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George Lovejoy Rockwell

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George Lovejoy Rockwell
Black and white portrait photo of Rockwell wearing a suit
Rockwell pictured c. 1928
Born(1889-03-19)March 19, 1889
Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.
DiedMarch 2, 1978(1978-03-02) (aged 88)
Brunswick, Maine, U.S.
Other namesDoc Rockwell
EducationRhode Island School of Design
Occupation(s)Vaudeville performer, radio personality
Years active1910s–1940s
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1915; div. 1924)​
Children3, including George Lincoln

George Lovejoy "Doc" Rockwell (March 19, 1889 – March 2, 1978) was an American vaudeville performer and radio personality, active in performing from the 1910s to the early 1940s. Several of his acts involved bananas, leading to the quack doctor banana skit from which he gained his nickname. He performed on radio and in prominent theaters across America, and appeared in two revues on Broadway, including George White's Scandals (1920), and appeared unbilled as himself in the 1937 comedy film The Singing Marine. He created a series of comedy magazines, Ye Olde Mustard Plaster, later Dr. Rockwell's Mustard Plaster. Following his retirement in the 1940s, he wrote a column for Maine's Down East magazine.

He married fellow vaudeville performer Claire Schade in 1915, with whom he had three children. Their marriage was difficult and they divorced in 1924. His eldest son, George Lincoln Rockwell, later became a notorious neo-Nazi and the founder of the American Nazi Party. While Rockwell disavowed his son's beliefs and actions, it nevertheless tarnished his name and reputation.

Early life

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George Lovejoy Rockwell was born March 19, 1889, in Providence, Rhode Island.[1][2] He was the eldest son of George Scott Rockwell and Mary MacPherson.[3] His parents had moved to Providence from Nova Scotia in Canada.[4] He had two younger sisters, Marguerite or "Margie", and Helen. He was of English and Scottish descent, with the first Rockwells arriving from England in the New England area in the 17th century.[3] His childhood nickname was "Georgie".[3]

Rockwell attended local public schools, and won a scholarship at the Rhode Island School of Design. He studied commercial art and went on to work with the Boston company C. I. Brink.[4] At this time he spent a large amount of his time reading how-to books on a variety of skills. This included stage magic, and he began to give small scale performances at what he later called "bum church entertainments".[4]

Career

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Before he developed his main routine as a performer, he also worked as a magician and a theatrical booker.[5] Rockwell joined vaudeville and began performing in the 1910s.[6][7] He learned the cornet, and combined this with his stage magic, which allowed his act to branch out; after a friend suggested that there was more money in song and dance acts, he found a female partner and created a routine.[4] He was placed in a ward for typhoid fever; afterwards, having time to think, he decided that an act with two men was "freer" than one man and one woman. [4] Despite his small stature (he stood at 5'4''), he was known for his dominating and attention-grabbing persona.[6][8] Rockwell's family were initially uncertain about how to respond to his fame.[8]

refer to caption
Cover of the February 1929 issue of Dr. Rockwell's Mustard Plaster

Rockwell gained prominence for his monologues at the Palace Theater in New York City. Rockwell appeared repeatedly as the headline act at the Palace Theater, the single most coveted booking in vaudeville. He headlined at the Palace six times, the first in April 1925, the last in May 1932.[3] Having an interest in natural remedies and food, he parodied such ideas in his comedy routines; many of his routines involved patently absurd medical advice.[9] Anthony Slide declared him "one of the great "nut" acts of vaudeville".[5]

Several of his acts involved bananas, which began when he carried several that remained from a previous act involving monkeys into a different routine. He decided to launch them into the audience, which was met with a great reaction from the crowd, so he added it to many different acts.[10] This led to an incident in Cleveland, where, out of bananas (all eaten by his stagehands) he used the remaining banana stalk to represent a human spine, while lecturing as a quack doctor explaining its apparent true function.[2][7][8][10] This garnered him the nickname Doc Rockwell,[10] and it became his trademark routine. His routines were afterwards billed as "Doc Rockwell — Quack, Quack, Quack!"[8] He toured in the vaudeville circuits of Benjamin Franklin Keith and the Shuberts,[6] writing for the Shuberts' The Greenwich Village Follies, for which he eventually appeared in 1928.[11]

By 1921, he had become a star and was one of the highest paid vaudeville actors in the nation.[12] He was also well known on radio and in prominent theaters across America.[13] He appeared in two revues on Broadway, including George White's Scandals (1920) and later Seven Lively Arts.[2][3] In 1928,[14] he created a series of comedy magazines, Ye Olde Mustard Plaster, later Dr. Rockwell's Mustard Plaster;[9][15] the magazine was referred to by one commentator as a precursor to Mad Magazine.[11] At its peak it had 20,000 subscribers.[4]

