lee Jones, originally billed as Little, Li'l, or Lil' Esther, was a child entertainer who lived in Chicago, Illinois. She was initially managed by her parents, Gertrude and William Jones. Esther was a trained scat singer, dancer and acrobat who performed regularly at nightclubs in Harlem and all over the United States in the 1920s. In her act, "Baby Esther" danced, made funny faces, rolled her eyes, and—most famously—interpolated nonsense phrases such as "Boo-Boo-Boo," "Wha-Da-Da," "Doo-Doo-Doo," "Boo-Did-Do-Doo," and "Lo-Di-De-Do."
Tony Shayne, Jones' booking agent, also served as booking agent for Helen Kane. Kane first saw Esther perform in 1928, at which time Kane had a ringside seat with Shayne at the Everglades Club on Broadway. According to her first theatrical manager, Lou Bolton, Esther began using "boops" in her scat-singing in April 1928. Kane adapted Jones' scat sounds into her own "poop poop pa-doop," first used in her hit song "I Wanna Be Loved by You." "I Wanna" debuted in the Broadway musical Good Boy and became famous overnight. Kane released "I Wanna" on record September 20, 1928; she also used a variety of scat sounds in her 1928 Victor song releases "That's My Weakness Now" and "Get Out and Get Under the Moon".
But while Kane often claimed to have created this type of scatting herself, it was later proven in court that she had not. An early sound film was discovered which featured Baby Esther performing in this style, demonstrably earlier than "I Wanna Be Loved By You." Baby Esther's ex-manager Bolton testified that Kane had seen Baby Esther's cabaret act in 1928 with Tony Shayne, then not too long after suddenly started to scat sing in shows. Supreme Court Judge Edward J. McGoldrick ruled, "The plaintiff has failed to sustain either cause of action by proof of sufficient probative force."
Esther was thus recognized as the original scat-singer who inspired Helen Kane to scat-sing. While touring Europe in 1930, Esther had already been honored, along with Josephine Hall, as representatives of both African-Americans and the United States of America.

Career

Baby Esther's career began in the early 1920s when she won first prize at a Charleston contest in Chicago. Esther lived in the "colored" neighborhood of Chicago with her mother and father; she was only four at the time of the contest. Russian-American theatrical manager Lou Bolton saw her performance and took her on, with her first performance purportedly being in a Chicago revue, Opera Versus Charleston. Bolton went on to arrange engagements for Esther in Chicago, New York, Detroit, Toronto and other cities, after which he brought her to Europe. Esther Jones was rarely called Baby Esther while performing, most commonly going by the names "Li'l Esther" and "Little Esther." Originally she was billed "Farina's Kid Sister," but was later known as the "Miniature Florence Mills," as Esther had started her career impersonating Florence Mills.
The name "Farina's Kid Sister" derived from Allen "Farina" Hoskins, another African-American child star of the period. Apart from his ongoing role in Our Gang comedies, Hoskins was an expert Charleston dancer, performing along with his sister "Baby Jane." Lou Bolton, Esther's first manager, used Hoskins' fame to promote Esther in the early years of her career; the name formulation of Little Esther mimicked Hoskins' "Little Farina," a frequently-used nickname. While touring Spain, Esther was referenced as a member of "La Pandilla," the Spanish name for the Our Gang kids ; at least once, she was specifically tagged as the performer of Farina, due to her past imitations of him.
Sources indicate that Esther might have appeared in a MGM Our Gang film short.

1928

Esther performed briefly at a nightclub called the Everglades Club, where she would do imitations of Florence Mills, late at night. In June, Esther's father William Jones and manager Lou Bolton got fined for having a minor perform on stage; one write-up of the incident suggested that William Jones was not Esther's birth parent.
At the time, Esther's booking agent was Tony Shayne, who one night brought Helen Kane—another performer whom he managed at the time—to meet Bolton. There both Kane and Shayne had ringside seats and watched Esther sing and dance on stage. Not too long after watching Esther's performance, Helen Kane began scat-singing in her own performances.
In late 1928 Esther was signed for a talking short by Movietone, booked through William Morris for MGM. While the short was later listed variously as being in production or completed, it has not surfaced as of this writing.
Harrison G. Smith, a business associate of Bolden Smith of New York, furnished Esther with several songs: "The Turtle Walk," "My Little Dixie Home," "I've Got the Blues for Dixieland," and "I Need a Man."

