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W. C. Fields
The show went into production, and Fields, after joining the cast, took to prancing and capering in the most expert style. He was autocratic about rehearsals, shuffling the players about onstage and giving many valuable hints to the director, an unfortunate victim of progress who was so cowed by the princely air of his comedian that he bowed out before the opening. This was an important period in Fields' life, one which had great effect upon his later manner. He found all his instincts attuned to the grandiose humbug of his part; thereafter he seldom strayed far from his character in Poppy. The truth is (as one of his closest friends notes) that the nomadic peculations of Eustace McGargle would have agreed with Fields perfectly. All his life he was distressed that he could not live by misdemeanors and small felonies alone.
Bob Howard, who was to be his trainer years afterward in Hollywood, thinks that Fields was essentially a confidence man. "When things were going smoothly, Bill was unhappy," he says. "He had to have somebody or something to pit his wits against." To Howard, Fields made frequent mysterious mentions of his past with the shell game. He indicated, with winks and faraway mutterings, that he had taken a great deal of money from farmers by making the little balls roll. He once told Howard, "I could be stranded in any town in the United States with ten cents and within an hour make twenty dollars with the shell game." He loved to invent tales about how he had gypped people. "Most of it was imaginary," Howard says, "but he had a few authentic dodges he worked now and then, and they put him in a fine humor." One of his favorites was to receive a script from his studio, then find all manner of fault with it. He would call his bosses and say, "This script's full of holes, but I'll tell you what I'll do— I'll straighten it out for fifteen thousand dollars." After that he would make a few important-looking marks on the pages and send them back. "It really made very little difference one way or the other,"
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