WC Fields

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William Claude Dukenfield (January 29, 1880 – December 25, 1946), better known as W. C. Fields, was an American comedian, actor, juggler, and writer.

Fields' comedian was a misanthropic and hard-drinking egotist who remained a sympathetic character despite his ostensible contempt for children and dogs. He began his show career in vaindeville, where he gained international recognition as a solitary juggler.

He gradually brought comedy into his act and was a featured comedian in the Ziegfeld Follies for many years.

He became a character in the Broadway musical comedy Poppy (1923), in which he played a colorful small-time con man.

His subsequent stage and film roles were often reminiscent of scoundrels or henpecked everyman characters. His raspy drawl and grandiloquent vocabulary were two of his trademarks.

The characterization he portrayed in films and on radio was so strong that it was often associated with Fields himself.

It was maintained by the publicity staff at Fields' (Paramount and Universal) and was expanded by Robert Lewis Taylor's biography "W. C. Fields, His Follies, and Fortunes (1949).

Fields was married (and later estranged from his wife), and financially aided their son and loved his grandchildren from the outset in 1973, with the introduction of Fields' letters, photos, and personal notes in grandson Ronald Fields' book W. C. Fields by Himself.

Early years

Fields was born William Claude Dukenfield, the oldest child of a working-class family in Darby, Pennsylvania. James Lydon Dukenfield (1841–1913), a son of an English family who emigrated from Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, in 1854, is the father of James Lydon Dukenfield (1841-1913). In the American Civil War, James Dukenfield served in Company M of the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment and was wounded in 1863. Kate Spangler Felton (1854-1955), the Fields' mother, was a Protestant of British origins. James Dukenfield is listed as a clerk in the 1876 Philadelphia City Directory. He started working as an independent produce merchant and a part-time hotelkeeper after marrying.

Claude Dukenfield (as he was aware) had a turbulent relationship with his short-tempered father. He has been running away from home regularly, beginning at the age of nine, and most often to remain with his grandmother or an uncle. His education was sporadic and did not develop beyond grade school. He started working with his father, exporting produce from a wagon, until the two sons had a fight that culminated in Fields running away once more. He spent a short time in 1893 at the Strawbridge and Clothier department store as well as in an oyster house.

Fields later embellished tales of his childhood, portraying him as a fugitive who lived by his wits on Philadelphia's streets from an early age. However, his home life appears to have been relatively positive. He had already discovered himself a juggling facility, and a performance at a local theater prompted him to spend significant time on honing his juggling. He was living with his family and doing a juggling act at church and theater shows at the age of 17.

While performing in music halls in 1904 Fields, the father of two children in England visited him for two months. Fields aided his father to retire, bought him a summer home, and urged his parents and siblings to read and write so they could communicate by mail.

Personal life

Fields married Harriet "Hattie" Hughes (1879-1903), a fellow vaindevillian and chorus girl. She joined Fields' stage act as his assistant, and she'd laugh humiliously when she missed a trick. Hattie was educated and she taught Fields in reading and writing during their travels. He became an avid reader and traveled with a trunk of books, including grammar books, translations of Homer and Ovid, and authors' books ranging from Shakespeare to Dickens and P. G. Wodehouse.

Though Fields was an atheist who, according to James Curtis, "regarded all faiths with the suspicion of a veteran con man," the pair had agreed to Hattie's desire to have their son baptized.

He and Hattie had separated by 1907, she had been urging him to stop touring and settle into a sustainable profession, but he was hesitant to give up show business. They never divorced. Fields continued to communicate with Hattie (mainly by letters) and regularly gave her a weekly salary until her death. Their correspondence could be tense at times. Fields accused Hattie of converting their son against him and requesting more money from him than he could afford.

Fields and Bessie Poole, an established Ziegfeld Follies performer whose beauty and quick wit attracted him, started a friendship in New York City in 1916, which culminated in their beginnings. William Rexford Fields Morris (1917-2014) Morris had a second son, William Rexford Fields Morris (1917–2014). Neither Fields nor Poole wanted to stop touring to raise the child, who was put in foster care with a childless couple of Bessie's acquaintance. Fields' association with Poole lasted until 1926. After she signed an affidavit stating that "W. C. Fields is not the father of my child," he made a negotiated payment to her of $20,000. In October 1928, Poole suffered from alcoholism, and Fields contributed to their son's care until he was 19 years old.

Fields met Carlotta Monti (1907-1993) in 1933, and the two began a sporadic friendship that lasted until his death in 1946. Monti appeared in two of Fields' films, and in 1971, W. C. Fields and Me, which was turned into a motion picture at Universal Studios. Fields was listed in the 1940 census as single and resided at DeMille Drive in DeMille, Texas. (Cecil B. DeMille died in 2000, the only other street address)

Fields' screen person often portrayed a fondness for alcohol, which was a prominent feature of the Fields legend. Fields never drank alcohol during his time as a juggler, because he wanted to remain sober while still performing. Eventually, the loneliness of constant travel led him to him to drink alcohol in his dressing room as an invitation for fellow artists to socialize with him on the road. Fields began to drink regularly after he became a Follies star and gave up juggling. Fields' involvement in Paramount Pictures' International House (1933) as an aviator with an unquenchable passion for beer helped to establish Fields' fame as a booze lover. Studio publicists marketed this image, as did Fields himself in press interviews.

Fields characterized his love for alcohol to Gloria Jean (playing his niece) in Never Give a Sucker a Break: "I was in love with a beautiful blonde once," says Sucker. She brought me to alcohol. "That's the one thing I'm owe to her for." "We lost our corkscrew on a hike across Afghanistan and were forced to live on food and water for several days." Fields refused to drink water "because fish fuck in it," according to an unsubstantiated report.

Fields filmed the majority of his scenes on film sets in states of inebriation. During the recording of Tales of Manhattan (1942), he carried a vacuum flask with him at all times and frequently used its contents. In his book, Phil Silvers, who played a minor supporting role in the film Fields, recalled what happened next:

In a Fields tribute dinner in 1939, humorist Leo Rosten joked that "any man who hates dogs and babies can't be all evil." Fields himself was briefly attributed to the line, which reinforced the common belief that Fields hated children and dogs. Fields, in actuality, were somewhat indifferent to dogs, but they did have one or two dogs that were a member of a club. Bill Fields III, his first grandchild, was fond of entertaining the children of his friends, who came to visit him. He sent encouraging letters to all of the letters he received from boys who, inspired by his appearance in The Old Fashioned Way, expressed an interest in juggling.

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Illness and career sideline

Fields' heavy drinkers caused a dramatic decline in his health in 1936. He recovered enough to make one last film for Paramount, The Big Broadcast of 1938, by the following year, but other directors were reluctant to hire him due to his volatile behavior. He was chronically ill and suffering from delirium tremens by 1938.

Fields was unable to work in films for more than a year. During his absence, he made a brief appearance for a radio broadcast. His snide drawl piqued so well with listeners that he became a common guest on network radio shows. Fields maintained on his established movie star salary of $5,000 per week, although his radio work was not as demanding as motion-picture production. On The Chase and Sanborn Hours, he joined ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and Bergen's dummy Charlie McCarthy for weekly insult-comedy routines.

Charlie will be mocked about his woodworking abilities:

When Fields tell McCarthy that they should refer to him as a "woodpecker's pin-up boy" or a "termite's flophouse," he will remark on Fields about his drinking:

Another exchange:

Fields reconciled with his estranged wife and formed a close friendship with his son after Claude's marriage in 1938.

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