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Mae Questel's grandparents almost cut her out of the will
Find out why the voice of Betty Boop and Olive Oyl almost quit acting!
You may know her as Aunt Bethany from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation ("Grace? She passed away thirty years ago!") but Mae Questel left her mark on animation history as the voice of two iconic cartoon characters: Betty Boop and Olive Oyl. Mae Questel had a nearly 60 year acting career, but she almost walked away from it all as a teenager.
Mae Questel was born in 1908 to an Orthodox Jewish family in the Bronx. The "ham" of the family, Questel naturally gravitated toward music and theater. Quickly discovering a talent for impressions, Questel became a feature at local talent shows and community events. Her impression repetoire included Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, and Helen Kane, among others. After graduating high school in 1925, Questel enrolled in acting classes at the American Theatre Wing and Theater Guild hoping to hone her talents and find work as an actress.
Questel's acting journey came to a screeching halt when her parents and grandparents found out she was taking acting classes. A very traditional family, they did not consider acting a respectable profession for a young lady. They told her to stop taking acting classes. Her family even drew up their wills to convince her to leave acting altogether. Faced with either following her dreams (and being cut out of the will) or obeying her family, Questel chose her family and withdrew from acting school. According to some biographies, she planned on pursuing teaching instead.
But all was not lost! Questel's friends were undeterred by her strict family and, without her knowledge, entered her into one last talent show: a Helen Kane impersonation competition at the RKO Fordham Theatre. In one last act of rebellion, Questel agreed to the talent show and won — and she didn't just win a talent show. This particular talent show was attended by an agent, who signed her and got her booked on the vaudeville circuit as a mimic. Her show on the road was so successful that she was given a radio show which was heard by Max Fleischer.
Fleischer was looking for a voice actor for his cartoon characer: Betty Boop. Allegedly, Fleischer was inspired by Helen Kane for Betty's look and sound — the similarities were such that Helen Kane actually sued him later on — but Questel was a perfect fit because she could sound exactly like Helen Kane. While she wasn't the first voice actor to play Betty Boop (she was the fourth) Questel was the longest-running. What made Questel the most successful Betty was the skills she had learned on the vaudeville circuit: improv, mimicry, and adding plenty of gusto and spirit to the lines she was given. In over 80 productions, she starred as Betty Boop from 1931 until Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in 1989.
Then, in 1933, she started voicing Olive Oyl in Popeye the Sailor Man in both theatrical releases and in 192 episodes of the show released in 1960. All in all, Questel's career included over 400 productions of radio shows, films, television shows, and commercials — a very successful career considering family's earlier intervention.
