W.C. Fields

Personal Info

Known For Actor

Gender Male

Birthday 1880-01-29

Deathday 1946-12-25 (66 years old)

Place of Birth Darby, Pennsylvania, USA

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

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.

Known For

Actor

1997
The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender

as Self (archive footage)

1994
Mae West and the Men Who Knew Her

as Self (archive footage)

1990
Star Life

as Self (archive footage)

1984
Going Hollywood: The '30s

as (archive footage)

1983
Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage

as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

1982
Oops, Those Hollywood Bloopers!

as Self (archive footage)

1982
Wogan

as Self

1979
The Hollywood Clowns

as (archive footage)

1976
That's Entertainment, Part II

as (archive footage)

1975
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

as Self (archive footage)

1968
The Movie Orgy

as Self (archive footage)

1964
The Big Parade of Comedy

as Wilkins Micawber in 'David Copperfield' (archive footage)

1961
Hollywood: The Selznick Years

as 'David Copperfield' (archive footage) (uncredited)

1949
Down Memory Lane

as (archive footage)

1944
Sensations of 1945

as W.C. Fields

1944
Song of the Open Road

as W.C. Fields

1944
Follow the Boys

as W. C. Fields

1942
Tales of Manhattan

as Professor Pufflewhistle

1940
The Bank Dick

as Egbert Sousé

1940
Cavalcade of the Academy Awards

as Self (archive footage)

1940
My Little Chickadee

as Cuthbert J. Twillie

1939
You Can't Cheat an Honest Man

as Larson E. Whipsnade

1938
The Big Broadcast of 1938

as T. Frothingill Bellows / S.B. Bellows

1936
Poppy

as Eustace McGargle

1935
Man on the Flying Trapeze

as Ambrose Wolfinger

1935
Mississippi

as Commodore Jackson

1935
David Copperfield

as Wilkins Micawber

1934
It's a Gift

as Harold Bissonette

1934
The Old-Fashioned Way

as The Great McGonigle / Squire Cribbs in 'The Drunkard'

1934
You're Telling Me!

as Sam Bisbee

1934
Six of a Kind

as Sheriff John Hoxley

1933
Alice in Wonderland

as Humpty-Dumpty

1933
Tillie and Gus

as Augustus Winterbottom

1933
The Barber Shop

as Cornelius O'Hare

1933
International House

as Professor Quail

1933
The Pharmacist

as Mr. Dilweg

1933
1932
The Dentist

as Dentist

1932
If I Had a Million

as Rollo La Rue

1932
Million Dollar Legs

as The President

1931
Her Majesty, Love

as Bela Toerrek

1930
The Golf Specialist

as J. Effingham Bellweather

1928
Fools for Luck

as Richard Whitehead

1928
1927
Two Flaming Youths

as Gabby Gilfoil

1927
Running Wild

as Elmer Finch

1927
The Potters

as Pa Potter

1926
So's Your Old Man

as Samuel Bisbee

1926
It's the Old Army Game

as Elmer Prettywillie

1925
That Royle Girl

as Professor Royle

1925
Sally of the Sawdust

as Professor Eustance McGargle

1924
Janice Meredith

as A British Sergeant

Writer

1940
The Bank Dick

as Screenplay

1940
My Little Chickadee

as Screenplay

1934
It's a Gift

as Story

1933
The Pharmacist

as Writer

1933
The Barber Shop

as Writer

1933
1932
The Dentist

as Writer

1930
1915
Pool Sharks

as Writer

Director