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ance were burlesqued by many a mime of the vaudeville stage.
Fields' favorite exclamations — "Godfrey Daniel," "Mother of Pearl," "Drat!" and others — always had a peculiar standing at the Hays office. Just as many comedians have been able, on the legitimate stage, to utter the fiercest oaths and make them sound innocent, Fields could voice tea-party pleasantries and make them sound profane. An audience, seeing the wicked leer and sensing the unfathomable mischief behind his frosty, belligerent stare, realized that, whatever he might say, he meant considerable more, so that "Godfrey Daniel" always came out "Goddamn," not only to the Hays office but to the general public. In spite of this, the essential fraudulence of his established character removed the sting from all hints of the grossest immorality.
The censors were obliged to keep an especially alert eye on Fields' educational efforts for children, both in the script and on the set. There can be no question that Fields disliked children, in a persecuted, un-angry sort of way. His encounters with the infant thespian, Baby LeRoy, with whom he played in several films, were well known to Hollywood. He considered that the child was deliberately trying to wreck his career, and he stalked him remorselessly. "When he stole entire scenes from Baby LeRoy in Tillie and Gus a year and a half ago, his greatness was acknowledged," a reporter said of Fields in 1935. The comedian realized that, whatever else might be going on in a scene, people would watch the antics of a baby. His competitive treatment of LeRoy was, therefore, exactly the same as he would have accorded an adult. Between takes he sat in a corner, eyed the child, and muttered vague, injured threats.
In one Fields-LeRoy picture directed by Norman Taurog, action was suspended so that the infant could have his orange juice. When the others busied themselves with scripts, Fields approached the child's nurse and said, "Why don't you take a
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