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W. C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes

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“By the time of his death, on Christmas Day, 1946, he was widely acknowledged to have become the greatest comic artist ever known.”

Born William Claude Dukinfield, he was son of a London cockney who migrated to Philadelphia in the late 1870’s

Better known as W C. Fields, he began his performance career as a silent juggler.

Gradually Fields incorporated comedy into his act, before appearing in the Broadway musical comedy Poppy where he played a colourful conman.

From then on, scoundrels would be a particular specialty of the comedian on the big screen.

Famous for his fondness for alcohol, Fields often filmed scenes for movies inebriated. His characters picked fights with children and he loved provoking the censors with double entendres.

All these contributed to Fields becoming a well-loved comic actor.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Lewis Taylor chronicles the incredible life story of W.C. Fields from his childhood as a knockabout street urchin to his heyday as the celebrity who hobnobbed with Edward VII.

W C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes, rich in both humour and pathos, is as marvellous in as Mr. Fields himself.

Praise for W. C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes

“Fields makes all the modern beats look like little Lord Fauntleroys He was a supreme artist and a supreme individual and Taylor does him full justice.” - Harry Golden

“Robert Lewis Taylor has written a hilarious history of the fabulous comedian, written it with understanding, sympathy and a gay respect for the scandalous facts involved.” - The New York Times

“It brings its subject vividly, unforgettably back to life.” - The Washington Post

Robert Lewis Taylor (1912-1998) was born in southern Illinois and educated at Southern Illinois University and the University of Illinois. Upon graduation he lived in Europe and in Polynesia; then, after a brief interlude as editor of a weekly newspaper, became a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In 1940 he joined The New Yorker magazine as a writer of profiles and other long pieces, and remained a member of the staff. Mr. Taylor is author of the-Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Travels of Jamie McPheeters. Taylor also wrote the bestselling biography Winston Churchill: An Informal Study of Greatness.

277 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1949

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About the author

Robert Lewis Taylor

27 books19 followers
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1959) for The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters

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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
Profile Image for Jim.
1,437 reviews96 followers
April 14, 2025
A good book to read in the waiting room of a clinic...a well-written and humorous (as it should be) bio of the comic genius William Claude Dukinfield (April 9, 1879-December 25, 1946). I didn't know much about W.C. and I found his life to be simply amazing- and somewhat sad. As a child, he became fascinated with juggling and began practicing with lemons and oranges--taken from his father's vegetable (and fruit) cart. Being an extremely independent-minded child, he was at war with all authority, especially his father. Finally, at the age of 11, little Billy ran away from home--never to return. He was able to live on the streets by his wits (okay, by stealing). Then he was able to find various jobs as he grew older, such as at a circus, where he took care of the elephants (and not getting along any better with elephants than he did with dogs). He was able to break into vaudeville as a juggler--but it wasn't just juggling, as he made it into an uproarious comedy act. He became popular enough to do a European tour and he would become an international star. Of course, we think of him as the star of great comedy movies. He got into the movies, becoming a success working for Mack Sennett in the silent pictures. In the last stage of his life, he did his greatest films, such as "My Little Chickadee" with Mae West and "The Bank Dick." Now why did I find this incredible life to be a sad one? Because his life was fueled by alcohol. He especially liked his martinis. In the end, drink finished him, as he died at the age of 67. Most of the book consists of anecdotes about the man-and his friends, women, Hollywood life, money-and his stinginess, golf ( he was an expert golfer!), animals (!), and so on. Ironically, he passed away on the day that he pretended to hate--Christmas Day.
Profile Image for Quo.
341 reviews
May 10, 2020
One difficulty with owning books is that they often convey memories in addition to words. After locating an old, somewhat tattered copy of W.C. Fields: His Follies & Fortunes, I noticed that it had been inscribed by my sister & meant as a gift ages ago. That would not have been enough to keep the biography by Robert Lewis Taylor but just to be sure I began browsing through a few pages, which led to my rereading the book, laughing as I read.

Mr. Fields bestowed on those familiar with his work, a particular kind of self-effacing humor that seems timeless, sight-gags, dismissive comments about children, dogs & folks he found offensive, all delivered with a kind of under-the-breath voice that only he was supposed to hear & just occasionally with a bit of juggling for good measure.



