Daddy Warbucks
Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks is a fictional character from the comic strip "Little Orphan Annie". He made his first appearance in the New York "Daily News" in the "Annie" strip on September 27, 1924. In the series he is said to be around 52 years of age. Biography. Childhood. Warbucks was born about 1894, near the fictional small town of Supine. (In Thomas Meehan's 1980 novelisation of his 1977 musical, he was born and brought up in Hell's Kitchen, New York and is 52 years old as of 1933, thus giving him a birthdate of 1881. In  the 1982 film, he says he was born in Liverpool, England.) His father, a section boss on the railway, was killed when he was a month old. His mother was left with only "gumption" and a house in which she was able to keep boarders. His early youth in Supine involved cornering all the marbles in town at age nine, serving as a messenger for the telegraph company, having a girlfriend named Millie, fishing, swimming and raiding melon patches with Spike Spangle and beating up the son of the banker who planned to foreclose on his mother's house. Then  on June 7, 1905, when he was 11 years old, his mother died at age 30, of typhoid. On the night of the funeral he was put on the outbound Limited. Presumably he later spent some time in the city for he and Paddy Cairns were companions together in the old 8th Ward. For a few semesters he attended college, studying engineering, but found no time for football or girls because he had to work seven nights a week in the local steel mill to pay a debt. His family background and lack of prep school education kept him from  entering a fraternity in his youth. But as an adult, Warbucks joined the Freemasons and went on to serve as Worshipful Master of a lodge. Career, family, and pursuits. He eventually became foreman in the rolling mill, married Mrs. Warbucks, worked and planned for a family and house of their own. When "Daddy" began to make big money during World War I, the marital happiness was lost, but he retained his identity with the common people. After the war, Warbucks continued as an industrialist, but became a philanthropist as well—his fortune had built to "ten billion dollars." His wife  instigated the taking in (no adoption ever took place) of Annie while Warbucks was away on a business trip. On his return, he was smitten with Annie and, as her father-figure, offered the girl support as needed. He often intervened in Annie's life during crisis, always returning in time to save the day. During World War II, Warbucks, along with his bodyguards Punjab and The Asp, joined Allied forces. Warbucks became a three-star general. He was knighted by the Queen of the United Kingdom later in life. Views. Warbucks was often a platform for cartoonist Harold Gray 's political views, which were free market-based. He sometimes expounded on the need for wealthy men to work hard—lest the masses have no employment. At the same time, capitalists who underpaid or mistreated their workers were portrayed in a negative light, with corrupt businessmen often being shown as villains. While, in the strip, Warbucks would interact with the rich and powerful, the close relationship in the play and movie between Warbucks and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) would likely have been anathema to Gray, who opposed the New Deal policies of FDR and the Democrats. In fact, in 1944 , Gray briefly killed off Warbucks on the grounds that it was widely thought that capitalists were obsolete. Warbucks was resurrected, however, after FDR's death. Nonetheless, severed from Gray's control, the fictional Warbucks took on a life of his own, his versatility and craftiness seeming as credible as FDR's hobnobbing on stage with Republicans in the atmosphere of a musical. In fact, the musical (and Meehan's novelization of it) does take steps to reconcile Warbucks' fraternization with Roosevelt with the views expressed in Gray's cartoons; Warbucks is depicted as a self-made self-reliant millionaire who  prides himself on never asking anyone for help. The depression is eating into his financial empire and, although still a long way from poverty, he is lobbying Roosevelt to take steps to resolve the Depression. Warbucks is fiercely adamant that even this does not constitute asking for help; he lobbies on the basis that "if I'm not making money then no one is." Warbucks is finally forced to abandon his stance and ask Roosevelt for help when he needs to rapidly disprove the claim of "Ralph and Shirley Mudge" to be Annie's parents, which Roosevelt gives without reservation