W. C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes
Potpourri
by. Doubleday, $3.50.
A smartly written and most engaging account of the inimitable comedian and juggler, the sadistic W. C. Fields. For those who remember the great days of vaudeville, there was no performer — except perhaps Jimmy Durante himselfwho could so nostalgically bring back those golden days.
Mr. Taylor, in an unostentatiously amusing way, brings home a number of pertinent facts about the great mannamely, that Mr. Fields onstage was no more than an extension of the man offstage; which meant that in person he was difficult, unconventional, hard-drinking (though never drunk), a hard man with a dollar, a fast man with an unctuous phrase, an eccentric who created his own banking system, and a master ad-libber.
The account of the youthful Fields, a runaway at eleven and a professional juggler at fourteen, a hobo who slept in barrels and ate at free-lunch counters, is the insight needed to explain why he was always lashing out at the world. But it wasn’t meanness. As a friend said, “ Bill never really wanted to hurt anybody. He just felt an obligation.”