{"product_id":"w-c-fields-a-biography","title":"W. C. Fields: A Biography","description":"\u003cp\u003eBefore he ever made a movie or spoke a word onstage  W. C. Fields was one of the greatest pantomimists and comedians in the world. His career spanned the whole of the twentieth centuryin burlesque  vaudeville  the legitimate stage  silent pictures  talkies  radio  books  and recordings. Only death prevented him from working in television.  He shared the vaudeville stage with Sarah Bernhardt and Houdini; he made a command performance before Edward VII; he was compared to Chaplin and Keaton and became one of the great comedians in radio. He wrote  directed  and performed (Mae West and Fields were among the first writer\/actor\/directors) in some of the most enduring and brilliant comedies of all time  including Its a Gift  My Little Chickadee  and The Bank Dick. He appeared in fifty pictures and wrote fifteen of them. His understanding of the need to lie and swindle  and his ability to make the most innocent phrase sound lewd  made him a star.  Now James Curtis tells the story of Fields life and work. Drawing on Fields papers and manuscripts  he shows us the passion and intellect that fueled Fields talent and the background that gave such bite and edge to his comedy. Curtis shows us  in illuminating detail  just how Fields extraordinary art evolved on the stage in the early part of the twentieth century and how he not only incorporated it into his films  but how it came to define his persona decades later.  He writes of Fields hardscrabble Philadelphia childhood; of his father  a drunken breaker of horses who beat his son; of Fields clever hands that were quick to master stealing and juggling (he took up the latterit allowed him to sleep late); of his years in burlesque and minstrelsy; of his seventeen years in vaudeville  hopping trains early on  living a life half in the theater  half on the lam  making his way into the big time  never satisfied with his act  always working on something newer and more striking. Curtis writes of Fields starring years with the Ziegfeld Follies  finding his voice and his character amid one of the greatest assemblages of comic talent on a single stage (Will Rogers  Eddie Cantor  Fanny Brice  among others); appearing in every Ziegfeld show from 1915 through 1921; of his marriage to a fellow performer  the birth of their son  and their travels together on the Circuit  until Mrs. Fields decided shed had enough and leftthe theater and her marriage. Fields never again loved so deeply.  We see Fields extraordinary work in the movies  both silent pictures in New York (first directed by D. W. Griffith in the starring role in Sally of the Sawdust  which Fields created on Broadway in Poppy) and in the talkies from 1927 to 1945.  Curtis biography narrates the life and the art of the actor James Agee called the toughest and most warmly human of all screen comedians.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44946598199349,"sku":"ByrdShop_0375402179","price":27.77,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780375402173.jpg?v=1769956478","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/w-c-fields-a-biography","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}