Curiosidades

Best known as the voices of "Betty Boop" and "Olive Oyl".

She also provided Popeye's voice, in one Popeye, the Sailor cartoon, titled Shape Ahoy (1945) because 'Jack Mercer (I)' at the time, was serving in the military during World War II.

She not only provided the voice of Olive Oyl in "Popeye, the Sailor" cartoons, but the toddler Swee' Pea as well. She based Olive Oyl's fearful and quivery voice on comedic actress Zasu Pitts.

Had a withered arm; in her on-camera film appearances, she was usually photographed with elbows bent and both hands at her waist or holding an object in the crook of her elbow to make it less obvious that one arm was shorter and smaller than the other.

Best known in film as the matchmaking Mrs. Strakosh, one of Barbra Streisand's card-playing neighbors, in Funny Girl: A Garota Genial (1968).

The talented mimic also provided duck, dog, chicken, owl, monkey, lion and baby sounds for radio.

Her Orthodox Jewish family were totally adverse to her having an entertainment career. Her parents and grandparents forced her to leave the Theatre Guild school while still a teenager and had their wills drawn up accordingly so as to discourage this career choice.

Spokeswoman for Scott Paper Company as Aunt Bluebell for the duration of the 1970s.

Billing herself in vaudeville as "Mae Questel - Personality Singer of Personality Songs." She performed dead-on vocal imitations of Maurice Chevalier, Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice, Marlene Dietrich, Mae West and Helen ("Boop-Boop-a-Doop") Kane, among many others.

Born to Simon Kwestel, a Russian Jewish immigrant who operated a successful embroidery business in the Bronx, and his wife, Frieda (Glauberman) Kwestel, Mae reportedly showed an ability to recite at the age of two and a half.

Had two sons from her first marriage: Richard and Robert (the latter pre-deceased her).

She has appeared in four films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Branca de Neve (1933), Popeye e o Marinheiro Sindbad (1936), Funny Girl: A Garota Genial (1968), & Uma Cilada para Roger Rabbit (1988).

Won the Troupers Award for outstanding contribution to entertainment in 1979. The City of Indianapolis honored her with a "Mae Questel Day" in 1968.

The New York-based Questel, who played Olive Oyl and Betty Boop, refused to relocate with the Fleischer Studios to Miami in 1938. The Betty Boop series ended in 1939 and Margie Hines voiced Olive for the next several years. Questel resumed the role of Olive in 1944, after Paramount reorganized the animation company as Famous Studios and moved it back to NYC.

Studied drama with the Theatre Guild in New York City and at Columbia University. Also belonged to the American Theatre Wing.

She spent several years providing the voices of Olive Oyle in the Popeye cartoons and Casper the Friendly Ghost before moving onto some of televisions top rated series then made her Broadway debut in A Majority of One repeating her role in the film version then she was back on Broadway in Come Blow Your Horn and Enter Laughing.