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

W. C. Fields For several years La Cava kept hearing reports that Fields was trying to work his cattail gag into a movie. For once, all his attempts were unsuccessful; despite the brilliant conception of the scene, no director seemed willing to subordinate a plot to it. La Cava and Fields made So's Your Old Man in 1926 and Running Wild in 1927. Both pictures were done for Paramount and released through Famous Players Lasky. Fields remained steadily intractable throughout. One day on the set he found that the script (to which he had previously agreed) called for him to wrestle with a bear. A trainer had just arrived towing a rather scaly-looking but substantial black bear on the end of a chain. "What's this?" Fields cried, drawing up in indignant apprehension. "Man's got the bear you're to wrestle with," said La Cava. "The hell with it," Fields cried. "I won't do it." The trainer was to get thirty dollars a day for the use of his animal and he was anxious not to lose the job. "Is a gentle bear," he cried, in a slight accent. "Bear never hurt no mans. See here, one can hit the bear. One hits the bear in the nose," and he reached over and rapped the bear soundly. The bear shook its head with an annoyed expression and uncorked a left hook that stretched the trainer flat on his back. "Take that damned bear away from here!" Fields roared. "I don't even like his smell." The trainer, pretty groggy, was rising to one knee, muttering something that sounded like, "I'll get him next round," but Fields kept yelling to remove the bear, which, standing a little to one side, had the appearance of waiting in a neutral corner. The trainer's head soon cleared and he apologized profusely, saying that the bear was always a little jumpy during an opening. "No harm in this bear," he emphasized. "He's just a big kid." Fields remained adamant, and the trainer suggested an alter i98