performers. [89], In a 1994 episode of the Biography television series, Fields' 1941 co-star Gloria Jean recalled her conversations with Fields at his home. Reproduced p. 29, Louvish. The arguments between Fields and Leisen were so constant and intense during the five-month shoot that when the production concluded on November 15, 1937, Leisen went home and had a heart attack.[50]. The Sloper character may in turn have been inspired by Dickens' Mr Micawber, whom Fields later played on film. All of these were commercial failures and are now lost. [68][69][70] Neither Fields nor Poole wanted to abandon touring to raise the child, who was placed in foster care with a childless couple of Bessie's acquaintance. His familiar, snide drawl registered so well with listeners that he quickly became a popular guest on network radio shows. In 1932 and 1933, Fields made four short subjects for comedy pioneer Mack Sennett, distributed through Paramount Pictures. This outtake, from the 1934 movie, The Old Fashioned Way, shows W.C. Fields as The Great McGonigle, a showman extraordinaire. Muster roll of 72nd PA, which did not fight at Lookout Mountain! [89] According to a popular story (possibly apocryphal, according to biographer James Curtis), Fields told someone who caught him reading a Bible that he was "looking for loopholes". Physically unable to work in films, Fields was off the screen for more than a year. [41] The first of them, The Dentist, is unusual in that Fields portrays an entirely unsympathetic character: he cheats at golf, assaults his caddy, and treats his patients with unbridled callousness. tricks in Fields' pool table routine. A popular bit of Fields folklore maintains that his grave marker is inscribed, "I'd rather be in Philadelphia"—or a close variant thereof. An extended sequence in 20th Century Fox's Tales of Manhattan (1942) was cut from the original release of the film and later reinstated for some home video releases. The American entertainer of vaudeville and the movies, W.C. Fields (1880-1946), had rosacea with rhinophyma (ryno-fee-ma).. [44], Fields' 1934 classic It's a Gift includes another one of his earlier stage sketches, one in which he endeavors to escape his nagging family by sleeping on the back porch, where he is bedeviled by noisy neighbors and salesmen. I'm going to kill everybody. [5] Fields' mother, Kate Spangler Felton (1854–1925), was a Protestant of British ancestry. To conceal a stutter, Fields did not speak onstage. Just before his death that year, Fields recorded a spoken-word album, including his "Temperance Lecture" and "The Day I Drank a Glass of Water", at Les Paul's studio, where Paul had installed a new multi-track recorder. When Fields married Harriet Veronica Hughes in San Francisco, on April 8, 1900, he was twenty years old and, under California law, could not enter into a marriage without parental consent. I booted Baby LeRoy ... then, in another picture, I kicked a little dog . WC Fields at the Sunderland Empire Friday, July 9th, 2010. I've long been interested in bearing down on the process by which W.C. Fields evolved from one of vaudeville's greatest jugglers into the screen comedian we all love today. He was in his sixties. some recollections of Fields by H. M. Lorette, a juggler who grew up W. C. Fields (with John T. Neville, et al. The scene was snipped out of the picture. This is an extract from a review of Fields' According to W. Buchanan-Taylor, a performer who saw Fields' performance in an English music hall, Fields would "reprimand a particular ball which had not come to his hand accurately", and "mutter weird and unintelligible expletives to his cigar when it missed his mouth". appearance in the musical comedy "Ballyhoo", which was published in My reward? Short version of W. C. Fields' ball routine, from the 1925 film Sally Of The Sawdust. "Would you be kind enough to taste this, sir?" Newsletter. [110] His manner of muttering deprecatory asides was copied from his mother, who in Fields' childhood often mumbled sly comments about neighbors who passed by. A favorite bit of "business", repeated in many of his films, involved his hat going astray—either caught on the end of his cane, or simply facing the wrong way—as he attempts to put it onto his head. By then his vision and memory had deteriorated so much that he had to read his lines from large-print blackboards.[94]. He therefore gave his birthdate as April 9, 1879, and often used this date thereafter. Fields was enthusiastic about the role, but ultimately withdrew his name from consideration so he could devote his time to writing You Can't Cheat an Honest Man.[121]. (Despite the charitable nature of the movie, Fields was paid $15,000 for this appearance; he was never able to perform in person for the armed services.) [36] Fields went immediately to Hollywood, where Schulberg teamed him with Chester Conklin for two features and loaned him and Conklin out for an Al Christie-produced remake of Tillie's Punctured Romance for Paramount release. At the end of the play Fields displays his juggling skills, which apparently got him into show business to begin with. W. C. Fields's highest grossing movies have received a lot of accolades over the years, earning millions upon millions around the world. Fields fought with studio producers, directors, and writers over the content of his films. Fields in the early years of his film career became highly protective of his intellectual properties that formed his acts and defined his on-screen persona. [25] He later said, "I wanted to become a real comedian, and there I was, ticketed and pigeonholed as merely a comedy juggler. Only after he became a Follies star and abandoned juggling did Fields begin drinking regularly. The creation of the W. C. Fields stamp (pictured above) is described