W.C. Fields
Biografia
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.
Filmografia
Filmy i seriale od najnowszych
The Great Man: W.C. Fields
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W.C. Fields: 6 Short Films
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Hidden Hollywood II: More Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Vaults
Film • 1999
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Vaudeville
Film • 1997
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The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender
Film • 1997
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Mae West and the Men Who Knew Her
Film • 1994
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Hollywood Heaven: Tragic Lives, Tragic Deaths
Film • 1990
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W.C. Fields: Straight Up
Film • 1986
Going Hollywood: The '30s
Film • 1984
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Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage
Film • 1983
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Wogan
Serial • 1982
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Oops, Those Hollywood Bloopers!
Film • 1982
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The Hollywood Clowns
Film • 1979
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That's Entertainment, Part II
Film • 1976
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Hooray for Hollywood
Film • 1976
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Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
Film • 1975
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The Movie Orgy
Film • 1968
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The Big Parade of Comedy
Film • 1964
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Down Memory Lane
Film • 1949
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Sensations of 1945
Film • 1944
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Song of the Open Road
Film • 1944
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Follow the Boys
Film • 1944
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Show-Business at War
Film • 1943
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Tales of Manhattan
Film • 1942
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Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
Film • 1941
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The Bank Dick
Film • 1940
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Cavalcade of the Academy Awards
Film • 1940
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My Little Chickadee
Film • 1940
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You Can't Cheat an Honest Man
Film • 1939
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The Big Broadcast of 1938
Film • 1938
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Poppy
Film • 1936
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Man on the Flying Trapeze
Film • 1935
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Mississippi
Film • 1935
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Dawid Copperfield
Film • 1935
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It's a Gift
Film • 1934
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Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch
Film • 1934
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The Old-Fashioned Way
Film • 1934
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Hollywood on Parade No. B-10
Film • 1934
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You're Telling Me!
Film • 1934
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Six of a Kind
Film • 1934
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Alice in Wonderland
Film • 1933
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Tillie and Gus
Film • 1933
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The Barber Shop
Film • 1933
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How to Break 90 #3: Hip Action
Film • 1933
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International House
Film • 1933
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The Pharmacist
Film • 1933
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The Fatal Glass of Beer
Film • 1933
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The Dentist
Film • 1932
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Gdybym miał milion
Film • 1932
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Million Dollar Legs
Film • 1932
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Her Majesty, Love
Film • 1931
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The Golf Specialist
Film • 1930
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Fools for Luck
Film • 1928
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Tillie's Punctured Romance
Film • 1928
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The Circus: Premiere
Film • 1928
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Two Flaming Youths
Film • 1927
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Running Wild
Film • 1927
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The Potters
Film • 1927
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So's Your Old Man
Film • 1926
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It's the Old Army Game
Film • 1926
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That Royle Girl
Film • 1925
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Sally of the Sawdust
Film • 1925
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Janice Meredith
Film • 1924
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Pool Sharks
Film • 1915
Marlene Dietrich: Home Movies
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