A scrappy little seaman
Popeye with a can of spinach – Popeye, the cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, photo: East News
Popeye with a can of spinach – Popeye, the cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, photo: East News
Popeye the spinach-chomping sailor was a childhood hero to millions and has made a name for himself all around the globe. Still, for those who have somehow managed not to encounter Popeye, let’s go over the basics. Here’s how Encyclopedia Britannica defines the fictitious sailor:
Popeye is a scrappy little seaman with bulging forearms, a squinty eye, and a screwed-up face, punctuated with an ever-present pipe in his mouth. He is always ready for a fight instead of a reasonable discussion, has a gravelly voice, and is constantly mumbling under his breath. His credo is ‘I yam what I yam, and that’s all what I yam.’ His girlfriend is the gangly, uncoordinated Olive Oyl, for whose attention Popeye vies constantly with Bluto, his bearded, hulking rival.
The character of Popeye was created by Elzie Crisler Segar, an American cartoonist from the town of Chester, Illinois. In 1919, the draughtsman created a comic strip in New York’s Evening Journal, called Thimble Theatre. In 1929, Popeye made his debut as a new character in the strip. Due to the newcomer’s high appeal, the strip was eventually renamed Thimble Theatre Starring Popeye. For decades to come, the character enjoyed immense popularity, appearing in dozens of iterations by various creators – in Fleischer Studios’ animated cartoons or in Robert Altman’s 1980 musical Popeye with Robin Williams in the lead role.
Interestingly, many claim the fictitious sailor was based on a real-life person, one of the citizens of E.C. Segar’s hometown. The man in question is believed to have been Frank ‘Rocky’ Fiegel, whose parents came from Poland.
A heart of gold
The 1979 article Chester Man Accepted as Real-Life Popeye was a Brawler, Loved Kids ran by the Southern Illinoisan newspaper mentions that some citizens of Chester considered Rocky ‘a bum.’ It goes on to explain how this came to be:
Fiegel, a bartender and general labourer around Chester, seldom had steady work and was often seen loafing around the town’s saloons. He lived with his mother until she died, then continued living in the house alone (…)
But it isn’t, of course, the lack of regular employment that’s said to have inspired E.C. Segar. Frank Fiegel was a local brawler, famous for his fist-fighting skills and this is where we really start seeing resemblance to the cartoon Popeye. In the article Rocky’s nephew, Clyde Feegie, recounts a story of his uncle visiting a saloon:
They had two big guys inside who said you had to buy drinks for the house or put on the gloves. They had a big bruiser waiting to fight, but he (Fiegel) put on the gloves and knocked their guy out.
According to Fred M. Grandinetti’s 2003 book Popeye: An Illustrated Cultural History, also Rocky’s facial features and pipe were reflected in the cartoon character:
Because of his hardened physique he was affectionately known as ‘Rocky’. His angular jaw and familiar corn-cob pipe apparently impressed the young Segar.
Indeed, such a figure like Rocky could’ve made a strong impression on Segar, especially since the prospective cartoonist was much younger than him. Fiegel was born in 1868 (it’s unclear whether that was in Poland or in America), whereas E. C. Segar was only born in 1894. Moreover, the Polish-American had ‘a heart of gold for children’ as the Chicago Tribune phrased it. He was known to have selflessly helped out Chester kids, giving them change or protecting them from bullies. That’s another similarity to Popeye who was always a ‘good guy.’
