W.C. Fields

star 3.6

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  • group Other Names:
    William Claude Dukenfield, Bill Fields, Charles Bogle, Mahatma Kane Jeeves, Otis Criblecoblis

description About

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.

Info

  • wc Gender: Male
  • calendar_month Birth Date: 1880-01-29
  • event Death Date 1946-12-25
  • school Known for: Acting
  • star Popularity: 3.6
  • info Birth Place Darby, Pennsylvania, USA
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smart_display Movies and TV shows by W.C. Fields

6.5

The Bank Dick

1940-11-29

0

Hollywood on Parade No. B-7

1933-01-01

6.2

The Movie Orgy

1968-01-01

5.3

International House

1933-05-27

6.1

Alice in Wonderland

1933-12-18

0

I Know A Riddle

2004-04-01

5.2

Follow the Boys

1944-05-05

6.2

Tales of Manhattan

1942-08-05

0

The Hollywood Clowns

1979-03-23

6.5

It's a Gift

1934-11-30

6.7

You Can't Cheat an Honest Man

1939-02-17

6.8

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break

1941-10-10

6.5

Poppy

1936-06-17

0

Fools for Luck

1928-06-11

6.4

My Little Chickadee

1940-02-09

5.9

The Big Broadcast of 1938

1938-02-11

5.4

The Golf Specialist

1930-08-22

6.6

David Copperfield

1935-01-18

0

Two Flaming Youths

1927-12-17

5.7

The Pharmacist

1933-04-21

6

The Dentist

1932-12-09

6.2

The Barber Shop

1933-07-28

5.9

The Fatal Glass of Beer

1933-03-03

5.2

Pool Sharks

1915-09-19

5.9

Man on the Flying Trapeze

1935-08-03

6

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch

1934-10-28

6.6

If I Had a Million

1932-11-18

6

Her Majesty, Love

1931-12-15

5.8

Six of a Kind

1934-02-09

5

Janice Meredith

1924-12-08

7.6

Tillie and Gus

1933-10-13

6.7

Mississippi

1935-03-22

6.4

You're Telling Me!

1934-04-06

6.6

Million Dollar Legs

1932-07-08

6.1

So's Your Old Man

1926-10-25

6.1

Sally of the Sawdust

1925-08-01

6

Oops, Those Hollywood Bloopers!

1982-01-01

6.5

Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage

1983-02-25

5

It's the Old Army Game

1926-07-10

5.7

Running Wild

1927-06-10

6.2

Sensations of 1945

1944-06-30

0

W.C. Fields: Straight Up

1986-01-02

10

Going Hollywood: The '30s

1984-01-01

3.3

Hollywood: The Selznick Years

1961-12-31

0

Song of the Open Road

1944-06-21

5.4

The Circus: Premiere

1928-01-13

5.7

Hollywood Heaven: Tragic Lives, Tragic Deaths

1990-01-01

6

Tillie's Punctured Romance

1928-03-03

7

The Old-Fashioned Way

1934-07-13

0

Mae West and the Men Who Knew Her

1994-08-09

6.3

The Big Parade of Comedy

1964-09-02

7

W.C. Fields: 6 Short Films

2000-01-01

0

How to Break 90 #3: Hip Action

1933-06-23

7

Show-Business at War

1943-05-21

6.5

Cavalcade of the Academy Awards

1940-07-31

5.7

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

1975-08-06

6.8

That's Entertainment, Part II

1976-05-16

0

The Potters

1927-01-15

5

The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender

1997-11-01

1

That Royle Girl

1925-12-07

0

Down Memory Lane

1949-08-01

4.5

Wogan

1982-05-04

10

Star Life

1990-08-04

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