
W.C. Fields
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.
Acting (61 movies)

The Bank Dick
1940

Hollywood on Parade No. B-7
1933

The Movie Orgy
1968

International House
1933

Alice in Wonderland
1933

I Know A Riddle
2004

Follow the Boys
1944

Tales of Manhattan
1942

The Hollywood Clowns
1979

It's a Gift
1934

You Can't Cheat an Honest Man
1939

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
1941

Poppy
1936

Fools for Luck
1928

My Little Chickadee
1940

The Big Broadcast of 1938
1938

The Golf Specialist
1930

David Copperfield
1935

Two Flaming Youths
1927

The Pharmacist
1933

Pool Sharks
1915

The Dentist
1932

The Fatal Glass of Beer
1933

The Barber Shop
1933

Man on the Flying Trapeze
1935

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch
1934

If I Had a Million
1932

Her Majesty, Love
1931

Six of a Kind
1934

Janice Meredith
1924

Tillie and Gus
1933

You're Telling Me!
1934

Mississippi
1935

Million Dollar Legs
1932

So's Your Old Man
1926

Sally of the Sawdust
1925

Oops, Those Hollywood Bloopers!
1982

Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage
1983

It's the Old Army Game
1926

Running Wild
1927

Sensations of 1945
1944

W.C. Fields: Straight Up
1986

Going Hollywood: The '30s
1984

Song of the Open Road
1944

The Circus: Premiere
1928

Hollywood Heaven: Tragic Lives, Tragic Deaths
1990

Tillie's Punctured Romance
1928

The Old-Fashioned Way
1934

Mae West and the Men Who Knew Her
1994

The Big Parade of Comedy
1964

W.C. Fields: 6 Short Films
2000

Show-Business at War
1943

Cavalcade of the Academy Awards
1940

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
1975

That's Entertainment, Part II
1976

The Potters
1927

The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender
1997

That Royle Girl
1925

Down Memory Lane
1949

Hooray for Hollywood
1976

Hidden Hollywood II: More Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Vaults
1999
Directing (1 movie)
| Title | Year | Job |
|---|---|---|
| Pool Sharks | 1915 | Writer |
| The Golf Specialist | 1930 | Writer |
| The Dentist | 1932 | Writer |
| The Fatal Glass of Beer | 1933 | Writer |
| The Pharmacist | 1933 | Writer |
| The Barber Shop | 1933 | Writer |
| My Little Chickadee | 1940 | Screenplay |
| The Bank Dick | 1940 | Screenplay |