Bibliography & Suggested Reading on W.C. Fields


(Updated 8/30/97)

(Most books listed were consulted in the creation of these W.C. Fields web pages. Those I have yet to read or acquire are marked with an asterisk, *. As an added feature, I am rating and reviewing some of the books to help guide those seeking additional information on Fields. These reviews should be taken only as my humble opinion, and certainly do not reflect the opinions of other Fields fans and scholars.)
(-Kevin Rayburn)

(FYI: Fields himself considered the profile written by Alva Johnston in the August 6, 1938 edition of The Saturday Evening Post to have been the best biographical piece.)

Special thanks to those who sent in magazine articles I'd previously not read.-(KR)-



Cursory mention of Fields; nothing earthshaking enough to hunt for.
Includes some interesting insights or useful information on Fields.
A solid, informative book on Fields.
A book with unique information not found elsewhere and valuable for Fields scholars.
A book that is both insightful, informative, and fun to read.



Books


Fields/Biographies and Studies:

Man on the Flying Trapeze: the Life and Times of W.C. Fields; by Simon Louvish; W.W. Norton, New York; Faber & Faber, London, 1997.
This is a brand new biography that boldly, if not always successfully, attempts to deflate many Fieldsian myths. The best attempt yet to find the "real Fields." (Full review to come.)

W.C. Fields By Himself: His Intended Autobiography; edited by Ronald J. Fields; Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1973, 510 p.
Fields had promised a publisher for years that he'd write an autobiography, but the star was always too preoccupied and disorganized to sit still for such a chore, and the tome never materialized. One suspects that had it ever been penned, it would have been a cross between the ramblings of Fields for President and the somewhat mythologized narrative of Robert Lewis Taylor's W.C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes. I doubt that it would have turned out at all like W.C. Fields: By Himself, subtitled "His Intended Autobiography," by the book's primary author and editor, Ronald J. Fields, the star's grandson. To his credit, the Fields descendent tries as much as possible to go to the horse's mouth, publishing many of Fields interesting personal letters, and seeking to de-mythologize some of the star's own Horatio Alger inflations through the oral histories of actual family members. The most impressive bit of scholarship was the verification of Fields' birthdate as 1880, not 1879 as all the other books have stated ad nauseum. The book is a treasure trove of cobbled goodies--original radio scripts, newspaper cartoons drawn by Fields, previously unpublished family photos from Fields' earliest juggling days, bills and prop lists, and those sometimes nasty, bitter letters Fields wrote to his estranged wife. Also presented is the softer and fluffier side of Fields, the kindly grandfather, and the gracious charmer. As an attempt to soften Fields, I'm afraid it fails to convince me, but as a collection of stuff rescued from the basement, it's irresistible.

W.C. Fields: A Life on Film; by Ronald J. Fields; St. Martin's Press; New York, 1984, 256 p.
Fields' grandson Ronald entered the coffee table cinema book fray with this worthy attempt. It's nicely and liberally illustrated, with useful film plot summaries, and some good behind-the-scenes tidbits on the production of each of the films. There's also valuable insight into the autobiographical, personal nature of many of Fields' movies. Many of the quotations, strangely, aren't quite exactly how they're spoken in the films. This is a nice film companion, but not as insightful in its analyses as some other tomes.

W.C. Fields and Me; by Carlotta Monti with Cy Rice; Prentice-Hall Inc. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1971.
A classic kiss-and-tell autobiography, ostensibly about Monti but really about Fields. I dare you to even try and put this juicy, gossipy thing down. The Fields estate has feuded with Monti in the past over her motives in regards to Fields (they think she's a gold digger lacking credibility), but the problem is that she was there in Fields' inner circle, and she was a secretary who took shorthand dictation--with the result being that some of Fields' most wonderful quotations (about the Bible and other matters) have been preserved for all our delight (or horror). The stories of Fields' daily doings at home and on the road are priceless, and seem to jibe with what most chroniclers gleaned about this most complex of men.

W. C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes; by Robert Lewis Taylor; (this title has been printed by several publishers, beginning with the 1949 version published by Doubleday & Co., Inc.); St. Martin's Press, New York, 1949, 1967. Also: New American Library, Signet Books, New York, 1967, 286 p.
Time, and the scholarship of Ronald J. Fields, have tarnished the glimmer of this classic Fields biography a tad. It's oversimplified, a bit old-fashioned in style, and heavily dependent on some of Fields' own suspect reminiscences, but it's also a valuable record of what some of Fields companions from the 1930s and 1940s knew about and thought of the man. Taylor's narrative skill--giving us bits here and there, creating suspense, and picking up threads later in the book--is formidable, and this is a fun book to read.

