Robert Ripley: The Man Behind Believe it or Not
Robert Leroy Ripley was born on Christmas day in 1893, in Santa Rosa, California. His nickname was Rip, and he died of a heart attack in New York City on May 27, 1949. He was married to Beatrice Roberts from 1919 until their divorce in 1926.
Robert Ripley liked to collect anything Chinese. His friends said that when China fell to Communism, he became depressed. He also collected antique cars and beer steins. However, he preferred gin and never drove or held a driver's license.
Before becoming a sports cartoonist, Ripley was a semi-pro baseball player. An injury unfortunately stopped his sports career. His first job ever was polishing tombstones.
The cartoon was originally named "Champs and Chumps". Ripley's editor insisted the name be changed. His editor also suggested he adopt the first name "Robert".
The Believe It Or Not cartoon had great impact on society. In 1931 a cartoon ran, stating America did not have a national anthem. (At this time, "The Star Spangled Banner" was around but had not been named the official anthem.) In a matter of days, Congress received millions of letters demanding that the use of the song as our anthem be made official. Later that year Congress did just that.
Another cartoon stated that Charles Lindbergh actually was not the first man to fly across the Atlantic. Ripley received over 170,000 letters. This became such a phenomenon that letters addressed to "the World's Biggest Liar" or simply to "Rip" were actually delivered by the post office. One letter was even addressed with microscopic code. The Postmaster General eventually had to put a stop to it all by decreeing no more mail would be delivered to Ripley with an incomplete or indecipherable address.
Robert Ripley apparently had a sense of humor. He enjoyed vacationing in Hell, Norway, and especially enjoyed sending friends or enemies postcards from Hell.
Parts of his life were ironic - during the taping of Believe It Or Not's 13th episode, he suffered a heart attack. He had just completed an episode on the origins of "Taps", a song often played at funerals.
Ripley's Believe It Or Not has now been entertaining us for 90 years.
Sources:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0728020/bio
www.ripleys.com
Published by SE
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1 Comments
Post a CommentGreat info. I recently went to the Ripley's museum which was both fun and interesting. Didn't know the facts about his death - thanks for sharing!