Mae Questel

Mae Questel was the woman behind the voice of Olive Oyl, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Little Audry, Little Lulu, and Betty Boop. Born in the Bronx in 1912, she chucked a prospective teaching career and entered showbiz at the age of 17 by winning a competition that was held in the RKO Fordham Theater in order to select a young lady who could most successfully imitate Helen Kane's whiny neurotic baby talk act, already becoming famous for its tag line, "Boop-boop-be-doop." The Helen Kane impersonation contest was held immediately after a live Helen Kane performance, which Questel claimed to have watched most carefully. Triumphant and now armed with an RKO vaudeville circuit contract, she began working steadily as "Mae Questel -- Personality Singer of Personality Songs" and even appeared at the Palace Theater in 1930, impersonating Fanny Brice, Marlene Dietrich, Ruth Etting, Eddie Cantor, Rudy Vallée, and Maurice Chevalier.

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