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

Record Details:

Title:
W. C. Fields : his follies and fortunes
Date:
1949
Publisher:
Garden City, NY : Doubleday & Company, Inc.
Volume:
W. C. Fields : his follies and fortunes
Leaf #:
000366
Language:
English
Subjects:
Motion Pictures, Motion pictures--Biography
Collection:
Books
Format:
Books
Contributor:
Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
Sponsor:
Media History Digital Library
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
Date Added:
March 28, 2024
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CHAPTER TWEI\TY-NII\E T he expenditures of energy that went into his Universal series caused Fields to step up his drinking. As before, he was never drunk, but he found that even alcohol was losing its sedative magic. He became listless and dispirited, and his old illness, at the best only arrested, began putting forth new, small shoots. On his sixty-fifth birthday, in 1944, he told one of his household, "All of a sudden I'm a tired old man" — a curious revelation, for never in his life had he been known to complain of physical pain. During the acutest tortures of his polyneuritis, his only reaction was to swear and make jokes about it. As his health began its final dissolution, the movie companies were reluctant to sign him to contracts. His idleness took its added toll ; he fretted, and worried, and, for the first time, added up the balances in his bankbooks. "I have been trying to get into the movies these many months, but I can't seem to consummate the deal," he told Roy McCardle, an old friend of his Ziegfeld days. "I've cut the bite almost in half but I still have no takers." A little later he said to McCardle, "I'm in a dither to know just what has happened. Maybe I've kicked too many of the chosen people in the can. There's a Nubian in the fuel supply and I can't locate him." 334