The Art of W.C. Fields; by William K. Everson; Bobbs-Merrill; Indianapolis, 1967; 232 p.
The late Dr. Everson was one of the country's most influential and accomplished cinema historians, particularly in his studies of the silent era. Very few attempts since have come close to matching the insight Everson gleans in his analysis of the Fields films as presented in this classic study. Although an academe, Everson had the good sense to keep his analyses readable, thankfully avoiding the tendency of scholars to veer into overintellectualized, dense prose. Everson, unlike most authors, adds refreshing context about general cinema trends that tie into the films being analyzed. This is a great companion to Fields' film canon.

The Films of W.C. Fields; by Donald Deschner, introduction by Arthur Knight; Citadel Press; New York, 1966, 192 p.
Deschner beat everyone to the punch with this liberally illustrated, big-type-and-white-space coffee-table film companion. The opening essay by Arthur Knight nicely sums up the comedian's philosophy and comic obsessions, and some vintage articles by Fields himself are re-published here in support. The standard opening bio, with most of the usual inaccuracies, is here too. The rest of the book has great photos, but is facile in its presentation: plot summaries and film critics' reviews make up the primary text. Not quite as essential a book as it once was, now that the field is more crowded.

A Flask of Fields: Verbal and Visual Gems from the Films of W.C. Fields; by Richard J. Anobile, introduction by Judith Crist; Darien House, distr. by Norton; New York, 1972, 272 p.
Review to come.

Groucho and W.C. Fields: Huckster Comedians; by Wes D. Gehring; University of Mississippi Press, Jackson, Miss.; 1994, 196 p.
A tour de force of cinema analysis, Gehring has taken a microscope to the films of these two great comedians and found some astonishing points of comparison. Problem is, this study is so detailed and exhausting that the reading is exhausting. Many of the insights are excellent, but some are strained and overintellectualized. For attempting such an ambitious project, and for hitting the mark with many original observations, this book is recommended.




Other Books on Fields:


*Drat! Being the Encapsulated View of Life, by W.C. Fields in His Own Words ; by Richard J. Anobile, introduction by Ed McMahon; World Publishing Co.; New York, 1968, 128 p.

*Fields for President; by W.C. Fields; Dodd, Mead; New York; 1940, 1971 (edition with commentary by Michael M. Taylor); 163 p.

*Minutes of the Last Meeting; by Gene Fowler; Viking Press; New York; 1951.

*W.C. Fields, a Bio-Bibliography; by Wes D. Gehring; Greenwood Press; Westport, Connecticut; 1984; 233 p.

*W.C. Fields--An Annotated Guide; by David T. Rocks; McFarland; Jefferson, N.C.; 1993; 131 p.


Related Biographical Works (with substantial references to Fields):


Lulu in Hollywood; by Louise Brooks (introduction by William Shawn; Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York, 1974, 1982, 109 p.
Brooks was not just one of the loveliest women ever graven on celluloid, she was a splendid writer, with the rare talent of making history come alive through deep personal portraits of complex movie stars, such as Fields, Humphrey Bogart, and others she met during her days inside and outside the nerve center of Hollywood in its golden age. Her essay on Fields is one of the most original ever written, and has the credibility of her first-hand contact with the man (on the stage of the Ziegfeld Follies and in the film It's the Old Army Game). Her skewering of typical Fields historians--who emphasize the misanthropic Fields--and sycophants (which I suppose includes me) is deliciously venomous and well taken. On the other hand, her softening of Fields goes a bit too far in the other direction (he was very charming to beautiful women). Where she succeeds is in probing Fields' tortured psyche, something too few scholars have adequately attempted. All the star portraits in the book are irresistible, and this is a cornerstone book for any complete cinema collection.

Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It (The Autobiography of Mae West) ; by Mae West; Mcfadden-Bartell, New York, 1970, 288
Has a few tidbits about Fields on the set of My Little Chickadee.

The Wit and Wisdom of Mae West; edited by Joseph Weintraub; G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1967, 92 p. (Also published by Berkley Pub. Corp., New York, 1977).


Mae West: A Biography; by George Eells and Stanley Musgrove; William Morrow and Co. Inc, New York, 1982, 351 p.

This is Orson Welles; by Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich; Jonathan Rosenbaum, ed.; Harper Collins, New York, 1992.
(A series of interviews with Welles conducted during the course of two decades by Bogdanovich, this book does not really have "substantial" references to Fields but does contain Welles' brief, revealing assessments of several film comics, including Fields. Relevant quotes are on page 38.-(KR)-

*The Second Handshake; by Will Fowler; L. Stuart, Secaucus, N.J., 1980.
(A biography of Gene Fowler, Will's father, an author and friend of Fields.)


