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11 things you may not know about Fred Rogers, from the new book 'The Good Neighbor'

Jim Higgins
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

That sickly, chubby boy who was teased and chased by classmates, and who spent many hours alone creating a fantasy world with his toys?

He grew up to be Fred Rogers. 

The host of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" died in 2003, but he lives in the public imagination today as an avatar of kindness and compassion. After disasters and mass murders, social media often echoes Rogers' famous advice, which he attributed to his mother, to look for the helpers. 

RELATED:How Mr. Rogers walked his famous talk about neighbors and helpers

In his new biography "The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers," Maxwell King traces the roots of the mature Rogers back to both the loneliness and the creativity of his childhood. More surprisingly, King also reveals the role affluence played in making Rogers who he was. Growing up in a family of means produced a man who cared more about children than making money.

Fred Rogers poses on the Pittsburgh set of his television show "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" in 1996.

King, a former Philadelphia Inquirer editor and now CEO of the Pittsburgh Foundation, has written an admiring biography.  But he does grapple with Rogers' weaknesses and foibles, including his response (which changed over time) to a gay cast member of his show. 

"Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" aired on public television stations from 1968 to 2001. Rogers was Marquette University's commencement speaker in 2001.

King's biography reveals some facets of Rogers' life that may be new to you:

1. He was a child of wealth, but wore his privilege lightly.

His parents were two of the wealthiest people in Latrobe, Pa., with stakes in multiple industries. But they were also famous locally, especially his mother, Nancy, for their charitable giving. A chauffeur took young Fred to and from school: Protective parents worried about his safety in those years following the Lindbergh kidnapping.

2. His love of music was grand.

As a boy, Rogers played the family piano and a small pump organ, but he confided to his grandmother before his 10th birthday that he wanted a piano of his own. She offered to buy him one, never suspecting young Fred would fall in love with a secondhand Steinway concert grand, nine feet long and a thousand pounds, which cost about $3,000 in 1936. He kept that piano with him for the rest of his life.

3. He was an Ivy League dropout.

Specifically, he transferred from Dartmouth, where he didn't feel at home, to Rollins College in Florida, which had the strong music program he craved. One of the Rollins music majors who met Rogers at the airport when he went to visit the college was Joanne Byrd, who later married him.

4. When it came to TV, his timing was excellent.

The Rogers family owned one of the first TVs in Latrobe. Still, college senior Fred, interested in religion and music and children and education, surprised many by going to NBC as an apprentice in 1951. His musical background made him valuable in those pioneering television days. For instance, he was the floor manager on the original 1951 broadcast of "Amahl and the Night Visitors."

The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers. By Maxwell King.

5. He learned a crucial lesson from a cowboy show.

While working on "The Gabby Hayes Show" for children, Rogers asked Hayes why he connected so well with his audience. Hayes said he convinced himself he was speaking to "just one little buckaroo." 

6. He was a minister who didn't want to preach sermons.

Rogers earned his master of divinity degree from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary while working at Pittsburgh's public television station, WQED. A Presbyterian, he saw his ministry as serving children through television. With that in mind, he studied child development as well as theology. But after his ordination, the Pittsburgh Presbytery refused to allocate any resources to a TV ministry for children, leaving Rogers to find his own way. 

7. He might have become a Canadian icon. 

In 1963, Rogers moved to Toronto to make a daily 15-minute children's show for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, "Misterogers." Biographer King describes it as "a miniature version of what would later become the half-hour 'Neighborhood,'" with many of the elements of the latter show: his cardigan, the trolley, music and puppets, the neighborhood of Make-Believe. But in 1966, rather than pursue Canadian citizenship, Fred and Joanne decided to return to Pittsburgh to raise their children as American citizens.

8. He refused to cash in.

Rogers wasn't afraid to do necessary fundraising. He helped ask foundations and corporations for support, and established a business entity to sell records and books. But he spurned overtures about taking his show to commercial television, and did not allow advertising or marketing of products targeted to children. When Burger King used a Rogers knockoff in a TV commercial without his permission, Rogers (a serious vegetarian) called out the fast-food chain in a press conference, then persuaded its marketing veep to pull the ad. 

9. He could roll with a good prank.

Once Rogers opened the door of his closet on set to hang up his jacket, only to find a blow-up sex doll. Michael Keaton — now a famous actor, then a young WQED stagehand — had put it in there. Without missing a beat, Rogers waltzed the doll around the set before returning it to the closet. Further evidence of his healthy sense of humor: Rogers loved "Monty Python's Flying Circus." 

10. He tried to dissuade a gay cast member from coming out publicly. 

In the 1960s, Rogers counseled François Clemmons against coming out in public, believing it would hurt his singing career. But, King notes, Rogers later shifted his stance on this, especially when many gay people came out after the Stonewall uprising. As Presbyterians go, Rogers was on the liberal side, a parishioner and occasional preacher at Pittsburgh's Sixth Presbyterian Church. 

"Some of his friends in Pittsburgh were disappointed that Fred didn't speak out publicly on behalf of the disadvantaged, and didn't vocally champion tolerance and inclusion, the values in which he so fervently believed," biographer King writes. "But Rogers worried that such public posturing would cause confusion with the parents and children he reached on television. And he always felt that actions — kindness, understanding and openness in relationships — were more important than words."

11. He made sure each word was spoken directly to children.

In one of King's book's most fascinating anecdotes, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" writer Arthur Greenwald describes the nine steps of Freddish translation — of converting an ordinary adult statement, such as as "It is dangerous to play in the street," to one that Rogers believed would acknowledge and validate a child's fear and provide what the child needed:

"Your favorite GROWN-UPS can tell you where it is SAFE to play. It is important to try to listen to them. And listening is an important part of growing."