Mae Questel

Questel died from Alzheimer's Disease. Bragg, North Carolina. She made her first on-screen appearance in the 1960s, and was widely seen as one of Fanny Brice's card-playing friends in Funny Girl (1968), and also appeared in Zelig, New York Stories (1985) and her final film appearance in Christmas Vacation (1989). She provided the voice for her old character Betty Boop who made a cameo appearance in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988). She was buried with full military honors on Saturday, in Ft. She based her vocal style on the actress ZaSu Pitts ultimately playing the role for more than twenty years. Martha Raye was deeply patriotic and, thanks to her work with the USO during World War II and subsequent wars, special consideration was given to bury her in Arlington National Cemetery upon her death. From the mid 1930s Questel also provided the voice for Olive Oyl in the Popeye animated shorts. In addition to the aforementioned television work, she appeared for two years as Mel Sharples' mother, Carrie, on the sitcom Alice.

During the 1930s she released a recording of "On The Good Ship Lollypop" which sold more than 2 million copies. She also appeared in a number of commercials for a denture adhesive product which emphasized its importance to her appearance due to the size of her mouth. From 1930 until 1939 Questel provided the voice of Betty Boop in more than 150 animated shorts. She often appeared as a guest on other programs, particularly ones which often had older performers as guest stars, such as The Love Boat, and on variety programs. Questel's "Boop-a-doop" routine was exactly what Fleischer had been looking for. In 1970 she portrayed Boss Witch, the "Queen of all Witch-dom" in the film Pufnstuf. She was seen by Max Fleischer who was looking for an actress to provide the voice for his Betty Boop character. In the late 1950s she made a well-publicized suicide attempt which may have been partially related to the breakup of her marriage to conductor-composer David Rose.

Born in New York, New York, Questel won a talent contest at the age of 17, and began performing on vaudeville. Miss Raye was an early television star when that medium was very young; for a while she had her own program, The Martha Raye Show, in which she was the lead and her awkward boyfriend was portrayed by retired middleweight boxer Rocky Graziano. Mae Questel (September 13, 1908 - January 4, 1998) was an American actress. In November of 1993, President Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1968, she was given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in the form of an Oscar. During WW2, Korea and Vietnam, Martha travelled extensively to entertain the American troops.

She joined the USO soon after the US entered World War II. For example, she appears in the picture The Big Broadcast of 1938 where Bob Hope first sings what became his theme song, Thanks for the Memories; however, it is not sung to Miss Raye, but rather the female leading actress that she supports. She became known as "The Big Mouth"; apparently she was often made up in a way which tended to cause it to appear as even larger than it actually already was. It relegated her motion picture work to largely supporting comic parts.

Miss Raye was best known for the size of her mouth, which appeared enormous in proportion to the rest of her face. Martha Raye (1916-October 19, 1994) was an American comic actress and singer in motion pictures and later, on television.