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

Record Details:

Title:
W. C. Fields : his follies and fortunes
Date:
1949
Publisher:
Garden City, NY : Doubleday & Company, Inc.
Volume:
W. C. Fields : his follies and fortunes
Leaf #:
000116
Language:
English
Subjects:
Motion Pictures, Motion pictures--Biography
Collection:
Books
Format:
Books
Contributor:
Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
Sponsor:
Media History Digital Library
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
Date Added:
August 08, 2024
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CHAPTER TEN I n 1 90 1, after a brief but wildly successful apprenticeship in American vaudeville, Fields had an offer for a European tour. He was much pleased. For some time he had looked forward to getting away from this country. Born with a compulsive urge for flight, he felt happiest when he was out in front of some imaginary pack. As his ship, the old White Star liner Ivernia, drew away from the wharf, he knew that his pursuers of a hungrier era — dogs, police, Chinamen, barkeeps, irate householders, bereft butchers, and an occasional father — would have the devil of a time catching him now, and he relaxed. "I had the feeling that I was leaving my troubles behind," he told a friend. Although Fields no longer had any critical troubles, he still harbored the uneasy notion that somebody was after him. In the complex garden of his mind stood a bothersome weed patch of guilt — the harvest of his multiple transgressions. As he grew more successful, the guilt flourished, and he became proportionately more suspicious of his fellows. His first foreign engagement was at the Palace in London. He used a modest billing, a compound of his favorites: "Wm. C. Fields, the Distinguished Comedian & Greatest Juggler on Earth, Eccentric Tramp." He added the "m" to his first initial, he said, as 86