Robert Ripley
| Robert Ripley | |
|---|---|
Ripley in 1940
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| Born |
LeRoy Robert Ripley February 22, 1890 Santa Rosa, California, U.S. |
| Died | May 27, 1949 (aged 58) New York City, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Heart attack |
| Resting place | Oddfellows Lawn Cemetery, Santa Rosa, California, U.S. |
| Residence | New York City, U.S. Los Angeles Miami Mamaroneck, New York Bedford, Iowa Chicago |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | Mr. Ripley |
| Occupation | cartoonist, entrepreneur, Curator, anthropologist |
| Years active | 1930s–1949 |
| Known for | Creator of Ripley's Believe It or Not! |
| Home town | Santa Rosa, California |
| Board member of | Ripley Entertainment |
| Spouse(s) |
Beatrice Roberts (1919–1926; Divorced) |
| Parent(s) | Issac Davis Ripley, Lillie (née Bell) Ripley |
| Family | Douglas Ripley (brother), Ethel Ripley (sister) |
LeRoy Robert Ripley (December 25, 1890 – May 27, 1949), better known by the name Robert Ripley, was an American cartoonist, entrepreneur, and amateur anthropologist, who is known for creating the Ripley's Believe It or Not! newspaper panel series, radio show, and television show which feature odd facts from around the world.
Subjects covered in Ripley's cartoons and text ranged from sports feats to little known facts about unusual and exotic sites; but what ensured the concept's popularity may have been that Ripley also included items submitted by readers, who supplied photographs of a wide variety of small town American trivia, ranging from unusually shaped vegetables to oddly marked domestic animals, all documented by photographs and then depicted by Ripley's drawings.
In 1919 Ripley married Beatrice Roberts. He made his first trip around the world in 1922, delineating a travel journal in installments. This ushered in a new topic for his cartoons: unusual and exotic foreign locales and cultures. Because he took the veracity of his work quite seriously, in 1923, Ripley hired a researcher and polyglot named Norbert Pearlroth as a full-time assistant. In 1926, his feature moved from the New York Globe to the New York Post.
Throughout the 1920s, Mr. Ripley continued to broaden the scope of his work and his popularity increased greatly. He published both a travel journal and a guide to the game of handball in 1925. In 1926, Ripley became the New York state handball champion and also wrote a book on boxing. With a proven track record as a versatile writer and artist, he attracted the attention of publishing mogul William Randolph Hearst, who managed the King Features Syndicate. In 1929, Hearst was responsible for Believe It or Not! making its syndicated debut in seventeen papers worldwide. With the success of this series assured, Ripley capitalized on his fame by getting the first book collection of his newspaper panel series published.
On November 3, 1929, he drew a panel in his syndicated cartoon saying "Believe It or Not, America has no national anthem." Despite the widespread belief that "The Star-Spangled Banner", with its lyrics by Francis Scott Key set to the music of the English drinking song "To Anacreon in Heaven", was the United States national anthem, Congress had never officially made it so. In 1931, John Philip Sousa published his opinion in favor of giving the song official status, stating that "it is the spirit of the music that inspires" as much as it is Key's "soul-stirring" words. By a law signed on March 3, 1931, by President Herbert Hoover, "The Star-Spangled Banner" was adopted as the national anthem of the United States.
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