In the 1930s, he also appeared on the inaugural bill at Radio City Music Hall (on December 27, 1932),[5][11][16] at the Ziegfeld Theater, and appeared unbilled acting as himself in a single film, the 1937 musical comedy The Singing Marine.[3][11][16] In 1939 Rockwell had his own short-lived national radio show on NBC, and through the 1940s he was a frequent guest on the radio show of his close friend Fred Allen.[10][13][17] He and Allen appeared together on television, Rockwell's only appearance.[11]

Retirement

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He retired in the early 1940s, and moved to a farmhouse in Southport, Maine, which he nicknamed Slipshod Manor.[7][11][18] While in Maine he became a local celebrity, but still returned to New York for the occasional radio show.[11] Frequent visitors at the manor included well-known entertainment world personalities, including Groucho Marx, Benny Goodman, George Burns, Rudy Vallée, and Martha Graham, among others.[8] He became a sign painter.[4]

For many years after his retirement from performing, Doc Rockwell contributed a humor column, "Doc Rockwel's Newsletter", to the Maine magazine Down East, containing anecdotes about Maine. He had the last page from shortly after the magazine's founding in 1954 to his death. Rockwell always signed his column with "Dr. Geo. Rockwell, maker of fine cigar ashes since 1889."[1][11]

Personal life

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In 1915 he met Claire Schade at a theater managed by her father.[6][8] Schade was a toe dancer, a well-known performer since her childhood who performed as part of her family's act as "The Four Schades".[3][13] They married and settled in Bloomington, Illinois.[6] She gave up her career to be his wife and have his children, as he wanted it.[3] They had three children, George Lincoln (also often called Lincoln, born 1918), Robert (born 1919), and Priscilla (born 1921).[1] Claire largely retired from vaudeville performance after Lincoln's birth, and entirely retired after the birth of their second child.[19]

He was described by one biographer as an "egomaniac",[18] and by another as being someone who believed "his life was the only one that really mattered."[8] Their marriage was unhappy, and Rockwell worked 40 weeks a year. The family met up again in the summers in Maine. Rockwell and Claire eventually divorced in 1924, and the children spent the summers with Rockwell in Maine and the rest of the year with Claire in rural Illinois, who moved to live with her sister.[2][3] It was later realized that legally, Rockwell and Schade had not completed the divorce. An interlocutory decree was granted in 1925, but Schade never filed the final divorce paperwork. This was realized 10 years later, in 1935, and resulted in a legal battle upon the realization. He sued her after she declared she did not want to file a final divorce decree, in an effort to make her do so.[20][21][22] His divorce lawyer was Benjamin M. McLyman.[23]

The case involved US$4,500 (equivalent to $101,968 in 2024) in unpaid back alimony and child support from Rockwell,[20][21] while Schade withheld a $US$25,000 (equivalent to $566,487 in 2024) insurance policy on Rockwell's life,[20][23] and also involved Rockwell asking for a lesser alimony payment due to an inability to pay it.[20][22] Schade wanted the payment increased.[20] The alimony payment was eventually lowered, and Schade agreed to stop withholding the life insurance policy and agree to the complete the divorce. She filed paperwork to that end in April 1936.[22][23] They maintained no contact.[24] After their divorce, Madelyn Meredith, who performed with him, became his common-law wife.[10]

Relationship with eldest son

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A biographer of his eldest son George Lincoln Rockwell described Rockwell as "belittl[ing] his eldest at every occasion", while a relative said he could not recall "one instance of affection expressed by Doc toward Lincoln".[25] He was emotionally distant and uncaring towards his son.[26] Rockwell was insecure over his height; Lincoln eventually grew to a height of 6'4'', aggravating the relationship further.[25][26] Lincoln wanted his approval, and still made an effort to emulate his father despite their unstable relationship.[26] In 1943, he missed Lincoln's wedding, showing up two days after the fact.[27][28]

Lincoln later became a neo-Nazi and the founder of the American Nazi Party.[13] Lincoln was and is deeply influential to the neo-Nazi movement; a director of the Southern Poverty Law Center described him as "the most important figure in the white supremacist movement since World War II". Lincoln later attributed the actions of his father's Jewish entertainment guests as having influenced his antisemitism; however he said said that his parents had not been different than the parents of "millions of other American boys who are not leading Hitler movements".[29]

