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

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For weeks, Grady tried to pry the truth out of Fields, with no success whatever. He received identical advice — "If I were in your shoes, I'd get to my prayers" — on the occasion of each try. Although Fields made public sport of his drinking, he was sometimes touchy if other people mentioned it. Toward the end of his life he took umbrage at Eddie Cline, who had directed him, because of statements Cline made about him to a writer. Fields was so incensed that he prepared a big ad for the Hollywood Reporter, a movie trade paper. It went : Eddie Cline, the director, in his interview with W . Ward Marsh of the Cleveland Plain Dealer on April g, ig4$, seems to be doing his darnedest to ruin me in the motion-picture business. I quote excerpts from the interview: "Fields hasn't been able to get off the hard stuff," Cline is supposed to have said. "That's why he doesn't appear any more. Understand, I love him, he's a great guy, but he will overindulge." He further states that I couldn't remember my lines. SELF-DEFENSE — / have always finished my pictures, or should I say their pictures, in far less time than was allotted to me. I ad lib most of my dialogue. If I did remember my lines, it would be too bad for me. At M-G-M in David Copperfield my part was scheduled for ten days; I did it in nine days. At Universal my part was allotted ten days; I finished in a day and a half. At Mack Sennett's I was given two weeks to write and perform in a two-reeler. I finished the picture in a day and a half. I have worked for such top-flight directors as George Cukor, David Wark Griffith, Paul Jones, Gregory La Cava, Leo McCarey, Norman McLeod, and Eddie Sutherland {alphabetically listed) . 251