Lieutenant General Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks is a fictional character from the comic strip Little Orphan Annie. He first appeared in the Annie strip on September 27, 1924[1]. His age in the series is around 52 years old.
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He was born about 1894, near the small town of Supine. (In the movie musical, he says he was born in Liverpool.) His father, a section boss on the railroad, 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 and Sundays in the local steel mill to pay a debt. His family background and lack of prep school education kept him from entering a fraternity.
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 zillion 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 Asp, joined Allied forces. Warbucks became a three-star general.
Despite his immense wealth, Warbucks is, occasionally, reduced to such poverty as to be forced to raid Annie's piggy bank. He always leaves an I.O.U., and he is always restored to his wealth and repays Annie.
He was knighted by the Queen of England later in life.
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.[2] 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.
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