It was said that it was often difficult to get the erstwhile William Claude Dukinfield, son of a London cockney who had emigrated to America, to tell the truth about his own background, as he preferred to resort of an ever-changing fictional narrative. However, having changed his name to W.C. Fields for professional reasons, he began life poor & often had to steal to survive, having become bored with life at home at around the age of 4 & having established "an enviable record as an independent shoplifter", until eventually deciding that kleptomania was a poor career choice.

Initially, Fields considered becoming an illustrator & with pencil & notebook, sat in parks studying those who passed by but his sketches were "usually unflattering, the faces clownish, figures warped & often grotesque." He also reproduced himself in caricature, mainly in the garb of a tramp. Eventually, he drifted into vaudeville and traveled the world in search of theaters to exhibit his developing skill as a comedian & a juggler, while continuing to draw sketches, some of which became prototypes for his later comic routines. Always, he seemed a solitary, very lonely man.



Once at the Wintergarten in Berlin, Fields while struggling to deliver his billiards routine, unintentionally knocked balls into the orchestra pit & every gag seemed to fail. To his astonishment, he was told that the audience, including many booking agents, loved the routine which had unaccountably gone over wonderfully. "They iss laffing & laffing" the amazed Fields was told & he quickly decided that there could be art & maybe even a career in self-mockery.

Beyond that, Fields began to study the ethnic background of each city where he played, with "the habits of the audience dictating the voltage of the comic routine." Over time, he would interweave the names of local towns with odd-sounding names into his performances--in Boston it was Nahant or Scituate; in Los Angeles it was Cucamonga; in Chicago, Winnetka; in Providence, Woonsocket & in Detroit, it was Hamtramck.
Among the brilliant qualities that Fields brought to his profession was a faultless memory. A long time before, in a shabby dressing room, he had confided his dream of success to an affable fellow player. And to himself, he had sworn a mighty, theatrical oath, a defiance, like Macbeth's, of all obstruction earthly or supernatural.

Though castles toppled, though pyramids fell to their foundations, he would someday make a $1,000 a week. One day while performing as a juggler in New York, the Palace Theater offered him $500 a week, while the Alhambra offered him $500 for a late show. With a regimen that would have killed an ordinary performer, Fields took on both. He was the best-known juggler in the world but he was athirst for larger glories.
After 3 decades of theater & "the gaudiest of triumphs, Fields had no home, no family that claimed his attention & no ties but knew that he had talent." He decided to push on to Hollywood where his success was quickly compounded via films such as Never Give A Sucker an Even Break, International House, If I Had a Million & My Little Chickadee, rewarding himself with a mansion in Malibu Beach, complete with a large garden, with Fields taking special pleasure in addressing the plants as if they were his friends.

Of course, there was his additional affection for alcohol. Although he despised drunks, he began the day with a double martini & often even played tennis with a racket in one hand & a martini in the other. He drank rather consistently but was never drunk while performing, even working his propensity for "spiritus frumenti" into his film routines.



A longtime colleague commented that "when things were going slowly, the more unhappy he became, feeling that he always needed someone to pit his wits against." And he continued to write, following his first love, words & the sounds they made. He fancied Dickens & his own writing style was described as florid. For example, Fields could never say "hit him on the head", transposing it to "conked him on the noggin." Fearful of the censors, he'd instead insert "Godfrey Daniel", causing it sound like a curse. He never lost his taste for comedy but tastes began to change & many of the offers for films were unacceptable, gradually seeming to disappear. He commented:
I've been trying to get back into the movies for many months but I can't seem to consummate the deal. I'm in a dither to know what has happened. Maybe I have kicked too many of the chosen people in the can. There's a Nubian in the fuel supply but I can't locate him.
He lost his grand house & when speaking to his longtime personal secretary, Miss Michael, who asked if he'd be looking for a new home, apparently simply responded, "No, no, I think it's off to the sanitarium for the nonce." She also asked W.C. Fields, "If you had your life to do over, what would you change?" "You know", he said, "I'd like to see how I would have made out without alcohol."

