Talk:W. C. Fields

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[edit] A plea for help

Fields fans! Help, please. I've done several Google (Dogpile, ...) searches looking for various combinations of this or that and come up blank. Which rather surprised me. I know I've seen the movie (probably more than once), but I can't find a reference, and my memory has melted down. Possibly global warming. Anyway, ...

Fields is standing in the back of a buckboard on a dirt street in some 19th century town and is hawking some patent medicine nostrum. The spiel includes all the wonders of the stuff when Bill loses his voice. He turns, quaffs some of the brew, and turning back announces loudly that it CURES HOARSENESS! Upon which the crowd surges forward cash in hand.

What movie?? Please!

ww 14:54, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

User Wetman has nailed this (at Snake Oil as My Little Chickadee. Many thanks, W. ww 21:29, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] opps, wrong nail

The correct movie is "Poppy" c. 1936 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028120/ It's from the pitch scene for Purple Bark Sarsaparilla.

There is also a similar scene which concludes "The Old Fashion Way". McGonicle 19:22, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tax dodges and production credit aliases

My understanding is that the primary motivation for W.C. Fields using names other than his own on production credits was to avoid the eye of the tax man. Fields famously had money hidden in so many different accounts, that after his passing and to this date, his Estate has still been unable to locate large amounts. Fields was also reported to have claimed tax deductions for large donations for the "Fund for Peruvian Bastards".


THis is a myth. If you read any of Field's latest biographies (including Man on the Flying Trapeze) it is made clear that while Fields did have a handful of accounts across the country, these all contained small amounts and were mostly leftovers from his vaudeville days when he traveled all over. As far as the tax dodge is concerned, it also seems far-fetched: such a move would have been risking jail for fraud, not justa fine. The production credit thing was also common: everyone from Jules White to Ed Wood used aliases to cover multiple contributions to a picture (those days, being producer-director-writer-actor-photographer-gaffer-bestboy-colorist-cosmetician was not so valued as it is now, and writer-director-actors sometimes used pseudonyms in the same picture).Amherst5282 01:42, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
I also suspect it's a myth that he was trying to dodge paying taxes. The way they used to tell the story, it had to do with financial insecurity; it was like a squirrel burying nuts and then forgetting where he buried them. The income tax was not then what it is now, so I suspect that's revisionism. Of course, we're assuming the story is even true. He only had to do it once, or even mention it once, for it to grow into one of the many legends about The Great Man. The interesting thing about his screenwriting aliases was not so much that he did it, but that he invented unlikely names, probably inspired in part by the colorful names that his author-hero Charles Dickens came up with. I don't recall which movie it was, but there's a scene where he's reading a letter and he's supposed to end it with some mundane name. Instead, he looks into the camera and smirks and says some funny-sounding name. Wahkeenah 02:59, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Euphemisms?

May I ask why there is a deliberate rewriting of a quote? The text reads "....regarding his love of alcohol is this: "I can't stand water because of the things fish do in it." Fields did not say this. The only place for coyness in an encyclopedia is within its own entry. This is wrong, unfair to the man and lies instead of imparting truth. An encyclopedia is worth nothing unless it speaks truth. SAW Bristol UK

There are a number of online places that give this as a legitimate Fields quote. That doesn't prove anything, of course - incorrect quote attributions are common - but it makes it hard to decide. You don't happen to know of a source where somebody verifiably discounts this as a Fields quote? - DavidWBrooks 23:35, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I've heard the unvarnished quote many times... and have seen no evidence that he actually said it, or if it was just something that somebody thought he might say. As Yogi Berra, the kind of malapropisms once (supposedly) said, about many quotes attributed to him, "I never said half the things I said!" Wahkeenah 23:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
That's a real problem with a person who is famous for quips - false attributions float in from all sides. The explosion of wikipedia-scraping sites complicates the online search, since our errors (if this is an error) slowly become the norm. - DavidWBrooks 00:20, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
On the other hand, this could be a good experiment. I've never seen that quote written that way before. It would be interesting to "Google" it every day and see where else it turns up. Wahkeenah 00:29, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] probable spam

Removed this today.

later adopted as the corporate motto of, Chicago Options Associates, and, subsequently, the Bomis pornographic search engine, a hallmark of Net 1.0, then, ultimately, the Wikimedia 'Non-Profit' Foundation, poster-child and stalking horse to mix a metaphor of Net 2.0 [1]).

Might be a legit claim in it, but can anyone source it? Otherwise, looks like speculation spam or something else. ww 19:34, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I almost deleted it yesterday, Ww, but thought I should check it out first, and didn't have time. Looks pretty suspicious to me, and of no real relevance to Fields anyway. Rizzleboffin 20:07, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Only Once Citation

not good

[edit] Hippie Connection?

Hippies seem to have a thing for naming things after this guy. Like on the Firesign Theatre album with the song title "W.C. Fields Forever", and the local hippie fair had an area named "W.C. Field" (Which was a large field.) Where does this fad come from?


              Also, at the Oregon Country Fair (a huge hippie fest) there's a stage named W.C. Fields.Fuzzyblob (talk) 18:54, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What??

Fields was inconsolable after three-year-old Christopher Quinn drowned in Fields's swimming pool during a visit to his home by Christopher's father, Anthony Quinn, and mother, Katherine DeMille (daughter of famed Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille).

Where did this random irrelevant factoid come from? No mention of this on Anthony Quinn's page either. So, again -- what? Just more lame wikiality?

[edit] Nose

What skin disease did he have on his nose?Lestrade (talk) 19:14, 11 December 2007 (UTC)Lestrade

[edit] Stooge

hi fields fans. i've just created an article for Tammany Young, Fields's straight man in seven films. it would be nice to get it linked into this article somehow, but i'm not sure where best to place it. any suggestions, let me know, or just go for it. thanks J. Van Meter (talk) 19:43, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers priority assessment

Per debate and discussion re: assessment of the approximate 100 top priority articles of the project, this article has been included as a top priority article. Wildhartlivie (talk) 11:28, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pineapple juice or lemonade

There's a story in this article about how W.C. used to say his martini thermos contained pineapple juice and then one day someone actually put pineapple juice in it and he said "Who put pinapple juice in my pineapple juice!" But now it's about lemonade. Does anyone know which it really was, pineapple juice or lemonade? Fuzzyblob (talk) 22:20, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] very confused para

The birth para at this date is quite mixed up. I've not enough time to chase down the page history and fix it. If anyone else would like to do so, please do. I'll try to remember to come back and ... what was I thinking about? Perhaps someone else will know. ww (talk) 04:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The main problem seemed to be that line mentioning the 1910 census, now a footnote. Ewulp (talk) 02:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fields and Frank Morgan

I'm a bit doubtful of this statement: " In any case, the Oz role was certainly tailored for Fields: Frank Morgan played the carnival mountebank "Professor Marvel" with the florid speech and pompous fraudulence typical of Fields."

Frank Morgan's pomposity owes little if anything to Fields. His trademark was an easy confidence which quickly deflates to confused ineffectual dithering- this is very evident where he is discovered behind the curtain. Saxophobia (talk) 16:55, 4 April 2008 (UTC)