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W. C. Fields
Fields, with Allison Skipworth, went to a secondhand car lot and bought a collection of wrecks, then asked the proprietor, "Can you furnish me some strong, brave drivers?" When his armored column was complete, he wheeled out onto the highways looking for trouble. "As Bill sat hunched down in that old Ford with his straw hat on, he looked just the way he always looked driving a car — mean as the devil," one of his friends says. It was a sketch that put the comedian in a roseate humor for weeks. In the movie he would sight a stranger getting across the line and hold up one hand, like a cavalry commander. One of his strong, brave drivers would wheel out of column, knock hell out of the offender, and the column would proceed to the next enemy of society. Fields himself hit two or three cars, for various breaches of conduct. His expression, as he rammed them, was demoniac in its glee, and he voiced a high, exultant, rallying cry as the fenders dropped.
During the Follies, too, Fields sharpened his taste for liquor. He had become discriminating; he wanted only the choicest brands. Consequently, he bought a third wardrobe trunk, had it fitted out with pigeonholes like a wine cellar, and stocked it with hightest beverages. He took it along wherever he went. Later on he decided he was carrying too many clothes, and he devoted another trunk to liquor. This balance working out about right — two trunks full of booze and one of equipment — he made it his standard traveling impedimenta for years. Even when he and Grady moved between engagements by car, he took one of the dispensaries in the back seat.
Once, when they were driving to Boston in the winter, Fields swerved to miss some children who were coasting, and struck a Ford. The Ford's driver, a farmer, was badly dazed. Fields offered to take care of him while Grady walked to a police station. "Bill had his trunk in the back and had been drinking a little," Grady says, "but I hadn't had a drink all evening. I found a
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