The man who made so very many people laugh & who one of his friends called "the most authentic humorist since Mark Twain" died on Christmas Day, a holiday he pretended to abhor. I am reminded of the quote from Golgol, that "Through laughter which the world can see are invisible tears." However, in thinking of W.C. Fields on a rainy day in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, thoughts of the laughs Fields was able to induce seem a needed tonic.

*The author of the W.C. Fields biography, Robert Lewis Taylor, was an author of no small regard, whose work was published by many magazines including The New Yorker & he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1958 for his novel, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters. **Photo#2 is of silent film star Louise Brooks with Fields.
Profile Image for Italo Italophiles.
528 reviews41 followers
October 2, 2016
Enter the time-warp to 1949.

A time when psychological disorders involving sadism and substance abuse were charming, if accompanied by a talent or two.

A time when women were of little consequence, and dropping them and the unavoidable children was par for the course.

A time when homelessness, starvation, child abuse, animal abuse, sadism, and runaways were considered great material for jokes.

A time when African-Americans were called “coloreds”, and Southern farmers were “crackers”.

If you can stomach all that, and you subscribe to the Woody Allen school of moral reasoning (that men of great talent are entitled to live in their own moral universe), then you might enjoy this eulogy to W. C. Fields, an excruciatingly psychologically disturbed man.

The author, clearly a buddy of Fields, collected together all the anecdotes told by Fields over the years (usually exaggerated for humor, or invented altogether), and some anecdotes from the juggler-comic's enabling buddies. He downplays the bad parts, and tries to relay the stories in a jocular tone similar Fields.

This recent reprint of the 1949 book would have benefited from a Foreword in which the story of this book and W. C. Fields was summarized, mentioning the facts as they are known today.

This one is for die-hard fans, and might appeal to an older crowd who might be less disturbed by the lack of modern enlightened thought. I received a review-copy of the book. This is my honest review.
Profile Image for Jeff.
Author 7 books43 followers
August 31, 2009
Strongest when talking about his childhood and early vaudeville days; after W.C. hits Hollywood, the book devolves into a series of loosely related anecdotes. But they are pretty damn good anecdotes, such as the miniature bar Fields had installed under the soap dish in his shower (so he could drink away from the watchful eyes of his personal trainer).
Profile Image for Andy.
Author 18 books153 followers
December 4, 2008
Pretty good bio on Fields that touches on his vaudeville years as much as the legendary comedies that made him a star. Seems like Fields was always "on", making jokes about mogo on the gogogo to his doctor after being diagnosed with TB. His life was one big drunken comedy!
109 reviews
May 20, 2012
Worth reading only because I was curious about him personally. It worked for me but I came out of it not believing a lot of what was written due to his general dishonesty.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Mike Kowis.
Author 15 books31 followers
June 25, 2021
As a child, I recall watching re-runs of black and white movies starring W.C. Fields, and this comic legend never failed to make me laugh. Everything about him was funny to me, including his sarcastic comments, nasally voice, and odd mannerisms. One of my favorite W.C. Fields' lines went something like, "Get away from me boy, you're bothering me." (his characters didn't like children)

Reading this detailed biography of Mr. Fields' personal life and career that spanned mostly during the first half of the 20th century was a joy for me because I knew very little about the funny man behind the camera.

According to this entertaining book, Mr. Field's personal life was as quirky and unique as his brand of comedy. He ran away from home at a very young age and lived off the streets for a while. Later, he turned his favorite passion (juggling) into popular vaudeville acts. Then he added humorous lines to his act, which fundamentally changed his role in the entertainment business from a talented juggler to a world-famous comedic actor. In fact, he eventually starred in a handful of successful Hollywood movies and national radio programs in the 1930s and 1940s.

Even though he enjoyed much career success, Mr. Fields was a complicated and tortured soul. He often accused his personal staff of attempting to poison him and required other staff members to taste his food before he would eat. While working and accumulating enormous wealth, he opened hundreds of bank accounts all over the world under fictitious names. He did this just in case he ever ran out of money in a town where he was performing.

