He is
what he is:
age 75: Popeye
and his pals
have their roots
in Illinois
town
CHESTER, IL, January 24, 2004 - Before Popeye the Sailor, Olive Oyl and
Wimpy were the stars of a beloved comic strip, they walked the streets
of this little town where their creator grew up.
Popeye's real-life alter ego, according to locals, was Frank Fiegel, a
one-eyed, pipe-smoking man with a penchant for fistfights. Dora Paskel
was unusually tall and thin and wore a bun at the nape of her neck. And
theater owner J. William Schuchert so loved hamburgers that he would
send his employees out between performances to buy them.
Popeye made his debut in the funny pages 75 years ago, walking onto
Elzie Segar's "Thimble Theatre" comic strip on Jan. 17, 1929. The
colorful locals from Segar's hometown had evolved into a pipe-tooting,
spinach-chomping hero, the "goil" he was always rushing to save from
danger and a man with a paunch to prove his passion for burgers.
In honor of the 75th anniversary, New York's Empire State Building shone
its lights spinach-green this weekend. A 3-D animated movie will air
before Christmas on Fox. And Chester, population 5,200, will hold its
annual picnic for Popeye fans after Labor Day.
All for a character who humbly declares, "I yam what I yam," and who got
his start when Segar cast his eyes around his hometown on the
Mississippi River about 60 miles southeast of St. Louis.
Locals say they don't know if Segar ever acknowledged his inspiration,
but they attribute that to his death nine years after Popeye's debut.
Around town, it just seems obvious that Popeye, Wimpy and Olive Oyl got
their start in Chester - especially when you look at pictures of
Fiegel's jutting chin, wiry frame and ever-present pipe.
"This is the folklore of Chester, and you've got to listen to it," said
Laurie Randall, who runs a Popeye museum in town.
Ernie Schuchert, 75, has spent his life in Chester and remembers finding
Fiegel kind of creepy when he would pass the one-eyed man on his way to
school.
"He'd sit on a stoop outside his house, which was really dilapidated,"
Schuchert said. "I don't know that he ever knew he was Popeye."
Fiegel was a little guy like Popeye, Schuchert said, but without the
dash of sweetness in his swagger. He would often get into fights at
Wiebusch's tavern, and he didn't lose many.
Schuchert's great-great-uncle, J. William Schuchert, hired Segar to run
the lights in his Chester Opera House, a job that helped Segar pay for a
correspondence course in drawing.
The elder Schuchert would send Segar and the other boys who worked for
him around the corner to Wiebusch's to buy hamburgers between
performances, Schuchert said. Like Wimpy, he was on the roly-poly side.
Dora Paskel looked like the character she inspired but otherwise was
unlike the daffy-yet-devoted Olive Oyl.
Children would watch her long, shadowy figure behind the counter at the
general store she owned, but they would seldom go in, Schuchert said.
And she would seldom come out. "We were kind of scared of her," he said.
Segar did not visit Chester much after he left in the early 1920s. By
the time he died in 1938, Popeye was appearing in more than 500
newspapers.
The opera house now holds the Spinach Can Collectibles store and the
Popeye Museum.
"He's an American icon," said Randall, who runs both. "He stands for
being who you are and standing up for the little guy."
Paskel, Schuchert and Fiegel all died in the 1940s and early '50s.
"These were just our friends and family," said Ernie Schuchert. "We're
just happy the rest of the world knows them, too."
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He is
what he is:
age 75: Popeye
and his pals
have their roots