(In Thomas Meehan's 1980 novelisation of his 1977 musical, he was born and brought up in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, and is 52 years old as of 1933, thus giving him a birthdate of 1881.

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.

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 in the local steel mill to pay a debt.

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.

Warbucks was often a platform for cartoonist Harold Gray's political views, which were free market-based, opposing the New Deal policies of the Democrats.

[4] His portrayal in the 1977 stage musical and subsequent film adaptations differs from this, showing him as an associate of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and embracing the New Deal.

The musical (and Meehan's novelization of it) takes steps to reconcile this by explaining that Warbucks is a self-made, self-reliant millionaire who prides himself on never asking anyone for help.