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. He appeared in two revues on Broadway, and appeared unbilled as himself in the 1937 comedy film The Singing Marine. Writer Anthony Slide described him as "one of the great 'nut' acts of vaudeville".

Rockwell created a series of comedy magazines entitled Ye Olde Mustard Plaster, later Dr. Rockwell's Mustard Plaster. He also had a short-lived radio show on the NBC Radio Network. Following his retirement in the 1940s, he wrote a column for Maine's Down East magazine, and worked as a sign painter. 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. He had two younger sisters, Marguerite or "Margie", and Helen. He was of English and Scottish descent.

Rockwell attended local public schools, and won a scholarship at the Rhode Island School of Design. He studied commercial art and went on to work with the Boston company C. I. Brink. alt=refer to caption Cover of the February 1929 issue of Dr. Rockwell's Mustard Plaster

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 one of the highest paid vaudeville actors in the nation. Rockwell's family were initially uncertain about how to respond to his fame. He appeared in two revues on Broadway, George White's Scandals (1920) and later Seven Lively Arts.

In 1928, he created a comedy magazine, Ye Olde Mustard Plaster, later renamed to Dr. Rockwell's Mustard Plaster. He and Allen appeared together on television. His divorce lawyer was Benjamin M. McLyman.

The case involved in unpaid back alimony and child support from Rockwell, Rockwell arranged for the private burial of his son in Maine, but the American Nazi Party seized the remains and cremated them.

Death Rockwell died on 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.