W. C. Fields

by glenster 14 Replies latest social entertainment

  • talesin
    talesin

    "My Little Chickadee!"

    My favorite WCF expression. :))

  • glenster
    glenster

    The Barber Shop (1933)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rat_f2FBEPg

    “I discovered W.C. Fields long after I was familiar with Chaplin, Keaton, and
    Laurel and Hardy and immediately liked him best….Fields had the courage to play
    the disreputable character and the brilliance to make riskier and more profound
    jokes than others.”

    “Fields was doing Python-esq things long before Python.”

    “At a time when political correctness often stifles honesty and impulse to
    laugh and genuine wit is in such short supply, I think nothing could be healthi-
    er than the re-discovery of this most original, perceptive and unrepentant of
    comedians.” -- John Cleese
    http://www.wcfields.com/

  • glenster
    glenster
  • villagegirl
    villagegirl

    All he gave his son was a $100 and an autographed picture ?

    What a selfish arrogant bastard WC was in reality. Without

    DNA testing, I wnder how many men just abandoned their children ?

    Millions I am sure. Men are such dears.

  • glenster
    glenster

    Some may have been more generous than W.C. but you'd fare better choosing
    someone else as a bastard.

    At the time Fields was away from Hattie on tour in Britain. By 1907, however,
    he and Hattie separated; she had been pressing him to stop touring and settle
    into a respectable trade, while he was unwilling to give up show business.
    Until his death, Fields continued to correspond with Hattie and voluntarily sent
    child-support payments.

    William Rexford Fields Morris

    He had another son, named William Rexford Fields Morris (born August 15,
    1917), with girlfriend Bessie Poole. Bessie was an established Ziegfeld Follies
    performer and met Fields while performing in New York City at the famous Amster-
    dam Theater. Her beauty and quick wit attracted Fields, who was the featured act
    from 1916 until 1922. She was killed in a bar fight several years after their
    son's birth, leaving him to be raised in foster care, where he acquired the sur-
    name Morris from his foster mother. Fields sent voluntary support to young Bill
    in care of his foster mother until he graduated from high school, when he sent
    $300 as a gift.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._C._Fields#Personal_life

    Assuming a HS graduation of 1935 and adjusted for inflation:
    $5,027.85
    http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi

    Contested bequeathment

    He left a portion of his estate to a secular orphanage:

    In a provision of his will that was contested by his wife Hattie and his son
    Claude, W. C. Fields—an atheist to the end—left a portion of his estate to fund
    the education of orphans in a school "where no religion of any sort is
    preached".
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._C._Fields#Contested_bequeathment

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