Film Comedy and American Humor; General Titles:

The Great Movie Shorts; by Leonard Maltin; Crown Publishers, Bonanza Books, New York 1972. (This book was reprinted as: The Great Movie Shorts: Selected Short Subjects: From Spanky to the Three Stooges; Da Capo Press, New York,1983. 236 p.)
Not only a fine, well-illustrated look at Fields' short films, but a comprehensive overview of the films of many other comic masters of the golden age. Filled with useful filmographies and exhaustively researched entries--with practically every significant and insignificant comic short screened and assessed--this was a book that filled a major gap in popular film studies.

The Great Movie Comedians: From Charlie Chaplin to Woody Allen; by Leonard Maltin; Crown Publishers, New York, 1978, 238 p. (Also: Harmony Books, New York, 1982).

The Golden Age of Sound Comedy: Comic Films and Comedians of the Thirties; by Donald W. McCaffrey; A.S. Barnes and Co., Inc., South Brunswick, N.J., 1973, 208 p.
McCaffrey's book had a good analysis of Fields' humor, and is most memorable for a blow-by-blow account of the famous "Karl LaFong" back porch sequence in It's a Gift.

Movie Comedians: The Complete Guide; by James L. Niebaur; McFarland & Co. Inc., North Carolina/London, 1986.
Standard collection of star biographies and film rundowns.

The Hollywood that Was; by Don Marlowe; Branch-Smith; Fort Worth, Texas, 1969, 189 p.

The Rise and Fall of American Humor; by Jesse Bier; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1968.
Ambitious academic attempt to trace the traditional currents running though American comedy in entertainment and literature from the republic's earliest days to the TV age. Sometimes on the dense academic side, but Bier's observances on Fields are often quite original.

America's Humor by Walter Blair and Hamlin Hill; Oxford University Press, New York, 1978.

The Film Criticism of Otis Ferguson; edited by Robert Wilson; foreword by Andrew Sarris; Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1971, 475 p.
Ferguson was a longtime, contemporary champion of W.C. Fields, and, for better or worse, was the grandaddy of the dense, cross-disciplinary style of personal film criticism that came of age in the 1960s with Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris and others. His reviews of Fields' movies were sometimes incisive, sometimes exasperatingly over-the-top, but were always sympathetic to the rebellious streak in Fields at a time of stifling Hollywood conformity.

Hollywood Wits, edited by K. Madsen Roth; Avon Books, New York, 1995, 234 p.

Who Was Who in the Theatre: 1912-1976, Vol. 2; Omnigraphics; Gale Research Co., Detroit, 1978. From past editions by Pitman Publishing Ltd., London, 1961, 1967, and 1972.

Who's Who in Comedy: Comedians, Comics, and Clowns from Vaudeville to Today's Stand Ups, by Ronald L. Smith, Facts on File, New York, Oxford, 1992, p. 160-162.

Famous Actors and Actresses of the American Stage: Documents of American Theater History by William C. Young; Vol. 1, A-J; R.R. Bowker Co.; New York & London, 1975, p 362-369.

*American Humor: A Study of the National Character by Constance Rourke; Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1953/1931, 253 p.
(Fields fan Loren Schoenberg informs us that the book is still in print, published by the Florida State University Press, Tallahassee. The relevant chapter, on Fields, is titled, "Comic Poet.")-(-KR-)

The Movie That Changed My Life;, edited by David I. Rosenberg; Viking Penguin, 1991, New York.
This is an omnibus collection of movie memories by eminent scholars, writers, etc. The relevant chapter here, "The Fatal Glass of Beer: W.C. Fields as Master of the Aesthetics of Being Outraged" (by Yale's Harold Bloom), is almost as pretentious as its title. Dr. Bloom may think me a product of dumbed-down public education (and he would be correct), but his scholarly mind has failed to recognize that at some point the analysis has to have an endpoint. Many of the things he sees in Fields humor would have been news to Fields. Overintellectualized almost to the point of being arbitrary and irrational, it is, nonetheless, an affectionate, highly personal analysis of the Fieldsian universe, and Dr. Bloom does hit the mark now and again.

Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself, Michael J. Rosen, ed.; Harper & Row, New York, 1989.
(Thurber's views on humor in the American theater are found in the article, "The Quality of Mirth" on page 201 of this collection. The article begins with a reference to Fields.)-(KR)-


General Reference:

Entry on W.C. Fields in the Funk & Wagnall's Encyclopedia; 19 .

