
W.C. Fields
Known for ActingBorn 1880-01-29Died 1946-12-25Darby, Pennsylvania, USA
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.Read more
Movies & web series
How to Break 90 #3: Hip Action
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How to Break 90 #3: Hip Action
1933 Β· Movie
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The Potters
1927 Β· Movie
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Hidden Hollywood II: More Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Vaults
1999 Β· Movie
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W.C. Fields: Straight Up
1986 Β· Movie
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Going Hollywood: The '30s
1984 Β· Movie
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Vaudeville
1997 Β· Movie
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Hooray for Hollywood
1976 Β· Movie
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Song of the Open Road
1944 Β· Movie
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W.C. Fields: 6 Short Films
2000 Β· Movie
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Tillie and Gus
1933 Β· Movie
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Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage
1983 Β· Movie
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The Big Parade of Comedy
1964 Β· Movie
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That's Entertainment, Part II
1976 Β· Movie
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The Old-Fashioned Way
1934 Β· Movie
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Down Memory Lane
1949 Β· Movie
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Show-Business at War
1943 Β· Movie
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Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
1941 Β· Movie
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Poppy
1936 Β· Movie
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You Can't Cheat an Honest Man
1939 Β· Movie
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The Movie Orgy
1968 Β· Movie
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Fools for Luck
1928 Β· Movie
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Janice Meredith
1924 Β· Movie
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Mississippi
1935 Β· Movie
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Million Dollar Legs
1932 Β· Movie
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Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
1975 Β· Movie
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So's Your Old Man
1926 Β· Movie
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David Copperfield
1935 Β· Movie
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Sensations of 1945
1944 Β· Movie
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Too Many Highballs
1933 Β· Movie
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Her Majesty, Love
1931 Β· Movie
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If I Had a Million
1932 Β· Movie
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Tales of Manhattan
1942 Β· Movie
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The Bank Dick
1940 Β· Movie
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My Little Chickadee
1940 Β· Movie
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Cavalcade of the Academy Awards
1940 Β· Movie
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Oops, Those Hollywood Bloopers!
1982 Β· Movie
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The Big Broadcast of 1938
1938 Β· Movie
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Tillie's Punctured Romance
1928 Β· Movie
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Running Wild
1927 Β· Movie
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The Barber Shop
1933 Β· Movie
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It's a Gift
1934 Β· Movie
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You're Telling Me!
1934 Β· Movie
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Hollywood Heaven: Tragic Lives, Tragic Deaths
1990 Β· Movie
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Man on the Flying Trapeze
1935 Β· Movie
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Alice in Wonderland
1933 Β· Movie
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Sally of the Sawdust
1925 Β· Movie
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Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch
1934 Β· Movie
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The Fatal Glass of Beer
1933 Β· Movie