Breaking up ‘Beheaded Betty’
Betty Boop statue lost its head, now its owner is selling off parts of its neck
VIRGINIA BEACH — You’ll soon be able to purchase a piece of Beheaded Betty Boop’s neck for $25 or so.
You’d be forgiven if that sentence confuses you. After all, it’s the latest chapter in a 15-yearold local legend.
It started in the early 2000s when artist Larry Estes’ Virginia Beach store, Cool and Eclectic Furniture, purchased a lifesized Betty Boop doll. The $1,600 statue stood on Shore Drive and became a mascot for the business.
Then, one fateful night in 2005, she lost her head.
The rest of her was found by the police tossed onto a lawn. Estes said he used to wonder how many people she terrified that night — he imagines a driver at 2 a.m. catching a glimpse of a woman’s body on the side of the road.
He saw a compelling story
immediately, taking a picture of her laying on the lawn and beginning his search for her massive head. (For reference, he estimated it could fit “about 20 pumpkins.”)
His story got national attention; Mark Fleischer, the grandson of Betty Boop creator Max Fleischer, even declared, “Bring me the head of Betty Boop!”
Although Fleischer promised a box of Betty Boop collectibles to whoever found the head, it never turned up.
Now, 15 years later and just in time for Halloween, Estes has revived Betty’s story with a new art exhibit. The gallery, titled “Art’s Up,” is located in the Pembroke Mall — which is also where the furniture store is now — and will officially open on Oct. 30.
The exhibit features Estes’ artwork of Betty and makes it clear that, in his mind, Beheaded Betty has lived a million lives.
Since 2017, Estes has used Betty as his muse for a comic series, which he said was his way of “finding something broken and making a story out of it.”
In comics displayed around the gallery, you can see Beheaded Betty doing everything from falling hard for Elvis to being accused of witchcraft. The centerpiece of the exhibit is Betty herself, dressed up in silver angel wings to look like the Greek Goddess of Victory, Nike.
You can also find pieces of her neck for sale.
Estes has decided to give the community their own slice of Betty by sawing off her large pole neck and selling fragments of it.
“You can’t buy a piece of the Headless Horseman,” he said. “But you can buy a piece of the headless Betty.”
He has yet to actually chop up the pole — at one point during the interview, Estes held up Betty’s severed neck and wondered out loud how many pieces he could make from it. Eventually he estimated around 100, which will be sold for $25 each.
Estes hopes to continue the gallery beyond Halloween and to feature local art there as well as his own.
“I’ve always believed that local art is just as collectible as national art,” he said. “But we’ve got to exhibit it. We’ve got to bring it out.”
Although he’s shown his work across the country, Estes said it’s a special feeling displaying and
creating art where he grew up.
“I love taking these little local stories that we have and making them mythological,” he said.
Another benefit of the galley? The exhibit could reignite the hunt for Betty’s head. After 15 years, Estes has plenty of theories, including one about a serial statue thief.
Shortly before Betty’s head disappeared, Billy Bob Banana, a statue of a banana man, was stolen from a smoothie shop in Hilltop. There’s a wall in Estes’ gallery covered in articles about Betty, including a Virginian-Pilot story comparing Betty’s missing head to the curious case of Billy Bob Banana. When asked if it may have been the same thief, Estes laughed.
“Who knows?” he said. “I mean, are we gonna meet someone that has a whole gallery hidden in a basement with a bunch of heads?”
But he’s not holding his breath. Although he once told The Associated Press, “without (her head), she is nothing,” Estes has since become at peace with Betty’s headlessness.
“Without it, she is something,” he said. “I don’t want the head back.”