Captain Haddock Hergé thought this was a perfect name for Tintin’s new mariner friend, and so Captain Haddock was born. There was a real 20th-century ship's master bearing this unlikely but appropriate surname: Captain Herbert Haddock had been the skipper of the famous White Star Line's passenger vessel "Olympic". He had also been temporarily at the helm of Olympic's even more famous sister ship "Titanic" before "Titanic" was officially handed over to White Star for her doomed 1912 maiden voyage. Another famous namesake, and a possible inspiration for the Captain's ancestor Sir Francis, was the English admiral Richard Haddock, a veteran of
Marcus Haddock Jerome-Haddock. He increasingly sang in American opera houses from 1998 and made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2003 in the title role of "Faust". His early roles were those of the "tenore di grazia" repertoire, but as his career progressed he also took on heavier lyric and spinto tenor roles such as Rodolfo in "La bohème" and Don José in "Carmen", both of which he has recorded. Haddock retired from the stage in 2009 after suffering two serious strokes, and began a new career as a voice teacher in 2012. Haddock was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the son of