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

favored. With Irwin, it was a precaution against an act's failing to come up to snuff ; with other managers, it was a hedge against the awful possibility that a performer might turn unruly and demand to be paid, at which point he would be released for insubordination. Working conditions among players could scarcely have been worse. They were housed in the meanest of lodgings and fed at the boarding tables of parsimonious widows; they dressed in wind-swept cubbies overrun with rats; many nights they sat up in dingy coaches and did shows all the next day. Their social position was roughly similar to that of a condemned baby strangler — "decent people" drew aside to avoid touching them on the sidewalk. A popular joke of the time, conceived by an insensitive but humorous juvenile and destined to be much used, in variations, went as follows: mother (to returning prodigal) : And what have you been doing all these years, Otis? son (drawing himself up defensively) : I've been employed as an actor, Mother. mother (with a loud shriek and near fainting) : Oh, my God ! This is terrible ! Your father and I thought you were a burglar! As managers went, Irwin was a shining model of benevolence. But the time was the managers' heyday, and the best were none too good. Deserting a company of paupers in an unfriendly hamlet was regarded, as the worst, as mildly rude, or thoughtless ; there was no real point of ethics involved. A manager's promise of salary was like a weatherman's promise of rain — sometimes it rained, more often it didn't. In any case, it was nobody's fault. Players accepted their lot stoically. They were in the business for the love of it, and, by and large, that's all they expected to get. This viewpoint, though widespread, could not accurately be ap 59