A joke or a prank
Frank’s parents, Anna and Bartłomiej, were Polish. According to the MyHeritage, a genealogy website, the family had ties to the town of Czarnków in today’s central Poland and their surname was originally spelled ‘Figiel’. It was most probably altered to better fit the English-speaking realities of America after the family emigrated there. Curiously, the Polish word ‘Figiel’ means ‘joke’ or ‘prank’, a rather fitting surname for the protoplast of a comic strip hero…
But whether Rocky himself knew that he became the inspiration for Popeye is uncertain. Some say that he learned of this only after Segar’s death of leukaemia in 1938, from a newspaper that printed the story of the comic strip creator and his inspirations. Others, like Popeye historian Michael Brooks, claim that Fiegel received checks from Segar on a regular basis, as a sort of thank-you for the success of the hero based on him. Then again others doubt that Fiegel ‘ever knew he was Popeye.’ Segar moved out of Chester in the early 1920s – years before the character debuted – and according to the 2003 book Comic Strip Artists in American Newspapers by Moira Reynolds, he never actually acknowledged anybody as a real-life inspiration for the famous sailor.
However, what seems to back the story of Rocky being the inspiration is that a number of early-20th-century Chester locals were awfully similar to other characters in Segar’s Thimble Theatre. Olive Oyl, is said to have been modelled after Dora Paskel, a store owner who was ‘unusually tall and thin and wore a bun at the nape of her neck,’ as the New York Times puts it. The chubby, hamburger-loving J. Wellington Wimpy was supposedly based on William Schuchert, the heavyset manager of the Chester Opera House (where Segar had worked for a while) and a known lover of burgers.
What’s beyond any doubt is that the gravestone of Frank Fiegel, who passed away in 1947, can be found at Chester’s Saint Mary’s Catholic Cemetery. The inscription on it says:
Above the inscription you can find an engraving showing the original, 1929 version of Popeye. Of all the hero’s various iterations, the first one, created by Segar, is said to be the one most reminiscent of Rocky.
A friendship between two wanderers
During both Rocky’s and Segar’s lifetimes, Popeye became so popular that the Thimble Theatre comic strips were printed in hundreds of newspapers, even overseas – for instance in Italy, the sailor was known as Braccio di Ferro which means ‘Iron Arm’. In Poland, Popeye’s adventures appeared under two titles: Marynarz Kubuś (Jacob the Sailor Man) and Ferdek i Merdek, Dzieje Przyjaźni Dwóch Łazików (Ferdek & Merdek: The Story of A Friendship Between Two Wanderers). The latter title looks like it may need a bit of explaining: its first part consists of the Polish names that were given to Popeye and Wimpy respectively, whereas the second part… Well, it looks like a free take on the task of presenting the comic strip to the local public. In post-war Poland, however, Popeye was known simply as Popeye.
Speaking of Poland, it doesn’t seem like the town of Czarnków has in any way recognized its ties to the real-life Popeye’s ancestors. A search of the town’s official website reveals no mention of Frank ‘Rocky’ Fiegel. But there is a town, other than Chester, which has made the claim of being the birth place of Popeye – Santa Monica, California, where E.C. Segar moved after having lived in places like Chicago and New York. Here’s an excerpt from a 2009 report titled The Bay Builders Exchange found on Santa Monica’s official website:
When Segar moved to Santa Monica in 1928, he often found inspiration for characters and storylines on the Santa Monica Pier. Although some believe Segar’s characters were inspired by his Midwest upbringing, according to oral history, the Popeye character was modelled on an expert Norwegian fisherman, ‘Santa Monica Olsen,’ who had exotic fishing tales, a heavy Norwegian accent, and rough language.
What appears to back this version of events is that the character of Popeye debuted only a year after Segar moved to Santa Monica. But, due to the lack of compelling evidence, there is no room for definitive declarations here. Perhaps, the character of Popeye was a mash-up, including some traits of Rocky and some of Olsen…
Since E.C. Segar apparently never singled anybody out as the inspiration for Popeye we’re left with speculation. And Frank ‘Rocky’ Fiegel is definitely a strong contestant for that role, due to his undeniable links both to the author and the fictitious hero. So whenever ‘you eats your spinach’ you should remember that it’ll make you not only as strong as Popeye, but (perhaps) also as strong as his real-life, Polish protoplast.
Credits: Culture.pl
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