1929

Esther toured Europe in 1929 and was described as the highest-paid child artist in the world.
While touring Europe she delighted audiences including royalty. In Spain she played for King Alphonso and Queen Victoria Eugenie. In Sweden King Gustave and the Queen came to the theater especially to see her. In France, Germany, and other countries, Esther also gave private performances for the nobility and high society.
Esther's travels around Europe were not entirely without fits and starts. After a dispute, Bolton was fired as the Jones family's manager and returned to the United States; Bolton blamed an Afro-French interpreter, cited in Variety as "Jacques Garnier," for the fracas; at first, Esther's return to the United States was announced. But Sidney Garner—evidently the same man first cited as "Jacques"—took over as the Joneses' manager forthwith, and the family stayed in Europe.
Esther Jones first performed in France at the Moulin Rouge. In Paris, Esther was known as the "Miniature Josephine Baker." Audiences raved over her and the Parisian newspapers gave much space to her. Vu, a leading illustrated weekly, devoted the entire front cover to her picture and a full page in the interior. Esther was described as singing, dancing, doing the splits and generally carrying on to the great delight of her audiences, and was dubbed as being "too cute for words".
The London Sunday People in its review of Paris plays said of Esther: "Thousands flock no longer to the Moulin Rouge to see Mistinguett herself or the clever American ballet girls, or the beautiful women of the chorus, but to applaud a little mite, 10-year-old, who has won fame and wealth within the space of a few weeks. We are living in an age of speed but this amazing little child has broken every record of sudden theatrical success."
In Stockholm, Sweden in August, Esther was famously refused service at an American restaurant run by Brenda Tomton, an immigrant from the United States. Swedish dignitaries and officials around the country spoke up in support of Esther and objected to Tomton's discrimination, railing against American "Jim Crowism" in Sweden.

1930–1934

Esther continued her success in South America. In Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, and Montevideo she proved to be a sensation. In Rio de Janeiro, American Ambassador Morgan came to see her play and after her performance came backstage to congratulate her. He praised her ability to sing in different languages and invited her to perform for him at the American embassy. Accompanying Esther was Gordon Stretton, who was known as the Prince of Wales' favorite jazz entertainer. In the course of the evening, the president of Brazil expressed to Sidney Garner his great pleasure at seeing such capable black American artists in Brazil.
Esther was interviewed in Rio de Janeiro by press who wanted to know how she had avoided the racists who lynched and burned black people in Texas and Alabama. Esther replied that she had so far escaped their wrath by staying out of the South.
When Esther returned to the United States she purportedly continued touring and danced for Cab Calloway and his Orchestra as one of his Sepia Dancers at his club in New York. From 1933 to 1934, Esther appeared in Helena Justa's Harlem Maniacs revue.
One of the main reasons Baby Esther is not remembered is because she was never a feature attraction in Cab Calloway's New York club; she was a background Sepia dancer, which is why Esther was only given a small tap dancing number in Justa's revue. Justa had loaned the Sepia dancers from Cab Calloway.
In 1934, Esther would have been 13 years old, as she was seven in 1928. Although with Esther, there seemed to have been a bit of age fabrication, to make her seem either younger or older than she actually was. A few articles from 1929 describe Esther as 11 or 12 years of age.
Esther later returned to the stage as "The Sepia Dancing Doll" and was dubbed the fastest colored dancer who was red hot. Online speculation tends to suggest that Esther may have died young, but she has been verified as giving routine performances as late as September 1934.
In July 1934, Esther performed in Philadelphia at a midnight benefit performance for the NAACP, along with numerous other African-American stars. The Baltimore Afro-American commented that "Little Esther... had a bit too much art and finesse, born of her extensive travel and contacts, not to mention expert tutelage, for her to bring... spontaneous applause... But she had charm and grace—and—and—form! acrobatic dance number was very good." Esther made another Philadelphia appearance in September at a benefit for the Douglass Hospital, hosted by the famed dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. Notably, Robinson also taught Helena Justa and Florence Mills.
According to a source, Esther later became a full-time acrobat and had later lost most of her appeal and was then succeeded by other black child stars such as Baby Hilda and Baby Selma.

