Synopses & Reviews
Before he ever made a movie or spoke a word onstage, W. C. Fields was one of the greatest pantomimists and comedians in the world. His career spanned the whole of the twentieth century—in burlesque, vaudeville, the legitimate stage, silent pictures, talkies, radio, books, and recordings. Only death prevented him from working in television.
He shared the vaudeville stage with Sarah Bernhardt and Houdini; he made a command performance before Edward VII; he was compared to Chaplin and Keaton and became one of the great comedians in radio. He wrote, directed, and performed (Mae West and Fields were among the first writer/actor/directors) in some of the most enduring and brilliant comedies of all time, including It’s a Gift, My Little Chickadee, and The Bank Dick. He appeared in fifty pictures and wrote fifteen of them. His understanding of the need to lie and swindle, and his ability to make the most innocent phrase sound lewd, made him a star.
Now James Curtis tells the story of Fields’ life and work. Drawing on Fields’ papers and manuscripts, he shows us the passion and intellect that fueled Fields’ talent and the background that gave such bite and edge to his comedy. Curtis shows us, in illuminating detail, just how Fields’ extraordinary art evolved on the stage in the early part of the twentieth century and how he not only incorporated it into his films, but how it came to define his persona decades later.
He writes of Fields’ hardscrabble Philadelphia childhood; of his father, a drunken breaker of horses who beat his son; of Fields’ clever hands that were quick to master stealing and juggling (he took up the latter—it allowed him to sleep late); of his years in burlesque and minstrelsy; of his seventeen years in vaudeville, hopping trains early on, living a life half in the theater, half on the lam, making his way into the big time, never satisfied with his “act,” always working on something newer and more striking. Curtis writes of Fields’ starring years with the Ziegfeld Follies, finding his voice and his character amid one of the greatest assemblages of comic talent on a single stage (Will Rogers, Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice, among others); appearing in every Ziegfeld show from 1915 through 1921; of his marriage to a fellow performer, the birth of their son, and their travels together on the Circuit, until Mrs. Fields decided she’d had enough and left—the theater and her marriage. Fields never again loved so deeply.
We see Fields’ extraordinary work in the movies, both silent pictures in New York (first directed by D. W. Griffith in the starring role in Sally of the Sawdust, which Fields created on Broadway in Poppy) and in the talkies from 1927 to 1945.
Curtis’ biography narrates the life and the art of the actor James Agee called “the toughest and most warmly human of all screen comedians.”
Review
"There is now this second of two fine books, and, it seems to me, there are Fieldsian wrecks all over this finest land there ever was or could be. More than fifty years after his death, thanks to these very fond books, it is not just possible but necessary to say that Fields was far more than a clown or a comic. He was a character in the social landscape, the head of the household reduced to mockery but sublimely enduring because of his own small talk with the fates." James Wolcott, The New Republic (read the entire New Republic review)
Review
"[An] admirable biography....Curtis's sharp intelligence and a pungent modern edge in his writing make Fields relevant to contemporary readers unfamiliar with his classic work." Publishers Weekly
Review
"[A]n illuminating full-dress portrait of an American icon that offers fresh insights into Fields' offstage life....For detail presented accessibly and entertainingly, this book is worthwhile. For its many archival photos...and its engrossing appendixes...it's priceless." Mike Tribby, Booklist
Review
"Curtis fluently traces the entire arc of Fields's messy, overstuffed life. The details are irresistible....Curtis is inevitably hampered by the difficulty of explaining what can only be experienced: the effect of Fields's comedy onscreen. Nonetheless, he does an excellent job detailing [Fields'] meticulous craftsmanship and relentless hard work..." The New Yorker
Review
"[S]ympathetic and scrupulous....Curtis is a sober, careful but no more than workmanlike writer, who doesn't know quite where the laughs are....This is by far the fullest, fairest and finally most touching account of this sad, solipsistic life that we have yet had. Or are likely to have, given that we now live in a world wherein comedy shamelessly, endlessly sues for our affections instead of starkly alienating them." Richard Schickel, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"The definitive book about America's most profound comedian. James Curtis examines all the myths and stereotypes connected with W.C., and comes up with a fascinating, sympathetic, utterly convincing picture of a man who was generous yet stingy, who was both a dream and a nightmare to work with, who could be warm or distant, who meticulously planned each word and gesture, yet who managed always to ad lib something hilarious. Fields shines throughout, sad, funny, and strangely loveable." John Cleese
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [565]-570) and index.
