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

W. C. Fields all the feathered drifters on the Coast. The further fact that he did not own the lake, or the fish therein, had no effect on his attitude. He bought a gun, a worn army revolver, for $4.50 in a pawnshop, and crouched for days behind a stump, trying' to get a pot shot at the intruders. "You shoot that gun around here and they'll lock you up," Gregory La Cava advised him, after witnessing his ambush with disgust. "They'll have to catch me first," said Fields, squinting meanly through some reeds. He enjoyed playing the country squire, or, rather, he enjoyed the theory of this manner of life, since his household was often in a state of turbulence. At Toluca Lake, Fields had a butler named "Rod," a colored cook named "Dell," a laundress, various maids who appeared and then vanished with lightning rapidity, a chauffeur, an occasional trainer, Bob Howard, who is a great authority on Fields, and a secretary, Magda Michael, who, as nearly as was humanly possible, put order into his last years. For the purpose of summoning his staff, the comedian carried a Halloween horn, upon which he would sound a blast when he needed domestic aid. The horn was mostly for out of doors; he disliked yelling to the house from distant spots on the grounds. In the ambush, for example, he would send out a resonant, jarring call, which would cause the birds on the lake to flap their wings and complain, and then, when Rod or one of the others approached, he would say, "Bring me a shaker of martinis." "Here in the bushes, sir?" the butler would inquire. "Yes, here in the bushes," Fields would reply testily. "Watch yourself, now. Duck down. Don't let them see you. I catch one of these buzzards fishing and I'll " The butler would pace quickly away, keeping a cautious eye on the gun. 254