''Kane v. Fleischer''

In 1930, Fleischer Studios animator Grim Natwick introduced a caricature of Helen Kane, in the form of an anthropomorphic singing dog with droopy ears and a squeaky singing voice, in the Talkartoons cartoon Dizzy Dishes. "Betty Boop", as the character was later dubbed, soon became popular and the star of her own cartoons. In 1932, Betty Boop was changed into a human, the long dog ears becoming hoop earrings.
In May 1932, Helen Kane filed a $250,000 lawsuit against Max Fleischer and Paramount Publix Corporation, for "exploiting her image", charging unfair competition and wrongful appropriation in the Betty Boop cartoons, contending that Betty Boop's "boop-oop-a-doop" style constituted a "deliberate caricature" that gave her "unfair competition".
cartoons
The trial opened that year in the New York State Supreme Court, with Kane and Betty Boop films being viewed only by the judge. No jury was called. Vocal performers Margie Hines, Little Ann Little, Kate Wright, Bonnie Poe, and most notably Mae Questel were all summoned to testify.
Little Ann Little told the court how the "boop-oop-a-doop" phrase had started out as "ba-da inde-do", which developed into "bo do-de-o-do" and finally to "boop-oop-a-doop". Helen Kane's counsel asked Little, who spoke throughout the trial in a Betty Boop voice, "Oh, do you speak like that way at home?" Little responded to the court, "Yes, indeedy!"

Defense uses Baby Esther

The defense argued that Kane had taken the idea from Baby Esther. Evidence was produced that Kane actually derived that singing style from watching Baby Esther perform at the Everglades Restaurant several years before the creation of the Betty Boop character. Theatrical manager Lou Bolton testified for the defense stating that in 1925, he coached a "young negro child" named Esther, teaching her how to interpolate her songs with scat lyrics, "boo-boo-boo" and "doo-doo-doo", which Kane later reinvented as her trademark "boop oop a doop". Jones' manager testified that he and Kane had seen her act together in April 1928, and just a few weeks later, Kane began to "boop".
Paramount was able to prove that Kane did not uniquely originate or have claim to the Betty Boop style of singing or look. In addition to adducing Baby Esther's performances, they showed performances by actress Clara Bow, who also had the Betty Boop style of dress and hair. Louis Bolton was brought in court to testify. Bolton told the court that he had no idea where Esther was, and he thought that she was "probably still" in Paris.
After a two-year legal struggle, Max Fleischer located a sound film made in 1928 of her performing, which was introduced as evidence. Judge Edward J. McGoldrick ruled, "The plaintiff has failed to sustain either cause of action by proof of sufficient probative force." In his opinion, the "baby" technique of singing did not originate with Kane.

Legacy

Jones is now spoken of mostly in the context of her indirect influence to Betty Boop's vocal stylings. Jazz studies scholar Robert O'Meally has referred to Jones as Betty Boop's "black grandmother".
Images of a model, Olya, taken by Russian-based studio Retro Atelier in 2008, made up in costume and make-up as a Betty Boop look-alike are regularly misidentified as Esther Jones.

Misconceptions

Baby Esther shares her original name and original stage name with Little Esther Phillips, who was also known as Esther Mae Jones. Both singers used the names "Little Esther" and "Li'l Esther", but Esther Phillips was of a later generation, born in 1935.
An image that went viral was a white Ukrainian female model called Oyla. Older images claiming to be Baby Esther went viral because an official Betty Boop Checks source called Betty Boop and Helen Kane, which is no longer online, had used one of James Van Der Zee photographs of a pretty black college girl beside an image of Clara Bow, claiming it to be Baby Esther without proof.