Rockwell's son's views and actions devastated him and tarnished his name and reputation; when called for comment by the Portland Press Herald in 1961 after a high-profile Nazi protest by his son, Rockwell apologized for what his son had done. Those that knew Rockwell and Madelyn noticed they seemed to deteriorate after this incident and were not the same afterwards.[30][31] He disagreed with his son's views, and tried repeatedly to change his mind. His attempts to dissuade his son failed, with this only resulting in bitter fights, after which they ceased contact.[11][29][31] He initially disavowed him, but later was silent about his son entirely. Friends did not bring up the subject of his son with Rockwell.[9][11]

Lincoln was murdered by a former member of the American Nazi Party in 1967. Rockwell's only statement was: "I'm not surprised at all. I've expected it for quite some time. I think he would have liked to have gotten rid of the whole Nazi mess. He was more afraid of his own men than people were of him."[9][29] Rockwell arranged for the private burial of his son in Maine, but the American Nazi Party seized the remains and cremated them.[29]

Death

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Rockwell died March 2, 1978, at Brunswick Manor Nursing Home in Brunswick, Maine, at the age of 88.[1][2][11] A funeral was planned to be held March 5, at the Simmons & Harrington Funeral Home in Boothbay Harbor, with Rockwell to be buried in Southport, Maine.[11]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d "Vaudeville 'Doc' Rockwell dies in Brunswick at 88". Morning Sentinel. Waterville. Associated Press. March 4, 1978. p. 2. Retrieved February 5, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ a b c d e Cullen, Hackman & McNeilly 2007, p. 948.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Simonelli 1999, p. 5.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Murray, George M. (July 11, 1954). "What ever happened to Dr. Rockwell?: Broadway's top comic of the '20s now just a down east sign painter". The Boston Sunday Globe. Vol. CLXVI, no. 11. p. 67. ISSN 0743-1791. Retrieved June 24, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ a b c Slide 2012, p. 410.
  6. ^ a b c d e Schmaltz 1999, p. 5.
  7. ^ a b c Slide 2012, p. 426.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Simonelli 1999, p. 6.
  9. ^ a b c d Steinmeyer, Jim (September 4, 2022). "What we hide: The magician, the banana stalk, and the Nazi". Jim Steinmeyer. Retrieved March 13, 2025.
  10. ^ a b c d e Schmaltz 1999, p. 6.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Dunning, Jennifer (March 4, 1978). "George L. Rockwell is dead at 88; Comedian, writer and cartoonist". The New York Times. p. 24. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 14, 2025.
  12. ^ Simonelli 1999, pp. 5, 7.
  13. ^ a b c d Goodrick-Clarke 2001, p. 8.
  14. ^ Simonelli 1999, p. 8.
  15. ^ Engle & Miller 1993, p. 144.
  16. ^ a b Cullen, Hackman & McNeilly 2007, p. 128.
  17. ^ "Knoxville radio stations get ready for election". The Knoxville Journal. October 31, 1948. p. 7-D. Retrieved February 5, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ^ a b Schmaltz 1999, p. 7.
  19. ^ Simonelli 1999, p. 7.
  20. ^ a b c d e "Rockwell asks alimony slash". Atlantic City Press. Vol. LXXVI, no. 136. January 6, 1936. p. 2. Retrieved June 14, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ^ a b "Dr. Rockwell sues wife on near-divorce". Daily News. Vol. 17, no. 54. New York. August 28, 1935. p. 42. ISSN 2692-1251. Retrieved June 14, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ^ a b c "Mrs. Rockwell's old divorce final". Daily News. Vol. 17, no. 265. New York. United Press. April 30, 1936. p. 45. ISSN 2692-1251. Retrieved June 14, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ^ a b c "Comedian's wife's divorce effective". Boston Evening Globe. Vol. CXXIX, no. 120. Associated Press. April 29, 1936. p. 10. ISSN 0743-1791. Retrieved June 14, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
  24. ^ Simonelli 1999, p. 127.
  25. ^ a b Schmaltz 1999, pp. 7, 10.
  26. ^ a b c Simonelli 1999, p. 9.
  27. ^ Schmaltz 1999, p. 15.
  28. ^ Simonelli 1999, p. 20.
  29. ^ a b c d Woodard, Colin (September 3, 2017). "For years, the so-called 'grandfather' of neo-Nazis called Maine his home". Portland Press Herald. ISSN 2689-5900. Retrieved March 12, 2025.
  30. ^ Schmaltz 1999, p. 106.
  31. ^ a b Simonelli 1999, p. 125.

Works cited

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