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, starring Fields. Pool Sharks, Fields' first movie, was made when he was thirty-six. 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.
The Big Broadcast of 1938 (1938): $20,000
The Dentist (1932): $5,000/week

Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, USA, in the Great Mausoleum, Holly Terrace entrance, Hall of Inspiration. He was the second choice to play the title role in The Wizard of Oz. There are still some arguments as to why he turned the part down. Some sources say that he refused to play "The Wizard" because MGM wouldn't pay the salary he wanted, but according to Doug McClelland, author of "Down The Yellow Brick Road", Fields was too busy writing and acting in his latest film for Universal Pictures - You Can't Cheat an Honest Man - to be loaned out to MGM to play the part. Had a lifetime disdain for music; this he attributed to having to hear his father's singing day and night as a child, loudest when "the old patriarch" was drunk. (Companion Carlotta Monti claimed Fields once hit her with a cane, to stop her humming with a guitar.) When expected to sing in a role, Fields almost always made a complete farce of both the lyrics and his performance. Pictured on a 15¢ US commemorative postage stamp in the Performing Arts and Artists series, issued 29 January 1980 (100th anniversary year of his birth). Grandfather of Ronald J. Fields. Enshrined in the Juggling Hall of Fame. The lawyer Larsen E. Pettifogger in the comic strip "Wizard of Id" is drawn to look like him. While stories of Fields' alcohol consumption (and the consequences thereof) were a regular part of his act, and he was rarely seen without a drink at hand, nobody could recall ever actually seeing him drunk, or out of control. Reportedly had hidden microphones installed along the front walk to his Hollywood home; Fields would slip into a small room to listen to guests talking as they departed. When someone spoke negatively about him, Fields would amuse himself by alluding to what they'd said, the next time he saw them. Stopped drinking for over a year during his career, when a friend died of alcohol-related causes, but eventually went back to it. Fields' wife Hattie became his partner in his juggling act after their marriage; he sent her home to his parents when she became pregnant. After Fields returned from the road, they discovered they'd grown apart, but Hattie wouldn't give him a divorce, and when Fields refused to "find a regular job", she began badmouthing him to their young son, William Jr.. Fields predicted that the boy would grow up to see the truth of the situation (Fields never failed to support his family, however much or little he was earning)... and it happened. While father and son rarely saw each other over the years, Fields was proudly introduced to his firstborn grandson (W.C. Fields III) before his death. Could juggle or balance practically anything he could lift or carry; Fields unnerved his despised mother-in-law by keeping a lit cigar or candle (in holder) balanced atop his head at mealtimes, never seeming to notice its presence. Although one of his most famous quotes is "Never work with animals or children." he secretly admired children. Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith, pg. 160-163. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387 Has a medical syndrome named after him - 'W.C. Fields syndrome', characterized by rhinophyma (rosacea of the nose) associated with alcoholism. His wife was born in 1878. She died November 7, 1963. His son, with wife Hattie, William C. "Claude" Dukenfield,was born on July 28, 1904. He had another son, born on August 15, 1917, with girlfriend Bessie Poole, named William Rexford Fields Morris. Grandchildren: Ruthie, Everett, and Bill. Appears on sleeve of The Beatles' "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". According to film historians, he performed in only one motion picture exactly according to script and as directed. That one was MGM's The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, and Observation of David Copperfield, the Younger, in which he co-starred with Freddie Bartholomew, who was only ten years old. Fields admired the Dickens book, and wanted desperately to play Mr. Micawber in the movie, so he agreed to forego his usual ad libs, and put aside his distaste at working with child actors. Slipped a dose of gin into Baby LeRoy's milk bottle during a movie shoot, when the set nurse left for a bathroom break; production had to stop for a day, until he could sober up. (Fields reportedly sent money later to LeRoy's family, after the boy's screen career ended and they had financial trouble.) Usually wrote or co-wrote the screenplays to his movies; the aliases he used ("Mahatma Kane Jeeves", "Otis Criblecoblis", etc.) for the writing credits came from the unusual names he encountered on the road, in his vaudeville days. Legend has it that on the set of You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, a stagehand was cleaning out Fields' dressing room and accidentally bumped into a table on which Fields had placed a bottle of whiskey. He caught the bottle before it hit the floor, but the cork had popped out and he couldn't find it. He placed the bottle back on the table and left. Later Fields came back to the dressing room, and a few minutes afterwards stormed out, roaring "Who took the cork out of my lunch?" It was generally assumed that his prominent proboscis was the result of his drinking, an assumption he himself fueled in his comedy. However, it is believed to have actually been a physical characteristic inherited from his mother's side of the family. Through much of his early career, he was a silent juggler. It wasn't until he was in his mid-30s that be began to add verbal comedy to his act Fields said that the Marx Brothers were the only act he couldn't follow on the live stage. He is known to have appeared on the same bill with them only once, during an engagement at Keith's Orpheum Theatre in Columbus, Ohio, January 1915. At the time, the Marx Brothers were touring 'Home Again', and it didn't take Fields long to realize how his quiet comedy juggling act was faring against the anarchy of the Marxes. Fields later wrote of the engagement (and the Marxes), "They sang, danced, played harp and kidded in zany style. Never saw so much nepotism or such hilarious laughter in one act in my life. The only act I could never follow...I told the manager I broke my wrist and quit." Was an accomplished amateur cartoonist. He often provided his own illustrations for his publicity material during his Vaudeville days, and sent sketches and self-drawn holiday cards to his friends, all his life. Is portrayed by Chuck McCann in Mae West and by Rod Steiger in W.C. Fields and Me Lived with Carlotta Monti for fourteen years. Was good friends with John Barrymore According to friends, the biggest laugh he ever got as a stage performer was when a monologue he was giving on-stage was interrupted by a long, loud crash of objects backstage. After the crashing stopped, and the audience was silent, Fields gave a one-word comment in a stage whisper: "Mice!" Although his marriage to Harriet Hughes lasted until his death in 1946, they separated as early as in 1904, obviously because of financial reasons. Father of W. C. Fields, Jr. (b. 1903) Although he is quoted as saying that he was "The best ballet dancer in the world.", secretly he was extremely jealous of Charlie Chaplin, whom he had known when he was younger, for achieving worldwide fame and adoration.