in this article from the IJA Newsletter, March 1981. He became a star in the Broadway musical comedy Poppy (1923), in which he played a colorful small-time con man. [30], In 1915, Fields starred in two short comedies, Pool Sharks and His Lordship's Dilemma, filmed at the French Gaumont Company's American studio in Flushing, New York. Fields with Shaun O'L. Typically, the finished film was sufficiently surreal that Universal recut and reshot parts of it and ultimately released both the film and Fields. [114] James Curtis says of Man on the Flying Trapeze that the "disapproving mother-in-law, Mrs. Neselrode, was clearly patterned after his wife, Hattie, and the unemployable mama's boy played by [Grady] Sutton was deliberately named Claude. With her he had another son, named William Rexford Fields Morris (1917–2014). Although lacking formal education, Fields was well read and a lifelong admirer of author Charles Dickens, whose characters' unusual names inspired Fields to collect odd names he encountered in his travels, to be used for his characters. Fields hadn't laid eyes on his family in nearly twenty years, and yet the painful memories lingered."[115]. The best scene in the movie is when Fields tricks a hotel owner into letting him escape without paying the bill. That film, like You're Telling Me! [92] The scene featured a temperance meeting with society people at the home of a wealthy society matron Margaret Dumont, in which Fields discovers that the punch has been spiked, resulting in drunken guests and a very happy Fields. pretending to drown in the ocean and being rescued by one of the other [76] His role in Paramount Pictures' International House (1933), as an aviator with an unquenchable taste for beer, did much to establish Fields' popular reputation as a prodigious drinker. The number, however, may exceed 100. According to the film historian William K. Everson, he perversely insisted on wearing the conspicuously fake-looking mustache because he knew it was disliked by audiences. [72] Poole died of complications of alcoholism in October 1928,[73] and Fields contributed to her son's support until he was 19 years of age. London from Black and White Budget, March 16th, 1901, including His subsequent stage and film roles were often similar scoundrels or henpecked everyman characters. [91] In 1971, when Fields was seen as an anti-establishment figure, Dodd, Mead issued a reprint, illustrated with photographs of the author. "The Sleeping Porch" sketch that reappears as an extended segment in It's a Gift was copyrighted as well by Fields in 1928. His role in the show required him to deliver lines of dialogue, which he had never before done onstage. His pool game is reproduced, in part, in some of his films, notably in Six of a Kind in 1934. Movies. Fields own description of the same Fields' film career slowed considerably in the 1940s. with him. But I got sympathy both times. [77] Studio publicists promoted this image, as did Fields himself in press interviews. In fact, some of our favorite quotes of all time are attributed to him. Beginning in 1973, with the publication of Fields' letters, photos, and personal notes in grandson Ronald Fields' book W. C. Fields by Himself, it was shown that Fields was married (and subsequently estranged from his wife), and financially supported their son and loved his grandchildren. hand and waving a third ball behind his back with the other hand. His father, James Lydon Dukenfield (1841–1913), was from an English family that emigrated from Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, in 1854. Fields' wife Hattie became his partner in his juggling act after their marriage; he sent her home to his parents when she became pregnant. [109], Fields' most familiar characteristics included a distinctive drawl, which was not his normal speaking voice. [97] According to a 2004 documentary, he winked and smiled at a nurse, put a finger to his lips, and died. Fields didn't want to be just a juggler, he wanted to be a comic juggler who mixed in humorous sketches. The United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp on the comedian's 100th birthday, in January 1980.[127]. [88], Fields had a substantial library in his home. [99] They also contested a clause leaving a portion of his estate to establish a "W. C. Fields College for Orphan White Boys and Girls, where no religion of any sort is to be preached". I answered the producers a little scornfully, "It's lemonade." He plays a "bumbling hero". [10] At age twelve, he worked with his father selling produce from a wagon, until the two had a fight that resulted in Fields running away once again. W.C. Fields had many talents, including juggling. His illnesses confined him to brief guest film appearances. [123], A best-selling biography of Fields published three years after his death, W.C. Fields, His Follies and Fortunes by Robert Lewis Taylor, was instrumental in popularizing the idea that Fields' real-life character matched his screen persona. William Claude Dukenfield (January 29, 1880 – December 25, 1946), better known as W. C. Fields, was an American comedian, actor, juggler, and writer. "[93] His last film, the musical revue Sensations of 1945, was released in late 1944. Nation in January 1931. Stick,BKO 2019 FS Rob V,BKO 2019 FS Harv V,BKO 2019 FS Tom … Juggling would be young Fields first real passion in the entertainment industry. [111] He delighted in provoking the censors with double entendres and the near-profanities "Godfrey Daniels" and "mother of pearl". [67], While performing in New York City at the New Amsterdam Theater in 1916, Fields met Bessie Poole, an established Ziegfeld Follies performer whose beauty and quick wit attracted him, and they began a relationship.
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