Besides the intriguing story of his life and career, another thing I enjoyed about this book was that it was originally published in 1949 and is filled with antiquated words like balderdash, hodgepodge, and switchel bucket. Occasionally, I ran across enough of these outdated terms that it slowed my reading pace while I stopped to consult Google for the definitions. Actually, I enjoyed this exercise and didn't mind it at all.

Coincidentally, this book explains that W.C. Fields loved finding unique names and terms that he found to be funny. One of the later chapters in this book describes how he once started using the word "redundancy" several times in a scene despite that fact that it wasn't contained anywhere in the script and he wasn't even using the word correctly (he repeatedly said, "pardon my redundancy" as he tipped his hat). He did so simply b/c he found that term to be amusing.

If you are a fan of W.C. Fields, you will surely become a fan of this biography - including its occasional use of rare words from the past. I give it two thumbs up!
Profile Image for Pat.
1,311 reviews
October 14, 2024
I've liked Fields' comedy since I was a kid. Interesting to see how he came up with the routines. Mr. Taylor did a marvelously well-written overview of a tortured life.
Profile Image for Dan.
607 reviews8 followers
December 20, 2021
Entertaining and apparently, at least in the better anecdotes, largely fictional. For an even livelier (and presumably more truthful) account of Fields and his circle in Hollywood, read "Minutes of the Last Meeting" by his friend Gene Fowler.
201 reviews2 followers
December 29, 2023
Fields died Christmas Day, 1946; this book was published New Year's Day, 1949. It is based primarily, I would say, on anecdotes from his male friends, colleagues and employees during the final phase of his life when he had moved to Hollywood. The author also had the cooperation of both Fields’ female personal secretary and his female live-in companion from that period. What all this means is that this is the only biography of Fields that got written while his peers were still alive.

There is now a 500 page biography from 2003 that I suspect will be considered the definitive one. For me though this is as far as I need to go into Fields’ life. Its been in near continuous print since the beginning and has, I suspect, skimmed the frothy good parts that make for page turning reading. There’s two instances of psychoanalysis which the attentive reader will welcome. One relates to his fiduciary distrust of his servants and of banks and pretty much everybody. Since he had been a petty thief as a child and unabashed about it, he undoubtedly suspected everyone else was similarly motivated. (I should add that early in his career when he carried a large chunk of his net worth on his person in the form of gold, he was mugged.) He was also highly motivated to come out on top and would cheat to do so even against a two early old actor named Baby Leroy.

In the first edition Fields’ name is misspelled on page 212 and there is an “if" instead of an “of" on page 181 but here is a sentence that leaves me scratching my head:

“...the public has been treated to such masterworks of casting as Wallace Beery as Long John Silver, Robert Walker as Johannes Brahms, Shirley Temple as Henry the Eighth, George Arliss as John L. Sullivan, and Martha Raye as Camille."
521 reviews3 followers
January 15, 2009


Written a ways back (1951, 10ish year after Fields' death). Not at all in an academic style; more like a sequence of magazine articles. Supposedly not all that accurate---depended on Fields' own stories too much, or something. But quite entertaining. I did not know that he was such an accomplished juggler. He was just the right age (born in 1880) for Vaudeville, and then just the right age for the early talkies.

Really 4.5.
Profile Image for Barry.
86 reviews
November 24, 2010
What an amazing life and character. Fields was so much more than the Hollywood image and pop-culture icon he became. This is the first bio written after Fields death and as such may not be as "honest" as later entries (lots of anecdotes are reported as factual when they may have been more than a little exaggerated), but it also benefits from that very immediacy. The author was writing as a contemporary of the man instead of a revisionist biographer.
Profile Image for Tony.
239 reviews2 followers
April 12, 2013
It didn't really bother me that some of the stories in this book might be exaggerated,or even made up, I still found it a very interesting read, although I still don't know whether I like the guy or not, he was a mass of contradictions.

Profile Image for captain america.
135 reviews2 followers
May 28, 2008
entertaining but the author took as fact every tall tale fields ever told about his life, which were in fact every tale fields ever told about his life.
Profile Image for Jennifer Dodde.
65 reviews353 followers
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November 21, 2009
W. C. Fields His Follies and Fortunes by Robert Lewis Taylor (1949)
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