Maurice Rockhold was born in 1915 in
Oxford, Ohio to a music teacher mother. His mother taught him piano starting at a young age, but did not interfere with his interest in rhythm playing as long as he finished his lessons. He worked for radio station
WLW. By the early 1940s he was no longer fronting a band, but was working as a solo act. Between 1940 and 1941 he cut 14 sides for Decca, He did not join active military service because his poor eyesight classified him as 4-F, and as part of the
American Forces Network Jubilee radio program. Rocco spent most of the 1940s headlining at nightclubs and theaters (where his engagements would extend into months) and participating in vaudeville revues. By 1944 he had a US $500,000 insurance policy on his hands. He married a woman named Iantha on July 3 of that year. Later in 1945, he appeared in his most famous role in the film
Incendiary Blond. His earnings in 1945 topped U.S. $250,000. Despite all the professional success, this marriage was short lived. Iantha filed for divorce before their first anniversary amid allegations of physical and mental abuse. In the early 1950s he made tours of Europe and Southeast Asia. Alongside
Slim Gaillard, he was in 1953 solicited to play a lead role in a film to be entitled "Two Joes from Georgia". Rocco fell into legal difficulties in the 1950s regarding bad checks: he was jailed over Christmas 1957 in
Cleveland, and was accused of the same offense in July 1958. He moved to Europe before spending the last 12–15 years of his life performing in Thailand, where he had a residency at the Bamboo Bar in the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok. He was found slashed to death in his apartment. The murder occurred on March 24, 1976. The murder weapon was his own Malaysian knife. He is buried at Woodside Cemetery in Oxford. ==Performance style==