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

"Mrs. Burton, may I present W. C. Fields? Mr. Fields, Mrs. Burton." The comedian was horrified and angry. Looking the acquaintance sternly in the eye, he said, "I consider this a disgraceful breach of good taste. You are no longer welcome on my property." Fields made up his mind to swear off now and then. He swore off once when he was in a sanitarium, taking a rest cure. His room was on the second floor, a pleasant room that looked out on trim, landscaped grounds. About a dozen feet from his window a couple of languid palms rustled and bent in the light ocean breeze. He was happy, and comfortable, and resting up fine, and he had a little pull from a gin bottle every so often to add that important fillip which makes bliss complete, and nails it down, so to speak. Unbeknown to Fields, it was the Halloween season, and the management had voted in favor of decoration. A large corps of Japanese, hired for the job, was in process of ascending the trees, carrying jack o' lanterns. Fields awoke from a refreshing nap, looked out at his palms, threw his gin bottle at the nearest one, and began to bawl for a nurse. "The trees are full of monkeys with balloons," he shouted, agitating the adjacent sufferers. He got dressed and left as rapidly as possible. When he reached home he decided that, even though it was wrong of the sanitarium to put monkeys with balloons in the trees, he would knock off the gin for a while. He laid in some good sherry and drank several bottles a day for a week or so. His stomach ached pretty steadily during that period, and he finally returned to the gin. But he watched his trees carefully for two or three months. After one severe illness, in 1936, Fields quit drinking entirely for nearly a year. He began to smoke cigarettes instead, "for relaxing purposes," as he told his household. Alcohol was never a stimulant with him; for years he used it as a sedative. His old saying, "Happiness means quiet nerves," was directly involved with 245