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

W. C. Fields the hall and down a long flight of stairs. When they found him and checked up, it was discovered that he had also broken his coccyx. "Damnation," he kept crying afterward, "I came into this institution broken at one end and now I'm broken at both." The hospital employees, from the chief of staff down to the last bedpan carrier, were much relieved when he went home. Though Fields and Sennett scrapped on the set, they saw a lot of each other socially. Fields would invite Sennett to Toluca Lake to dine on Virginia ham, to which the producer was partial, and Sennett would coax Fields out on his yacht. The comedian disliked boats intensely, despite the many voyages he made during his vaudeville years. On any but the blandest days he became violently seasick, and he took it personally. One time when there had been no suggestion of a breeze for more than a week, Sennett persuaded him to ride out to Catalina, a haul that, for rough water, compares favorably with the English Channel. Before boarding the yacht, Fields tested the air repeatedly with a moistened finger : a dead calm prevailed. The meaning of the calm was resolved about six miles from shore, where one of the briskest squalls for months swooped down and caught them. The yacht was tossed about like a bubble, and Fields' anguished howls, as he lay strapped to a bunk, were easily the most positive of the storm noises. Through what Sennett believes was exceptional seamanship, the yacht reached the island, and Fields debarked without speaking to anybody. After some difficulty, the anxious host found him registered at a small hotel. "Well, what do you say we go back, Bill?" said Sennett. "I'm staying here," replied Fields. "Why, the sea's almost flat again." Fields said, "I'll be here in the hotel until it's entirely flat.'5 226