Saturday, April 17, 2010

Popeye's real-life inspiration

A few years back Popeye the Sailor reached some kind of newsworthy milestone (I forget what it was ... maybe the 75th anniversary of the character?) At the time, a lot of historic imagery showing the people that might have inspired some of Popeye and his supporting cast crossed my desk — and I held onto them. I apologize for any nightmares that photo of "Olive Oyl" might inspire.


Frank "Rocky" Fiegel, believed to be the inspiration for Chester, Ill., native Elzie Segar's comic strip character, Popeye.

Shopkeeper Dora Paskel, believed to be the inspiration for Olive Oyl.


J. William Schuchert, believed to be the inspiration for the character J. Wellington Wimpy. Schuchert gave Segar a job drawing ads for his theatre when Segar was still in school.

3 comments:

  1. Finally! I have a real use for this:

    http://stylepantry.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/stylepantryreal-life-popeye.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  2. pretty cool ,,im glad that i found this

    ReplyDelete
  3. A few years back, I did a presentation on Popeye, and showed this site during that presentation. Awesome research, and hoping that sometime next year I visit Popeye in Chester.

    ReplyDelete

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