W. C. Fields

From Philosopedia

Fields, W. C. (William Claude) (29 Jan 1879 - 25 Dec 1946)

Born in Philadelphia, Fields was the son of a Cockney immigrant and a mother who was a native Philadelphian. He dropped out after 4 years of schooling to work with his father, who ran a horse-drawn vegetable cart. A rough home life drove Fields away by the age of 11. He lived on the streets, was occasionally beat up and sometimes jailed. By 13, he had become skilled at juggling and playing pool. That year he moved to Atlantic City where he was hired to juggle (perfecting the appearance of losing his juggling pieces) and, when business was slow, to pretend to drown for crowd amusement. At 19, he was dubbed "The Distinguished Comedian." By 23 he played at Buckingham Palace in London, appearing the same evening as Sarah Bernhardt. Fields was on the program with Charles Chaplin and Maurice Chevalier at Folies-Bergeres.

His first movie, at age 35, fittingly was "Pool Shark" (1915). Fields appeared in 37 movies, including "David Copperfield" (despite his adage, "Never work with animals or children") and "My Little Chickadee" (1940).

An atheist, he held that

• Prayers never bring anything. . . . They may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, the ignorant, the aboriginal, and the lazy - but to the enlightened it is the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Xmas.

Fields had a popular and ongoing feud on radio with ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s dummy, Charlie McCarthy, who once joked, “Pink elephants take aspirin to get rid of W. C. Fields.”

Viewers noticed his big nose, first for its acne, eczema, and, later, its condition caused by drinking too much liquor. Viewers also laughed at his screen persona, which showed him to have a bedeviled wife. He also was pictured as disliking small children, saying, “I like children. If they’re properly cooked.” And “Uncle will give you some nice razor blades to play with,” lines by his Elmer Prettywillie to a baby in It’s the Old Army Game. And “Children should neither be seen nor heard from - ever again.”

Among other of his various quips are the following:

• I always keep a supply of stimulant handy in case I see a snake, which I also keep handy.
• What contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch?
• My illness is due to my doctor’s insistence that I drink milk, a whitish fluid they force down helpless babies.
• The cost of living has gone up another dollar a quart.
• Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.
• Will Hays [a censor of movies] is my shepherd, I shall not want; he maketh me to lie down in clean postures.
• Anybody who hates dogs and loves whiskey can’t be all bad.

A cantankerous man who fellow boozer John Barrymore thought would make a great Lady Macbeth, Fields remained to the end the “definite personality” he told an interviewer in 1935 he wanted to be.

Known for his poses as caustic curmudgeon and imbiber, Fields actually had two sons, did not appear in public inebriated, was known to dote on his three grandchildren, and at one time planned to open an orphanage.

When he recognized that “the Man in the Bright Nightgown” had come for him in 1946, as his last act Fields put his finger to his lips, looked around the room at those who were there, and winked. Undertakers in Philadelphia practice the world’s most difficult profession, he once quipped, because morticians there cannot always tell if they are burying a live or a deceased person.

Although his epitaph is widely believed to state ON THE WHOLE I WOULD RATHER BE LIVING IN PHILADELPHIA, the bronze plaque on a marble niche front at Forest Lawn in California lists only his name and the vital dates.

{CB; CE; Simon Louvish, Man in the Flying Trapeze, the Life and Times of W. C. Fields (1997); FFRF; PA}