Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1936)

DANGEROUS DAYS FOR BILL FIELDS Illness Casts Its Sinister Shadow Over Hollywood's Most Beloved Comedian — But He Carries Merrily On By Sara Hamilton "Bill Fields will die making a picture." But they don't say which picture. For Bill is a trouper and will go out with a script in his hand. For the first time in the history of the studio the daily morning call sheets had been automatically printed, those last few weeks, in this fashion: "If Mr. Fields works the following people will be needed on the set." "If Mr. Fields does not work the following people will report." There were many days when Mr. Fields did not work. It was almost a year ago that W. C. Fields reached for a ball on a tennis court and grabbed off a torn sacro-iliac instead. The pain in his back was incessant. Almost unceasing since that moment. Possibly the only man who ever sat in a barber chair for months at a time without wanting a shave, a hair cut, or at least a dash of lilac toilet water, was Bill in those first trying months. Unable to lie down, he sat night after night in his barber chair. "Think of it, think of it," he'd say in that melodious nasal twang, "now that I can afford a bed I sit in a barber chair. Hand me over yon bottle, little chickadee." And little chickadee in starched white uniform, handed. Or else. What is there, one wonders, about this man Fields that causes so much concern, that calls forth so much genuine affection? Inspires deep and lasting friendships among men? Men who have striven through to the very top of their profession. What is it that inspires so much dread among all peoples of Bill going on and leaving them behind? And what is it that inspires visiting celebrities like Mrs. Vincent Astor, Mrs. Fitzsimmons (the former Mrs. Alfred Vanderbilt), Presidentelect Gomez of Cuba, and many other notables to seek out first this William Claude Dunkenfields, a man risen from a childhood of free lunches with free beer, free jails, freedom from love, care and thought and education? What is it that inspires little children with bunches of wilted, woe-begone dandelions, clenched tight in their hot little fists, to stand at the iron gates of Paramount studios and call to the watchman inside? "Would you please give these to Mr. Fields? And tell him us kids of the Ruff and Ready Club are all pullin' for him." All pullin' for Bill. What is it that keeps such fellow artists as Herbert Marshall, Bing Crosby, Adolphe Menjou, Gloria Swan son, and so many others trekking up to the stage door and asking like so many eager stage door fans: "Bill? How is he today?" It is that quality in him that sent Will Rogers, just a short time before his death, climbing over a barbed wire fence to get in to see Bill and tearing his pants practically off doing it. It seems they weren't even answering the bell to the outer gate at that time. Bill was too ill to see the dozens of friends who trudged out to his Valley home. But gates and locks failed to daunt Will who simply climbed over the fence to greet and shake hands with an old, old pal of "Follies" days. Yes, it is that quality of simplicity that surrounds the man like an aura of invisible radiance. Everything that touches him, comes near him, is redi ad to its simplest terms. Living, suffering, working, all become simple under his touch. Hand in hand with this quality, a rare one in a complicated world, goes his humble respect for sincerity. He can spot it and its evil brother Sham like a shot. It takes this form. In this business of movies he sees (and what he sees out of those little blue eyes is plenty) many a mother and child combination. He can spot the real, the genuine, the selfless mother love quicker than a flash. "Saw a wonderful thing today," he'd relate. "A little boy down to the studio and his mother. Blankety blank of a blank, it was wonderful to see them." Even when the beliefs of those around him entirely differ from his, he respects them if they are sincere. "Do you sincerely believe that?" he asks. "Then stick to it with your life. Cling to it for the comfort it gives you. Be true to it," he counsels when all the time the idea to him is a repugnant one. He likes a woman to be sincere about her womanhood. To respect it. To make not a sham of it. "I like a girl who wears a petticoat," he confides. " Yes, sir, give me a girl with a petticoat. Pass over the sherry, little geranium." And little geranium in a petticoat passed. He can spot sincerity among the many climbing young artists about him. "Respect your work," he cautions them. "Respect your work and you'll get places." A tree in the distance, a bird pecking at a bit of string, t hebusy labor of a little ant toiling in the mines of the earth, those he watches by the hour in the open sun of his Valley home. But it is one tree, not a forest; one bird, not a flock; one ant, not an army, that holds his interest. Simplencss, you see, in every object, every idea of life. Even flowers. One flower in a bud vase means more to Hill Fields than all the bouquets and horseshoes of incredible carnations could ever mean. Simpleness again. One flower in a vase. "What did you do yesterday! Mr. Fields?" his secretary will ask of a Monday morning. "Well, sir, we took a long, quiet ride out into the country. And we just rode along and we thought. Just sat and thought. It was wonderful. Of course we nearly ran over a so and so of a son of a blankety-blank, but it was wonderful. To just think." That, and his everlasting picnics are the besetting sins of his stormy life of strife. A picnic! The acme of big | please turn to page 108 | 31