Baby Esther

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;[13] one write-up of the incident suggested that William Jones was not Esther's birth parent.[14]

In late 1928 Esther was signed for a talking short by Movietone, booked through William Morris for MGM.[15] While the short was later listed variously as being in production[16] or completed,[17] it has not surfaced as of 2020.

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 (Around My House)."[18]

Esther toured Europe in 1929, when her age was variously reported as seven[18] or ten.[1] An article in The Chicago Defender described her as the highest-paid child artist in the world.[1] While touring Europe she delighted audiences including royalty. In Spain she played for King Alphonso and Queen Victoria Eugenie.[1] In Sweden King Gustave and the Queen came to the theater especially to see her.[1] 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;[19] 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.[20] But Sidney Garner—evidently the same man first cited as "Jacques"—took over as the Joneses' manager forthwith, and the family stayed in Europe.[21]

Esther Jones first performed in France at the Moulin Rouge. In Paris, Esther was known as the "Miniature Josephine Baker." 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".[1]

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."[1]

In Stockholm, Sweden in August, Esther was famously refused service at an American restaurant run by Branda 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, forcing the restaurant to close.[22]

Esther continued her success in South America. In Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, and Montevideo she proved to be a sensation.[23] 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.[24]

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.[25]

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. In 1934, Esther, billed as "The Sepia Dancing Doll", appeared with Helena Justa's Harlem Maniacs revue.[26]

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! [Her] acrobatic dance number was very good."[27] Esther made another Philadelphia appearance in September at a benefit for the Douglass Hospital, hosted by the famed dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.[28] Notably, Robinson also taught Helena Justa and Florence Mills.

Esther has been verified as giving routine performances as late as September 1934,[29] but her later activities are unknown. In 1934, she may have been 12 or 13 years old, as her age was reported as seven in June 1928[13] and in March 1929;[18] or she may have been 15 or 16, as other articles from 1929 describe Esther as 10 years old;[1][30] and an article during the week of August 22, 1931 seems to say that she was 12 then.[31]

Testimony was given that Kane adopted her singing style after watching Baby Esther perform in a New York nightclub several years before the creation of the Betty Boop character.[2] Esther's first 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 such as "boo-did-do-doo" and "whad-da-da-da".[4] Jones' manager testified that Kane had seen her act at the Everglades Restaurant in April 1928, before Kane opened her act at the New York Paramount Theatre.[4][33][34] (Kane's first confirmed use of the phrase "boop-boop-a-doop" is in her recording "I Wanna Be Loved by You", released on September 20, 1928, although she may have introduced the phrase during her engagement at the Paramount.)[35] Bolton told the court that he had no idea where Esther was, and he thought that she was "probably still" in Paris.[36] In fact, in May 1934 she was performing in Louisville.[37] Esther herself did not testify at the trial.

After a two-year legal struggle, Max Fleischer located a sound film made in 1928 of her performing, which was introduced as evidence.[38][39] In the film she sings three songs that had earlier been popularized by Helen Kane – "Don’t Be Like That", "Is There Anything Wrong with That?”" and "Wa-da-da" – which writer Mark Langer says "was hardly proof that Helen Kane derived her singing style from Baby Esther".[40] According to jazz historian Robert O'Meally, this evidence might have been fabricated by the Fleischers to discredit Kane, whom they later admitted was their model for Betty Boop.[41] Judge Edward J. McGoldrick ruled that "the vocables 'boop-boop-a-doop' and similar sounds had been used by other performers prior to the plaintiff" and that "the plaintiff has failed to sustain either cause of action by proof of sufficient probative force."[42][4] In his opinion, based on the totality of the evidence presented in the trial, the "baby" technique of singing did not originate with Kane.[43][44]