George Lovejoy "Doc" Rockwell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Rockwell

George Lovejoy "Doc" Rockwell (1889-1978) was an American vaudeville performer and radio personality.

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Rockwell was a fast-talking "nut comic" who developed an act as a lecturing doctor, sometimes with a stethoscope and an oversized five-foot banana as props, billed as "Doc Rockwell - Quack! Quack! Quack!"

One sign of Rockwell's surprising success was his appearances as the headline act at the Palace Theater in New York, the single most coveted booking in vaudeville. Rockwell headlined at the Palace not once but six times, the first in April 1925, the last in May 1932.

In the 1930s he also appeared on the inaugural bill at the Radio City Music Hall (on December 27, 1932), at the Ziegfeld Theater, and 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 friend Fred Allen.

He married fellow performer Claire Schade in 1915 in Bloomington, Illinois. Rockwell's first son was George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party, whose views his father did not share.

For many years after his retirement from performing, Doc Rockwell contributed a humor column to Down East, The Magazine of Maine. He had the last page from shortly after the magazine's founding in 1954 to his death. Doc always ended his column with "Maker of fine cigar ashes since 1889."