Some of the information is Boop-Oop-a-Dooping full of SPOILERS. Boop-Oop-a-Doop!
| Helen Kane's Two Pasts Come Twin Croppers[1] |
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How An Obscure Bankruptcy Notice Set Broadway Ga-Ga Again Over Miss Kane's Four Little Words Which Drove a Nation Cuckoo! Study this modern incantation this abracadabra of the Twentieth Century, set to 4-4 time: Boop-Boop-a-Doop! (Boop-Oop-a-Doop) Can you detect in it the magic potency for amazing prosperity and for bleak and anti-climatic broken romance, bankruptcy and disillusion? The win charms are there.
Helen Kane's breezy Boop-Boop-a-Doop, which boosted her to fame and fortune has bounced off key to a sad bundle of discords. For keen eyes, the latest chapter in the story of the Boops was implicit in an obscure bankruptcy notice one of the New York morning papers printed not long ago: Involuntary bankruptcy proceedings were filed yesterday against Murray Modes, Inc. The liabilities are said to be about $40,000 and the assets of nominal value. Murray Posner, an officer of the old Bond Dress Company, in the investigation of which bankruptcy case the name of Helen Kane, musical comedy and motion picture actress, figured is president of Murray Modes, Inc. There for those who could read between the lines of very small type, was revelation that the Boop-Boop-a-Doop girl's old boyfriend had come his second financial cropper. The first time Murray Posner, one of Broadway's sleekest guavest, gayest playboys went into bankruptcy several years back his creditors claimed that he had turned large sums over to Miss Kane, she of the round, blue eyes, round cherubic face and round resonant Boops.
The courts adjudged her liable to said creditors for a sum in excess of $40,000. This time Helen is not involved but the jinx of the Boops still hovers over Murray, according to superstitious Broadwayites. They recalled the various bumps Helen's Boops had brought her in Hollywood scenario succession. After handsome Mr. Posner's sad-insolvency, his beautiful friendship with Helen did not thrive. They had been inseparable companions in the Whoopy-dooperies for years, but they drifted apart. Miss Kane got married to Max Hoffmann, Jr son of the famous dancer Gertrude Hoddmann, only to have that romance fall down and go Boop after a short period.
Helen's $250,000 suit against the Max Fleischer Studios, alleging that they appropriated her Boops and her Doops for an animated cartoon character called of all things, Betty Boop came another cropper, The court held that a Boop could not be copyrighted and neither could a Doop. Helen has renounced her Boops at least for present and announced her intention of becoming a "serious actress." She admits that years of Booping as well as her baby-doll face so suitable for Dooping, may militate against the duse manner. But she's going to try awfully hard.
Miss Kane the little Brooklyn girl who made Boop in the big city, took America with the virulence of a bright, goofy mental epidemic, Boop-Boop-a-Doops thrubbed through the land. Ricocheted from boarding school rafters and gurgled in chorus dressing-rooms. She had thousands of imitators but no one could invest a Boop with the same contagious. Intelligence-curdling charm as Miss Kane. Nightclub proproctors bid wildly for her services, the stage called and the movies beckoned. The Kane bankroll burgeoned apace. But let Helen herself explain the enthralling mystery of her variation of "Open Sesame" to fame:
"It was my appearance and the tones of my voice that made me so popular. I could sing songs, often a little daring, at least with a dash of double entendre and people laughed. I know exactly why."
"They were thinking to themselves, she's just a little kid and doesn't know what she's saying!"
Helen is a mite plumper now, but her blank, skilfully contrived expression of stark innocence is no less effective when she turns it on. She was born with the talent and undoubtedly will never lose it.</p
The only problem is, perhaps she wants to lose it now, with the itch to be a serious actress upon her. She is arranging to get her divorce from Mr. Hoffmann with whom she insists she remains "good friends" even as she remains "good friends" with Murray Posner. But he has not been idle, in business or romance. Bravely emerging from his first bankruptcy, he formed Murray Modea which due to his vitality and knowledge of the business, mushroomed rapidly into one of the largest ready to wear firms in New York. Once again he had money to spend and it was only natural that he should find another pretty girl to sit across from him at the night club ringside tables. He picked Adelaide Raleigh, who had been glowing away in the spotlight of the Paradise Restaurant floor show on Broadway until he found her. She;s still a front-line charmer in that tabernacle of girls and jazz, although some of the gossip columnists have been brash enough to hint that she and Murray may be hiding a secret marriage. Poor Mr. Posner discovered, however that bankruptcies, like Boops droops and history are likely to repeat themselves. He says now that he's through with business until the depression is dead.
Helen Kane has announced to intimates, they declare that she is through with marriage, as soon as she has dissolved her current link.But more absorbing to the public: has the last echo of Helen's distressingly unforgettable Boop-Boop-a-Doop rung out in the land? Is she fed up, what with her adverse court ruling which said that the chant wasn't her exclusive property on stage and screen. What with her good friend Posner's twin bankruptcies and her marital flop with Mr. Hoffmann?
"Boop-Boop-a-Doop!" crows Helen. The court defeat of her $250,000 animated cartoon suit was a blow but it was not as grievous a blow as the order to pay Posner's creditors $40,000. She contended that she had loaned Murray the money and that when he turned it over to her it was merely the payment of a debt and deprived his other creditors of nothing.
Although the four little words brought Helen money in piles while she was at the height of her reign a few years ago, $40,000 is a nifty nick in any bankroll. it was be necessary for her to boop a little longer and even throw in a few doops in order to recoup.
But withal she has been a shrewd manager of her own fortune. Sources close to her say that she is still a rich young woman, with a cool million stowed away. Be that as it may, Helen is much more concerned at the moment with the conquest of Dat Ole Dabbil Avoirdupois than with any ill omen implied in her famous abracadabra of Boops. She is dieting. Murray Posner is franker to close friends in admitting that the Boops and Doops got him. He had all the requisites for a good business man. But every time he got a toe-hold on the ladder of success, people would take notice of his rising firm and remark:
"Murray Modes. A-hem. Let's see? Isn't that run by the Murray Posner who went to court in company with the Boop-a-Doops?" And thereupon, the climbing was doubly difficult. So he is out of business until the Boops blow over.