The Real-Life Inspiration For Popeye Actually Did Love His Pipe & His Fights

Despite the fact that his first appearance came over 94 years ago in E.C. Seger's comic strip "Thimble Theater," to this day Popeye the Sailor remains one of the most beloved and iconic cartoon characters of all time. Popeye grew to even greater fame after the legendary Max Fleischer adapted his story for the big screen in 1933, producing a series of animated shorts for Paramount Pictures and cementing the spinach-loving sailor as a household name.

Throughout nearly a century of cinema, Popeye has been one of the most recognizable cartoon characters on the entire planet — though much less recognizable is the real-life sailor that he is based on. According to Fred Grandinetti's "Popeye: An Illustrated Cultural History" (per Snopes) cartoonist E.C. Seger based several characters from "Thimble Theater" on locals from his hometown of Chester, Illinois," including Popeye himself. "The lore of Chester, Illinois holds that the character of Popeye was inspired by town resident Frank "Rocky" Fiegel," writes Grandinetti. "Lee Huffstutler, herself a Chester local, makes and well supports this argument... [she] describes him as 'tall, strong, always ready for a fight and always a winner.'" 

On top of the fact that he was always looking for a fight, Fiegel was reportedly well known throughout Chester for his "corn-cob pipe,"  "angular jaw," and for performing feats of incredible strength. Indeed, Fiegel certainly seems to have inspired a good deal of Popeye's character, though it's important to note a few important distinctions between the man and the cartoon.

For starters, the real life Rocky Fiegel was not a sailor. He was a bartender who was well known for performing odd jobs around Chester, and was most often seen in the town saloons. As recounted by Fred Gardinetti, Rocky would often start drinking once the day's work was finished and nap in the afternoon sun outside. Children walking home from school would play pranks on the sleeping barman, and if awoken too soon he would jump up and immediately be itching for a fight.

Although it is true that Frank "Rocky" Fiegel served as a direct inspiration for Popeye, many people online have mistakenly attributed his story to an anonymous sailor from HMS Rodney, who was photographed in 1940. The sailor in question certainly looks the part with his cartoonishly prominent jaw and pipe, but according to the Imperial War Museum this sailor had actually earned the nickname "Popeye" for his resemblance to the character – not the other way around. A real image of Rocky was published in the Southern Illinoisan on April 8, 1979, and shows the infamous Chester resident (pipe similarly jutting out from his angular jaw) side by side with a picture of Popeye.

While some of the more overtly cartoonish aspects of Popeye must certainly come from E.C. Seger's own imagination, it's clear that the prolific cartoonist based much and more of the character on Chester's very own pipe-smoking, fight-loving Rocky Fiegel.