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

W . C. Fields "You ugly old skinflint, who wants in your will?" said La Cava. "Go along and don't bother me." "By the way," said Fowler, "I forgot to tell you that I'm thinking about including you in my will." Grady, who was then casting director for Metro-GoldwynMayer, said that he was having a terribly busy morning and would have to switch him to a Mr. Tomkins, in charge of B musicals. "He may be able to get you a couple of days' extra work in January," Grady said. Fields lost no time in sending for his lawyer. Holding the clock on him, he was able to remove the odious bequests in a little less than half a day, bringing the fee, which Fields paid to the penny, to $3.94. "I got out of that thing very neatly," he later told his cook. In the Vanities, Fields' manner was assured, poised. Both his celebrity and his confidence had ripened. He did variations on his old routines, and, as in the Follies, appeared in several skits with other players. To his colleagues, by now, he seemed helpfully mellowed, even patriarchal, though he was considerably younger than many of them, including some of the juveniles. "It was a kind of aura that did it," a fellow actor has since said. "His occupancy of the number-one dressing room was carried out with a kingly flourish which may never again be seen on the American stage." His deportment was in the rococo style of Caruso at Milan, Bernhardt at the Comedie Francaise. The novice members of the cast tiptoed by his quarters, curtsied and saluted when they met him, and often applauded from the wings. Although many people, audience and actors alike, had all but forgotten that Carroll was mixed up in the Vanities, the comedian's name having supplanted that of the producer in nearly all the important promotion, Fields was not inflexibly austere. He granted Carroll frequent interviews, permitted him a decent but 2Q8