American Literary Anecdotes by Robert Hendrickson; Facts on File, New York/Oxford/Sydney, 1990.

Hollywood Anecdotes by Paul F. Boller; Morrow; New York, 1987.

2,500 Anecdotes for All Occasions, edited by Edmund Fuller; Avenel Books, New York, 1980.

Hollywood Merry-Go-Round by Andrew Hecht; Grosset & Dunlap; New York, 1947.

The Executive's Book of Quotations, compiled by Julia Vitullo Martin and Robert J. Moskin, page 111, as found in Movie Talk.

A Treasury of Humorous Quotations by Herbert V. Prochnow and Herbert V. Prochnow Jr.; Harper & Row, New York, 1969.

Famous Personalities and Their Philosophies; by Mildred Moore; The Millimore Press; 1940.

Humorous Anecdotes About Famous People by Lewis C. Henly; Halcyon House, New York, 1948.


Periodicals and Newspapers:

"Milking an Elk," by Robert Mazzocco, The New York Review, November 30, 1995.
(This is one of the few recent magazine pieces written about Fields, and it ranks as one of the best. An astute summary and analysis of Fields' career. Highly recommended.) (-KR-)

"Bill Fields Disliked His Label, So He Laughed It Off," by Mary B. Mullett; American Magazine, January 1926, page 18.

"Anything for a Laugh" by W.C. Fields, American Magazine, September 1934, page 73.

"W.C. Fields" by J.B. Priestley, The Atlantic Monthly, March 1947, page 43.

"Loneliest Man in the Movies" by Harold Cary, Collier's, November 28, 1925, page 26.

"W.C. Fields: The Red-Nosed, Raspy Voiced Funnyman, Who Never Gave a Sucker an Even Break, Dies on Christmas Day," Life, January 6, 1947, page 63.

"'Sleigh Bells Give Me Double Nausea,'" by Will Fowler, Life, December 15, 1972.

"How the Films Fought Shy of Bill Fields," The Literary Digest, February 20, 1926, page 52.

"W.C. Fields and the Cosmos," by Heywood Broun, The Nation, January 7, 1931, page 24.

"Pompous Bluff, the Genial Fraud," The Nation, January 4, 1947.

"The Confidence Man" (analysis of Fields and a review of the book The Art of W.C. Fields by William K. Everson) by Hugh Kenner, National Review, April 23, 1968.

"The Great McGonigle" by Otis Ferguson, The New Republic, August 21, 1935, page 48.

The New York Times; (various sources from 1923-1928), including "The Comic Mr. Fields" (a profile); Sept. 9, 1923; and "'Poppy' is Charming" (a review), Sept. 4, 1923.

"Fields-eye View of Things" New York Times Magazine, April 24, 1964, page 117.

"Dark Geography of W.C. Fields" New York Times Magazine, April 24, 1966, page 32.

"Local Man" The New Yorker, January 25, 1947, page 18.

"Rogue's Progress" Newsweek, January 6, 1947, page 19.

"Ghosts of W.C. Fields," Newsweek, September 10 (??), 1951, page 28.

"The Great Debunker" by Paul D. Zimmerman, Newsweek, April 3, 1967, page 88.

"The Human Side of Fields" (a review of the book W.C. Fields by Himself), Newsweek, June 4, 1973, page 97.

"Who Knows What is Funny?" by Alva Johnston, The Saturday Evening Post, August 6, 1938, page 10.

"Funny-man Fields," by Dale Carnegie, Scholastic, October 9, 1937, page (??).

"From Boy Juggler to Star Comedian" by W.C. Fields, Theatre magazine, October 1928.

"Gentle Grifter," Time, January 6, 1947, page 54.

"The Gentleman Speaks His Mind," by Dudley Early, The Family Circle, April 8, 1938, page 10.

Other sources

AND, of course, the films. CLICK on the pic to go to the Fields filmography.

Also:

Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Sometimes Zeppo: A History of the Marx Brothers and a Satire on the Rest of the World by Joe Adamson; Simon & Schuster Inc. Pocket Books, New York, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1983, and 1987. (Possibly the greatest book ever written about film comedy and film comedians; this is included more as an overview of what Adamson calls "the heroic era of comedy," with some brief references to Fields. As a biography of film comedians, in this case the Marxes, it is unequalled in its depth and analysis. And it's FUN to read.)

FOOTNOTE:

*These books were not available to the author of these pages, so they were not consulted as sources.

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