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

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W. C. Fields affairs put in order. In the past, in his talks with Gene Fowler, he had always referred to death, for some reason, as "the fellow in the bright nightgown." Now, in a humorous tone, he said to Miss Michael, "None of us, sick or well, can tell when the fellow in the bright nightgown's coming to pay us a visit." He spent his days reading, dictating letters, seeing a few close friends, and sitting outside in a rocker, his eyes fixed on the same distant horizons, his expression as fiercely belligerent as ever. During one period of improvement he made an album of records, having to do mainly with the calamities which had attended his mistakenly drinking a glass of water. On September 10, 1946, he wrote Fowler saying that Franklin Pangborn — "J. Pinkerton Snoopington" — had been out again, with suggestions that Fields, to steady his gait, buy one of the new "Phantom Crotches." On the phone the next day he said to Fowler, "I want to wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in case I take off suddenly for the Far East after reading The New Yorker article on the atomic bomb." Fields was in truth preparing for a journey, but he had reversed his directions. He was growing much worse. Like his friend John Barrymore, he now had a badly diseased liver and a dropsical condition which embarrassed his heart. As the fall deepened into winter, approaching the holiday season which he professed to loathe, he had periods of delirium. Occasionally he cursed and railed at things which Miss Monti and Miss Michael had never heard him mention previously, and once, out of a blue sky, he sang what appeared to be a kind of love song, called up from some experience of his youth that had been long forgotten by his conscious mind. On Christmas Eve, Fowler telephoned the sanitarium to arrange a visit for the next day at eleven. Ordinarily, Fields slept until ten, then had a massage and "breakfast" — some fruit juice fol 336