W.C. Fields

Also Known As: William Claude Dukenfield, Bill Fields, Charles Bogle, Mahatma Kane Jeeves, Otis Criblecoblis

Biography: 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.

Department: Acting

Place of Birth: Darby, Pennsylvania, USA

Adult: No

Birthday: January 29, 1880

Age: 145 years old

Gender: Male

Visit Home Page

Deathday: December 25, 1946

Popularity:

2.50%

Known For:

The Bank Dick
Hollywood on Parade No. B-7
The Movie Orgy
International House
Alice in Wonderland
I Know A Riddle
Follow the Boys
Tales of Manhattan
The Hollywood Clowns
It's a Gift
You Can't Cheat an Honest Man
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
Poppy
Fools for Luck
My Little Chickadee
The Big Broadcast of 1938
The Golf Specialist
David Copperfield
Two Flaming Youths
Pool Sharks
The Dentist
The Fatal Glass of Beer
The Pharmacist
The Barber Shop
Man on the Flying Trapeze
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch
If I Had a Million
Her Majesty, Love
Six of a Kind
Janice Meredith
Tillie and Gus
Mississippi
You're Telling Me!
Million Dollar Legs
So's Your Old Man
Sally of the Sawdust
Oops, Those Hollywood Bloopers!
Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage
It's the Old Army Game
Running Wild
Sensations of 1945
W.C. Fields: Straight Up
Going Hollywood: The '30s
Hollywood: The Selznick Years
Song of the Open Road
The Circus: Premiere
Hollywood Heaven: Tragic Lives, Tragic Deaths
Tillie's Punctured Romance
The Old-Fashioned Way
Mae West and the Men Who Knew Her
The Big Parade of Comedy
W.C. Fields: 6 Short Films
How to Break 90 #3: Hip Action
Show-Business at War
Cavalcade of the Academy Awards
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
That's Entertainment, Part II
The Potters
The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender
That Royle Girl
Down Memory Lane
Hooray for Hollywood
Hidden Hollywood II: More Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Vaults