Screenland (Jun-Oct 1935)

for July 19 35 83 physician. In walked the company doctor. From his bed of pain, the comedian gave him a long look. "Have a drink," he said. The doctor had a drink. "Well," remarked the patient, "I'm not really a doctor yet either, so I'll cure myself if it's all the same to you. So long." On another occasion he was sitting in a Berlin beer-garden with a group of friends, when two Prussian officers, uniformed, monocled "and sniffng the air like a couple of camels, sat themselves down at the next table. They didn't like the way I laughed or something," Fields explains it, "and started tellin' the world what they thought of Americans. I stood it as long as I could, then I let 'em have it. Hit 'em ? Sure — " he seemed to be enjoying some jest of his own — "you can call it that if you like. Next thing I knew I was out under the lindens. And next day I left Berlin in a hurry. Figured I could" tackle a broken contract better than the German army in peace time. The theatre sued me all right. So I hired a firm .called Limburger to defend me. But they smelled up the case so — " he said, fixing me with a bland eye, "that I lost it." Until the outbreak of war he was continually on the go — Europe, America, Australia, South Africa, the Orient — hardly a corner of the globe that didn't at one time or another see and applaud the most dexterous juggler of his day. In 1914 he set sail from Australia for India. On the first night out the ship suddenly went black. Officers passed from deck to deck, calming panicky passengers. Something had gone wrong, they said, with the lighting system. Nothing to worry about. Next day the lighting system worked like a charm, but that night it had gone screwy again. On the third day land was sighted. "What's it all about?" Fields inquired of an officer. "Last time I went to Ceylon it took ten days. Have they moved it nearer?" "Off our course," smiled the officer and refused to say another word. But they soon discovered that they were back in Australia, having been exposed for forty-eight hours to the danger of death by explosion. For it was no defective lighting system that had darkened their ship, but news that the German cruiser Emden, camouflaged and efficient, had been scouring the seas in their general neighborhood. In Australia Fields found a cable from Charles Dillingham, offering him a 20week contract for Dillingham's new show, "Watch Your Step." It was opening in Syracuse, New York — and to get there in time Fields had to travel uninterruptedly for thirty-nine days and nights. He made it by a hair, and felt that his efforts had been well repaid, for never had his act been more uproariously greeted. By the time he'd finished reading the papers next morning, he was feeling pretty sorry for Dillingham and pretty well pleased with himself. For the critics agreed that, while the show was a washout, Bill Fields' billiard table act stood out from the general mess like a sore thumb. Trying to look modest, he appeared at the theatre. Dillingham approached "to congratulate me," says Fields, " — so I thought. But I thought wrong. 'Bill,' he says, T don't see any place in this show for your billiard table. And without your billiard table you're no use to me.' I gave him one look and saw he meant it. 'Hey, wait a minute, Charlie,' I said, 'I traveled 39 days and nights to fill this spot. I'm goin' to get my twenty weeks' guarantee.' " 'Sure you are, Bill,' he says. 'Go back to New York, if you like, and draw your salary. Or stay right with the show and we'll have a high time together.'" "Well, I came as near blubberin' then as I ever did. There never was a whiter guy than Charlie Dillingham. He had to do what he thought was right by the show. It wasn't his fault. But it wasn't mine either. Yet there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. There never is. So now you know why I'm nervous — or crazy and nuts, as some of my good friends call it — why I never feel safe in this blanketyblank business I juggled myself into." He was struck by another such bolt from the blue when Ziegfeld closed his production of "The Comic Supplement," though it was drawing crowds. By that time Fields was no longer a juggler pure and simple. He'd written and was appearing in five scenes featuring that particular brand of humor which has since made him famous in another field. But Ziggy didn't like comedy, Ziggy was boss and, though the critics raved, Ziggy closed the show. Meantime, however, business at the "Follies" was dropping and a few days later Ziggy phoned. "Gene thinks your stuff's good," he said — (Gene Buck was his talent scout). "I don't. The nublic doesn't want comedy. They want girls. But take less money and I'll put vou into the Follies." "No," thundered Fields. Business continued to drop, Gene continued to nag Ziegfeld, and Fields and his five acts were injected into the ailing "Follies." And despite the fact that the public didn't want comedy, receipts mounted from eighteen thousand to forty-two thousand a week, and for fifty weeks never dropped below the latter figure. But was Ziegfeld convinced? Well, he