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

BOOK TWO: PART ONE CHAPTER FIFTEEN F JLlEL ields' big chance, when it came, was to go down as the most crushing anticlimax in the history of the American stage. The time was 19 14, not long after the start of what later would be described, in the interest of avoiding repetition, as World War I. The scene of his good news was Australia, one of his favorite places. As he had done with Ireland, Fields visited Australia to relax after the gracious tension of England. The island continent in the early 1900s was an area of restful informality. The interior was occupied by small, gnarled aborigines, of sanguinary disposition, and the tidewater country supported a mixed society of gold miners, sheep raisers, cattlemen, and adventurer-refugees from the mellower civilizations. "They chew on toothpicks," Fields said. "It puts me at my ease." A dentist had once told him that if he used a toothpick enough he would never lose his teeth. Thereafter, in uncritical localities, he kept a toothpick in his mouth as much as possible. He grew absent-minded about the practice, however, and ran into scattered censure. For example, years later in Hollywood he drifted off to sleep, while nibbling on a toothpick, in a courtroom where he was being sued by an energetic doctor, ua servant of humanity," Fields said, "who had done really brilliant work in isolating fees." The comedian's lawyer, much agitated, shook him awake *43