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

opments that interested him. A more or less typical observation was one he sent Gene Fowler on November 16, 1939. It read, in its entirety : Dear Mr. F. Mr. Claude Millsap is now associated with the Baldwin Shirt Company of Glendale. He left his card with me this morning. I thought you would be glad to hear of his progress. Claude has been working in socks and underwear for years and we are all happy to know that he has made the grade. Your loving Uncle William. Magda Michael did his dictation, sitting in a chair on a somewhat lower level than her employer. Fields' desk was deliberately situated, Miss Michael believes, in the frowning manner of Jack Oakie's in The Great Dictator, when, as Mussolini, he contrived a physical eminence to gain moral superiority. Fields dictated ten or fifteen hot letters a day, raising hell about something, with prejudicial attention to the government. In the interest of coolheadedness, he kept the letters four hours before mailing them. Then he threw all of them in a wastebasket and cleared his desk for the next day's peeves. Fields was a keen political observer. Actually, his personal politics were simple: he was violently against whatever government was in power and felt affectionate toward any and all people who belabored it. Fowler dropped by his house one election day and found the comedian on his way down to vote. He was dressed rather shabbily, so as to not give government people the idea he was rich, and his expression was fierce. "Who you going to vote for, Uncle Willie?" asked Fowler. "Hell, I never vote for anybody," cried Fields, incensed, "I always vote against.33 He had a pretty good idea that governments were organized 275