# George Lovejoy Rockwell

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. Well known on radio and in prominent theaters across America, he 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 performer Claire Schade in 1915, who he had three children with. 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

George Lovejoy Rockwell was born March 19, 1889, in Providence, Rhode Island, the eldest son of George Scott Rockwell and Mary MacPherson, a Canadian of Scottish ancestry. 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. He grew up nicknamed "Georgie".

## Career

Rockwell joined vaudeville after high school, and began performing in the 1910s. Before he developed his main routine as a performer, he also worked as a magician and a theatrical booker. He abandoned magic, and shifted focus to work as a comedian, mostly focusing on the explanations. Despite his small stature (he stood at 5'4''), he was known for his dominating and attention-grabbing persona. Rockwell's family were initially uncertain about how to respond to his fame. He was described by one biographer as an "egomaniac", and by another as being someone who believed "his life was the only one that really mattered."
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. 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.
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. 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. This garnered him the nickname Doc Rockwell, and it became his trademark routine. His routines were afterwards billed as "Doc Rockwell — Quack, Quack, Quack!" He toured in the vaudeville circuits of Benjamin Franklin Keith and the Shuberts, writing for the Shuberts' The Greenwich Village Follies, for which he eventually appeared in 1928.
By 1921, he had become a star and was one of the highest paid vaudeville actors in the nation. He was also well known on radio and in prominent theaters across America. He appeared in two revues on Broadway, including George White's Scandals (1920) and later Seven Lively Arts. In 1928, he created a series of comedy magazines, Ye Olde Mustard Plaster, later Dr. Rockwell's Mustard Plaster; the magazine was referred to by one commentator as a precursor to Mad Magazine.
In the 1930s, he also appeared on the inaugural bill at Radio City Music Hall (on December 27, 1932), at the Ziegfeld Theater, and appeared unbilled acting as himself in a single film, the 1937 musical comedy The Singing Marine. 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. He and Allen appeared together on television, Rockwell's only appearance.

## Retirement

He retired in the early 1940s, and moved to a farmhouse in Southport, Maine, which he nicknamed Slipshod Manor. While in Maine he became a local celebrity, but still returned to New York for the occasional radio show. 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.
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."

## Personal life

In 1915 he met Claire Schade at a theater managed by her father. 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". They married and settled in Bloomington, Illinois. She gave up her career to be his wife and have his children, as he wanted it. They had three children, George Lincoln (also often called Lincoln, born 1918), Robert (born 1919), and Priscilla (born 1921). Claire largely retired from vaudeville performance after Lincoln birth, and entirely retired after the birth of their second child.
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. He often failed to pay child support. After their divorce, Madelyn Meredith, who performed with him, became his common-law wife.

### Relationship with eldest son

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". In 1943, he missed George Lincoln's wedding, showing up two days after the fact. He was emotionally distant and uncaring towards his son. Rockwell was insecure over his height; Lincoln eventually grew to a height of 6'4'', aggravating the relationship further. Lincoln wanted his approval, and made an effort to be even more like him.
George Lincoln Rockwell would later become a neo-Nazi and the founder of the American Nazi Party. George Lincoln Rockwell 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". He later attributed the action's of his father's Jewish entertainment guests as having influenced his antisemitism, though said that his parents had given "some slight vestige of prejudice into my upbringing, but no more than in the upbringing of millions of other American boys who are not leading Hitler movements".
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. Friends did not bring up the subject of his son with Rockwell. He disagreed with his son's views, and tried repeatedly to convince him to abandon his political views, but failed, with this only resulting in bitter fights, after which they ceased contact. After George Lincoln was murdered in 1967, Rockwell stated in response that "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." Rockwell arranged for the private burial of his son in Maine, but the American Nazi Party seized the remains and cremated them.

## Death and legacy

Rockwell died March 2, 1978, at Brunswick Manor Nursing Home in Brunswick, Maine, at the age of 88. 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.
Anthony Slide declared him "one of the great "nut" acts of vaudeville".