ON CHRISTMAS DAY, 1946, a “tyrant” and “misanthrope” named W.C. Fields passed away. But a different W.C. Fields, known only to his family and a few close friends, lived on, deep in the basement of a two-story apartment building on Olympic Boulevard in Beverly Hills. There he kept company with dirt and dust through the years and only now, is ready to reveal himself to the world.
His dungeon home was guarded by my grandmother Hattie, W.C.’s widow. Her son, W.C. Fields Jr., was my father. As children we shied away from the stairway that led to the tomb, for ironically enough we had convinced ourselves that the “Bogeyman” lived down there. Our fears were unconsciously reinforced by my grandmother. She would sit stoically, bending slightly at the waist and softly whisper cold warnings that we should never try to enter the vault. But there were times when our small souls would summon vast amounts of courage and we would cower down the long flight of stairs to test the unpainted wooden door that was padlocked, bolted and barred. My oldest brother W.C. Fields III, and Everett, the second oldest were only babies when the Great One died, so we knew our grandfather only through family reminiscence, never really aware that his life and times were actually documented in tangible form, waiting restlessly for this new dawn. Now the padlocks have been broken and the door opened; we all can seen W.C. Fields as himself.
As the years went by, we watched with a patient reserve as the articles and supposed biographies of W.C. Fields proliferated, all lending their support to the many myths that grew up around him in his lifetime. But in this book we can let W.C. speak and clear up the incessant fictions surrounding his life. He had previously published a collection of delightful philosophical spoofs in FIELDS FOR PRESIDENT(1939) but we were surprised to discover that W.C. himself had once considered writing his own story:
2015 DeMille Drive,
Hollywood, Calif.
May 21, 1941
Mr. Jerome Weidman,
Simon and Schuster,
1230 Sixth Avenue,
Rockefeller Center,
New York City.
Dear Mr. Weidman:
Many thanks for your letter of the 13th.
As soon as I get this next picture out of my system I hope to write the story of The Life of a Ham, or some other appropriate title concerning my forty-three years of inflicting myself upon a gullible public. When the darn thing is finished I will submit it to you and you shall have first approval or disapproval.
My very best wishes to you and Simon and Schuster, whose biography I enjoyed immensely.
Sincerely,
W.C.Fields
Simon and Schuster replied enthusiastically, but W.C. apparently was more concerned with living his life than in reliving it. For whatever reason, W.C. never did sit down and write the LIFE OF A HAM, but rather left it buried, to be exhumed at this late date.
It was just in the past two years that my mother and I made a detailed investigation of that locked room, whose contents were placed in storage. We found that a man who claimed he liked children “only if they were properly cooked” was a frustrated father who loved his own child. We found that a man who claimed to be a misogynist and rarely mentioned his marriage felt proud to be a grandfather and signed many of his letters “Grandpappy.” We were delighted to find that Hattie had diligently saved W.C.’s correspondence and that W.C. himself had salted away ideas for movies that were never made, newspaper columns that were never printed, plays that were never seen, and even the hilarious transcript of a court case involving alleged onstage cruelty to a canary. So quite literally, W.C. had written his own story and finally after so long, we can present to the reader a concise biographical replay of W.C.Fields’ life in his own words.
American publishers find nothing easier than to subject the life of a man to the interpretations of biographers: men with justifiable, though unfortunate, prejudices. What one man thinks another individual’s ideas were cannot reflect the artistry of the original. It cannot reflect the soul of the individual. How can one man understand another’s motivations without understanding the events that stimulated him to action and response? There is a need to understand W.C.’s life and how he responded to it, to thoroughly understand his comedy and his art. I felt it necessary to understand the Dukenfields before I could begin to understand W.C.Fields. But after five minutes of talking with Adel, W.C.’s sister, she exclaimed that I was family, that my brothers and sister were Dukenfields; and finally I understood the depth of the family tie. My father once wrote that “William Claude Dukenfield, also and better known as W.C. Fields, in addition to his many God-given talents, was perhaps the most complex, confusing and contradictory man who ever lived. Part of this developed from a cynicism housed in a very sensitive conscience, a cynicism which he would try to beat down all his life, but which pervaded his every move. The contradiction is exhibited in his skits and later motion pictures in which he exclaims with some indignation, ‘Don’t do as I say—do as I tell you.’ This was not simply a gag line. Only those who have known him over the full span of life can adequately evaluate the conflicts and turmoil that was within him.”
W.C. was born in the 19th century, lived to see a catastrophe of changes in the 20th century, and learned to laugh at the great comedy in a tragic world. W.C. transcended his environment and used it for his art. He loved many of the things he claimed to hate, for he used his comedy to conquer his frustration. Fields stole from Dickens as much as Dickens took from people like Fields; he plagiarized Shakespeare’s Falstaff just as Shakespeare copied an Elizabethan like Larson E. Whipsnade. They all drank from that same cup of great artistry. If my praise of W.C. borders on the chauvinistic, then so be it. My warmth and deep feeling for my grandfather have traveled the span of two generations and have increased as I worked day after day on his book; and my respect for such an artist affects me with a greater appreciation of the arts. Fields’ reputation has now survived three generations, and only time can assess his real contribution to the world of entertainment. But beyond all the judgments that have preceded this book and undoubtedly will follow it, there still remains one fact I cannot shrug off and never wish to: W.C. Fields is my grandfather. And as this book documents, his family loved a gentle man, a proud father, and loving grandfather.
Ronald J. Fields