W.C. Fields

Acting

Born Jan 29, 1880

From Darby, Pennsylvania, USA

Died Dec 25, 1946

William Claude Dukenfield was the eldest of five children born to Cockney immigrant James Dukenfield and Philadelphia native Kate Felton. He went to school for four years, then quit to work with his father selling vegetables from a horse cart. At eleven, after many fights with his alcoholic father (who hit him on the head with a shovel), he ran away from home. For a while he lived in a hole in the ground, depending on stolen food and clothing. He was often beaten and spent nights in jail. His first regular job was delivering ice. By age thirteen he was a skilled pool player and juggler. It was then, at an amusement park in Norristown PA, that he was first hired as an entertainer. There he developed the technique of pretending to lose the things he was juggling. In 1893 he was employed as a juggler at Fortescue's Pier, Atlantic City. When business was slow he pretended to drown in the ocean (management thought his fake rescue would draw customers). By nineteen he was billed as "The Distinguished Comedian" and began opening bank accounts in every city he played. At age twenty-three he opened at the Palace in London and played with Sarah Bernhardt at Buckingham Palace. He starred at the Folies-Bergere (young Charles Chaplin and Maurice Chevalier were on the program). He was in each of the Ziegfeld Follies from 1915 through 1921. He played for a year in the highly praised musical "Poppy" which opened in New York in 1923. In 1925 D.W. Griffith made a movie of the play, renamed Sally of the Sawdust (1925), starring Fields. Pool Sharks (1915), Fields' first movie, was made when he was thirty-five. He settled into a mansion near Burbank, California and made most of his thirty-seven movies for Paramount. He appeared in mostly spontaneous dialogs on Charlie McCarthy's radio shows. In 1939 he switched to Universal where he made films written mainly by and for himself. He died after several serious illnesses, including bouts of pneumonia.

W.C. Fields

Known For

The Movie Orgy

My Little Chickadee

That's Entertainment, Part II

Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage

Alice in Wonderland

David Copperfield

If I Had a Million

Oops, Those Hollywood Bloopers!

Million Dollar Legs

Mae West and the Men Who Knew Her

Filmography — Acting

The Movie Orgy

My Little Chickadee

That's Entertainment, Part II

Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage

Alice in Wonderland

David Copperfield

If I Had a Million

Oops, Those Hollywood Bloopers!

Million Dollar Legs

Mae West and the Men Who Knew Her

Tales of Manhattan

Going Hollywood: The '30s

Cavalcade of the Academy Awards

The Big Parade of Comedy

It's a Gift

The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender

Follow the Boys

You Can't Cheat an Honest Man

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

Mississippi

Hooray for Hollywood

The Bank Dick

Show-Business at War

Hollywood Heaven: Tragic Lives, Tragic Deaths

Hidden Hollywood II: More Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Vaults

The Big Broadcast of 1938

Poppy

Song of the Open Road

The Fatal Glass of Beer

The Hollywood Clowns

Two Flaming Youths

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break

Six of a Kind

The Old-Fashioned Way

International House

Her Majesty, Love

Tillie and Gus

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch

You're Telling Me!

So's Your Old Man

Man on the Flying Trapeze

Down Memory Lane

The Dentist

Running Wild

How to Break 90 #3: Hip Action

That Royle Girl

The Circus: Premiere

Sensations of 1945

It's the Old Army Game

Sally of the Sawdust

The Golf Specialist

The Barber Shop

W.C. Fields: Straight Up

W.C. Fields: 6 Short Films

Hollywood on Parade No. B-10

The Pharmacist

Fools for Luck

The Potters

Pool Sharks

Tillie's Punctured Romance

Janice Meredith

Bob Hope's World of Comedy

Filmography — Crew

My Little Chickadee

The Bank Dick

The Fatal Glass of Beer

Man on the Flying Trapeze