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

W. C. Fields had a vague idea what people liked, and what they would laugh at. I knew what I could do best, and what I couldn't do. "So when I signed my first contract to make pictures, the studio heads told me my worries were over. I could go out and play golf. Meanwhile, they had experts who would write comedy and funny lines, other experts who would figure out things for me to wear, and things for me to do. More experts would tell me how to do them. I could just loaf until they wanted me, and then I could come into the studio and follow instructions. "I did. And when my contract was up, it was not only not renewed, but nobody else would have me. So I went back to the stage." When he left the movies he instructed Grady to see what was doing, then withdrew into dignified but uneasy vigilance. "Bill never liked to talk to the other principal in a financial deal," Grady says. "He was so belligerent the negotiations always fell down that way, anyhow. His system was to keep somebody running back and forth with angry messages." Fields had been approached some months before by Carroll. On a golf course at Long Island, a boy had run out from the clubhouse to notify Fields that Carroll wanted him on the phone. "Tell him to go to hell!" said the comedian, and he chopped viciously at his ball, which was in a sand trap. "But he said he wanted you to appear in the Vanities!" exclaimed the boy. "Tell him to take the Vanities and stick " (Fields offered here an improbable solution for disposing of the Vanities — one which Carroll, showman though he was, would doubtless have rejected even had it been feasible.) Nothing came of this exchange, but Grady and Carroll held a conference when Fields quit the movies. "He wants you pretty bad, Bill," Grady told his client after the conference. 204