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

W. C. Fields Mullett, in the middle 1920s, "You see, although my specialty was juggling, I used it only as a means to an end. I didn't just stand up and toss balls, knives, plates, and clubs. I invented little acts, which would seem like episodes out of real life; and I used my juggling to furnish the comedy element. "Somehow, even though I was only a kid, I had sense enough to know that I must work my mind and not just my hands. If I hadn't realized that, I'd be laid on the shelf today. People would be saying, 'Bill Fields? Oh, yes! he used to be a juggler, didn't he?' " Although his role as all-around understudy was ended, Fields sometimes took part in burlesque skits involving several comedians. Fulton's "burlesque" was unlike the burlesque of later years ; more properly, his unit could have been called a repertory company. Its usual presentation was an ordinary two or three-act play, one of the damp, anguished melodramas then in flower. Between acts, Fields did his specialties. As a change of pace Fulton on some nights gave a series of comic skits, out of which general entertainment grew the muscular, ribald burlesque of today. For the most part, his players were quiet and well-behaved. Fields' personal life in this time of his eighteenth year alternated between sequestration and public expansiveness, the latter usually accompanied by beer. From taking a glass of beer as an excuse to gorge on free lunch, he had grown fond of an occasional session during which he drank quite a few glasses in a row and eschewed the food. Fields was to know stretches late in life when he insisted on eschewing food thoroughly ; he sometimes eschewed it for days on end. With Fulton, he either sat in his room and read books or repaired to a saloon and foregathered with the local bloods. If the troupe had a rosy, accommodating ingenue, Fields also devoted many evenings to dalliance ; he was fond of girls and was, in turn, popular with them, although they often complained bit 56