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"When I first met him he had taken a terrible kicking around in life, and he was tough, bitter, and cynical in an odd, humorous way. He was as good then as he was at his peak. His gifts and talents as an entertainer and comic were born in him, I think. Some guys learn through experience and practice being comics. Not Bill. God made him funny. He knew more about comedy and real humor than any other person with the exception of Bert Williams. I've had a lot to do with comics and their development, and assisted and transplanted many of them during my humble course, and I just want to say that when Bill left the other day, something great in the world died, and something very badly needed."
Despite Buck's curtsy to Bert Williams, the gifted colored entertainer of the twenties, Fields as a national comic phenomenon had no counterpart. He became a symbol of fun; the applied skill of Chaplin and other funny men delighted audiences, but lovers of comedy laughed at the mention of Fields' name. Sensing this curious state of the public's mind, William Le Baron, former head of production at Paramount, for whom Fields made some of his best pictures, conceived the idea of opening movies of the master by showing only his feet walking. There was nothing especially hilarious about Fields' feet, though a full rear view of him, with all its pomp and fraudulent dignity, was uproarious. Without exception, however, audiences responded with noisy appreciation to their truncated first glimpse of the star.
One of Fields' friends believes that this spontaneous merriment was due to the popular notion of his personal life. Fields' defiance of civilization, over a period of sixty-seven years, became an institution in which the public took pride. His work was indistinguishable from his life ; when people applauded Fields' feet they were cheering his escape from the humdrum. Most persons, as a scholar has noted, harbor a secret affection for anybody with