The History of the Real Popeye

His real name was Frank "Rocky" Fiegel.

He was born in 1868, in Poland and, as a child, immigrated to the United States with his parents, who settled down in a small town in Illinois.

As a young man, Rocky went to sea.

After a 20-year career as a sailor in the Merchant Marines, Fiegel retired.

He was later hired by Wiebusch's Tavern in the city of Chester, Illinois as a ‘Bouncer’ to maintain order in the rowdy bar.

Rocky quickly developed a reputation for always being involved in fighting (and usually winning). As a result, he had a deformed eye ("Pop-eye").

He also ‘always’ smoked his pipe, so he always spoke out of one side of his mouth.

In his spare time as a bouncer, Rocky would entertain the customers by regaling them with exciting stories of adventures he claimed to have had over his career as a sailor crossing the ‘Seven Seas.’

The creator of Popeye, Elzie Crisler Segar, grew up in Chester and, as a young man, met Rocky at the tavern and would sit for hours listening to the old sailor’s amazing ‘sea stories.’

Years later, Segar became a cartoonist and developed a comic strip called ‘Thimble Theater.’

He honored Fiegel by asking if he could model his new comic strip character, ‘Popeye the Sailor Man,’ after him. Naturally Fiegel was flattered and agreed.

Segar claimed that ‘Olive Oyl,’ along with other characters, was also loosely based on an actual person. She was Dora Paskel, owner of a smallgrocery store in Chester.

She apparently actually looked much like the Olive Oyl character in his comics.

He claimed she even dressed much the same way.

Through the years, Segar kept in touch with Rocky and always helped him with money; giving him a small percentage of what he earned from his ‘Popeye’ illustrations.

Who didn't love the cartoons??? We watched them religiously ... so funny, so moral ... each story had a good ending ... Who knew he was a real man??

Popeye the Sailor Man was originally Popeye the Coast Guardsman

This may seem like blasphemy to some, but Popeye started his professional career as a civilian mariner and then Coast Guardsman. The famous sailor did join the Navy, but as of 1937, Popeye was firmly in the Coast Guard. A two-reel feature titled Popeye the Sailor meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves introduces Popeye serving at a Coast Guard station. The sailor man’s creator did not live to see the United States enter World War II, but it was in 1941 that his creation joined the Navy and the legend of Popeye the rough and tumble U.S. Navy sailor was born.

Popeye the Sailor meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves wasn’t Popeye’s first feature. He started life as a character in the comic strip Thimble Theater in 1929, a comic actually centered around his off-and-on girlfriend, Olive Oyl. When it became obvious that Popeye was the real star, he made a jump to feature films. In the aforementioned 1937 film is when we see Popeye in the Coast Guard, on guard duty and deploying to intercept “Abu Hassan” (aka Bluto), who is terrorizing the Middle East.

Spoiler alert: Popeye saves the day, but not before telling Bluto to “stop in the name of the Coast Guard.”

It was during WWII that Popeye reached his incredible popularity. After enlisting in the Navy in 1941’s The Mighty Navy, Popeye’s clothing changed and reflected his status as a U.S. Navy sailor, wearing the distinctive white crackerjack uniform. Popeye would remain in uniform until 1978, when new cartoons put him back in his original outfit, with one exception: the white yachting cap he used to wear was replaced with a standard issue Navy “Dixie Cup” cap.

It should be noted that Popeye and Bluto once attempted to join the Army in a 1936 film short called I’m In the Army Now, but they really just ended up fighting in the recruiter’s office. Popeye left the office after beating Bluto to a surrender, but without actually joining. Popeye also regularly beats Bluto to the tune of “The Army Goes Rolling Along.”

Despite his dedication to service, Popeye never once tried to join the Air Force.