The New Movie Magazine (Jan-Sep 1935)

was that Way about W. C. Fields Romance blossoms where we least expect it. New Movie's own ELSIE JANIS reveals here for the first time what has been in her heart since the tender age of five I'M not going to say how long ago it was, on Bill's account. For myself I don't mind. I'm so used to dallying in Memory Lane, embarrassing folks by remembering things that happened thirty years ago! Decades drip from my pen carelessly; but Bill may be trying to kid some beautiful blond baby that life began when he looked into her eyes, so I'll just tell about what an attractive lad he was in those dear dateless days. "W. C. Fields" then as now on the programs. If he had not done such a great act, one could not be disinterested in any young man who starts a career with no front name and flaunting the somewhat intimate initials "W. C." Bill never knew of my passion for him. He thought I stood in the wings every performance just because he did the best juggling act ever seen. He didn't realize that my childish heart was leaping about One of Mr. Field's favorite sports is hunting. In this pose, especially taken, at the risk of the photographer's life, we see him hunting a collar button. among the billiard balls which he had so completely under control. Little Elsie was, if I'm not mistaken, billed above W. C. Fields the first time we played on the same Variety program. Being a sort of freak child wonder she became a headliner practically at birth. Great artists stood back kindly in favor of the infant prodigy. Bill (he was Mr. Fields to Little Elsie) was already a great comic, but when he washed up for whatever home-work he was doing at the time he was a very handsome young man. Tall, blonde and slim. The same twinkling blue eyes which today view his tremendous screen success with quiet humor. He still has most of the blond hair. We won't go into that slim business. Veryfew retain a slimness after years of sitting on top of the world. The only form of exercise the top of the world sitters are sure to get is bending to take bows. Admitted that the waistline hinge is no more. Comedy and pounds usually collaborate. Certainly Bill doesn't have to worry about his figure, in fact at time of going to press he doesn't have to worry about anything. If you have seen him in a film where he plays billiards you have glimpsed what was in those days the foundation of his specialty, but you may not have seen him hold an audience for twenty minutes in one long laugh without speaking a word, as he used to do. As a pantomimist he had no equal and with perhaps the exception of Charles Chaplin I think he still can claim that distinction if he will. He won't, however, because Bill is as modest a "big shot" as ever wore a Maxim silencer. I believe my mother must have shared my youthful yen for "W. C. Fields. International Favorite." I remember distinctly that he had difficulty in getting off or on the stage without stepping past her and over Little Elsie. I also remember that when our vaudeville routes separated and I was in tears, Mother encouraged me by saying that we would surely play with Mr. Fields again some time. We never did, for as my billing grew so did Bill's and this happened before the days of all-star casts. A headliner was a headliner. Vaudevillians would share most anything with one another except "the billing." We watched our friend Bill as he soared to greater heights. Not until yesterday when I went out to see him on the shore of the small but celebrity-bordered Lake Toluca did I know with what great interest he has followed my career. He had been abroad and played all over Europe before I ever saw anything larger than a lake steamer. My London and Paris debuts were important events to him. He had known the thrill that goes with the conquest of foreign countries. To hear Bill tell of the difficulty he had in getting England to put his important and original initials on a conservative London billboard is a treat. They used to bill him C. W. and pretend it was the printer's mistake. I had seen Bill several times out here in the last few years but with the well-worn Hollywood slogan, "We must get together some time," we had parted as old friends do in this land of manana and movies. When I called him on the phone and told him I wanted to write a yarn about him, he stunned me with the information that he reads my New Movie articles every month. "So you're that guy, are you?" I said, and made a date. Toluca Lake looks better than it sounds. It has become very lime-lighted lately, between Bing Crosby's twins, George Brent's new monoplane which hovers over it and Left: What the well-dressed man will wear. Below: Cutting endless tons of grass to feed his pet swans occupies most of his waking hours. 24 The New Movie Magazine, January, 1935