About the Author
James Curtis is the author of James Whale: A New World of Gods and Monsters and Between Flops, an acclaimed biography of writer-director Preston Sturges. He lives with his wife in Brea, California.
Author Q&A
Q. Arent there already a lot of books about W.C. Fields? Why another?
A. There are 25 books on Fields, but most are picture books, quotation books, or books about the films. There have been two previous biographies, but Ive always been suspicious of the Fields legend and the notion that he was dead drunk when he made his films. His body of work is too consistent for that. So I stripped the legend away from him completely and approached him as a writer and director as well as a performer. I wanted to know how he really worked.
Q. Whats the most surprising thing you discovered?
A. I expected to find that he was more involved in the making of his films than his legend would have you think, but I didnt expect to find that he was as deeply involved as he actually was. Not only did he write the first drafts of many of his scripts, but he personally employed the writers who worked in after him. He also hired his own directors, paid them, and often staged his own scenes. In recognition of this, he got a percentage of the gross not the net, but the gross. Thats common with big stars today, but it was almost unheard of in 1938!
Q. Was he the misanthrope people seem to think he was?
A. No. Fields had a suspicious nature, but he wasnt a hateful man. He was, in fact, a very literate man, and kept one of the largest private libraries in Hollywood. He read three papers a day, wrote thousands of letters, and wasnt afraid to speak out on social issues. He championed the causes of blacks and Indians before it was fashionable, and was deeply involved in the great Actors Equity strike of 1919. When one of his shows folded on Broadway, he kept it running to keep people working and refused to take a salary.
Q. Did he drink as much as his legend would have it?
A. Yes and no. He rarely touched alcohol during the first 35 years of his life, because he earned his living as a juggler, and couldnt afford to miss a trick. When he stopped juggling, he found he had a tremendous capacity for booze, and that it helped him get his lines out on stage. That was never a worry when he juggled, because he worked as a "dumb" act he never spoke. For a time in the thirties, he swore off liquor entirely, and when he started drinking again, he stuck with sherry. His reputation as a drunk came almost entirely from his exchanges on the radio with Charlie McCarthy.
Q. Did he really hate dogs and children?
A. He never particularly liked dogs, although he owned them on occasion. I think he considered them too much trouble. But he liked kids, and he did a lot of nice things for kids that were never publicized. When he died, in fact, he set aside a large chunk of his estate to establish a college for orphans.
Q. Is it true he had hundreds of bank accounts under phony names?
A. No. Like most successful vaudevillians, he had bank accounts in the principal cities he played, but in the days before ATMs, that was a necessity. Later, when he settled in Los Angeles, he consolidated all of his cash into 24 accounts, all in his own name. When he died, he had $750,000 in cash and bonds, but no stocks and no real estate.
Q. Why do you think his character has such appeal?
A. Fields had the courage to cast himself in the decidedly unfavorable light of a bully and a con man. Unlike most comedians, he never asked to be loved; he was short-tempered, a coward, an outright faker. Chaplin was better known, Keaton more technically ambitious, and Laurel and Hardy were certainly more beloved, but Fields resonated with audiences in ways other comics did not. He wasn't a clown; he didn't dress like a tramp or live in the distant world of the London ghetto. For most audiences, he lived down the street or around the corner. People responded to the honesty of Fields' character because, like Archie Bunker for a later generation, everyone knew somebody just like him.