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W. C. Fields
essential you in it." Fields would nod sagely, muttering, "You're right, you're right. The devil with them — we'll speed it up."
He continually maintained that he was unable to find writers to suit him, but he tried to change everything they offered, no matter who they were. At one point he was dickering with Bugs Baer, who writes the column of newspaper humor, and with Gene Fowler, who had no intention of writing for him. In February of 1938 he told Baer that "Chase and Sanborn have discovered that they are not ruining as many livers as they would like to and would like me to run off at the mouth on the radio every Sunday for a few months." He wanted Baer and Fowler to "share part of the loot" with him, by writing him some ten or twelve-minute scripts. "I'll make them do a thing that hasn't been done on the radio to date," Fields said. "I'll make them, at the conclusion of the performance, give credit to whosoever has written the material." As usual, he said he'd reserve the right to "collaborate upon and edit" the material on its arrival. "My present bite is $5000 a week, less commission," he told Baer, and that "would net either of you around $1200."
Why Fields gave the figure $5000 is something of a mystery, since his intimates, including Miss Michael, who was comparatively familiar with his finances, agree that his weekly check was $6500. In any case, the offer came to nothing, for neither Baer nor Fowler, though they loved him, ever wrote him any material.
Fields' lack of reverence for radio and everything connected with it, not excluding the advertising agencies, was notable. He was always involved in a squabble over money, material, time, personnel, or some additional aspect of his employment. He probably couldn't have stayed happy otherwise. In a letter to Fowler in 1937, he said that J. Walter Thompson objected to his burlesquing "that counterfeit" who talks through one nostril, advising child movie actresses not to play squat tag in asparagus
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