Job Actor, comedian, juggler, writer
Years active 1902-1946
Top Roles T. Frothingill Bellows / S.B. Bellows, Egbert Sousè, Larson E. Whipsnade, Her Father, The President
Top GenresComedy, Musical, Silent Films, Drama, Short Films, Film Adaptation
Top TopicsSlapstick, Book-Based, Husband Wife
Top Collaborators (Producer), (Producer), (Director),
Shares birthday with Ernst Lubitsch, Victor Mature, Katharine Ross  see more..

W.C. Fields Overview:

Legendary actor, W.C. Fields, was born William Claude Dukenfield on Jan 29, 1880 in Darby, Pennsylvania. Fields died at the age of 66 on Dec 25, 1946 in Pasadena, CA and was laid to rest in Forest Lawn (Glendale) Cemetery in Glendale, CA.

MINI BIO:

Burly, round-faced, red-nosed American juggler and comedian, with a long history in vaudeville before his serious film career began in the mid-twenties. With sound, his own peculiar, abrasive, embittered, alcohol-oriented delivery really came into its own and, as henpeck or charlatan in turn, he created a series of comedy classics. Wore a fake mustache in films until 1932. Died, from a combination of dropsy, a liver ailment and heart failure, on the day he moaned about more than any other - Christmas Day.

(Source: available at Amazon Quinlan's Film Stars).

HONORS and AWARDS:

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He was honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the categories of Radio and Motion Pictures. In addition, Fields was immortalized on a US postal stamp in 1980. He appears on the cover of The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Fields was never nominated for an Academy Award.

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W.C. Fields Quotes:

[they're in the basket trying to figure out how to get it pulled up to the mountaintop - a rock falls on his head]
His Niece: Did it hurt you, uncle?
The Great Man: No... how could a rock dropping from a thousand feet hurt your head?


Egbert Sousé: Ten cents a share. Telephone sold for five cents a share. How would you like something better for ten cents a share? If five gets ya ten, ten'll get ya twenty. A beautiful home in the country, upstairs and down. Beer flowing through the estate over your grandmother's paisley shawl.
Og Oggilby: Beer?
Egbert Sousé: Beer! Fishing in the stream that runs under the aboreal dell. A man comes up from the bar, dumps $3,500 in your lap for every nickel invested. Says to you, "Sign here on the dotted line." And then disappears in the waving fields of alfalfa.


Sam Bisbee: Thank you, Mayor. You haven't a little dram on your hip, have you?


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W.C. Fields on the
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W.C. Fields Facts
He said that The Marx Brothers were the only act he couldn't follow on the live stage. He is known to have appeared on the same bill with them only once, during an engagement at Keith's Orpheum Theatre in Columbus, OH, in January 1915. At the time the Marx Brothers were touring "Home Again", and it didn't take Fields long to realize how his quiet comedy juggling act was faring against the anarchy of the Marxes. Fields later wrote of the engagement (and the Marxes), "They sang, danced, played harp and kidded in zany style. Never saw so much nepotism or such hilarious laughter in one act in my life. The only act I could never follow . . . I told the manager I broke my wrist and quit.".

Has a medical syndrome named after him - 'W.C. Fields syndrome', characterized by rhinophyma (rosacea of the nose) associated with alcoholism.

The last movie he starred in, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941), included a character he'd always wanted to have in one of his movies: a young woman (in this case his niece, played by Gloria Jean) who loved him unconditionally.

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The Beatles Sgt Pepper Cover

Also on the Sgt Pepper Cover


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