W. C. Fields : his follies and fortunes (1949)

W. C. Fields jured truculence that the accuser usually retired in confusion, unconvinced as to who was actually guilty. "Bill stole a good many of his later vaudeville routines from Harry Tate, the London comedian," says Gregory La Cava, who directed several of Fields' early movies. "He would steal any act he could get away with, but if somebody tried to borrow something from him, he went crazy." Once, in the Vanities, Fields stood in the wings watching Ben Blue, who, warming up to his work, unexpectedly went into a routine he'd done years before. When he came off the stage, Fields grabbed him by the collar and knocked him down. "You stole that from me!" he roared. Blue called him a liar and got witnesses to vouch for the originality of his material. Fields then realized that Blue was merely stealing back something Fields had originally stolen from him, and he made no further fuss. On the tour, Fields complained steadily until they reached Kent, Ohio, where the manager abandoned the company and returned to New York. "I'm going in for a conference," he told the players, whose salaries had not been paid since they left. "Your hotel bills are taken care of until I get back." Half an hour after his departure, the hotel clerk came up with a bellboy and put the company's luggage in the street. He said the manager had left an unpaid bill of fifteen dollars and seventy-five cents. Once again Fields found himself adrift in cheerless surroundings, but he reported later that on the whole he was glad; he said he had been playing so many different parts that he was beginning to develop a split personality. He had taken to muttering fragments of dialogue to himself as he walked along the streets. He would pull up on a busy corner, cry, "Oh, you will, will you?" hiss, "And who's to stop me?" then continue, with the crudest kind of gestures: "Oh, you rotter, you unutterable cad!" 46