At age 17, he was living with his family and performing a juggling act at church and theater shows. He had already discovered in himself a facility for juggling, and a performance he witnessed at a local theater inspired him to dedicate substantial time to perfecting his juggling. įields later embellished stories of his childhood, depicting himself as a runaway who lived by his wits on the streets of Philadelphia from an early age, but his home life is believed to have been reasonably happy. In 1893, he worked briefly at the Strawbridge and Clothier department store, and in an oyster house. At age twelve he worked with his father, selling produce from a wagon, until the two had a fight that resulted in Fields running away once again. His education was sporadic and did not progress beyond grade school. He ran away from home repeatedly, beginning at the age of nine, often to stay with his grandmother or an uncle. Ĭlaude Dukenfield (as he was known) had a volatile relationship with his short-tempered father. After marrying, he worked as an independent produce merchant and a part-time hotel-keeper. The 1876 Philadelphia City Directory lists James Dukenfield as a clerk. Fields's mother, Kate Spangler Felton (1854–1925), was a Protestant of British ancestry.
James Dukenfield served in Company M of the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment in the American Civil War and was wounded in 1863. His father, James Lydon Dukenfield (1841–1913), was from an English family that emigrated from Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, in 1854. Fields by Himself, it was shown that Fields was married (and subsequently estranged from his wife), financially supported their son, and loved his grandchildren.įields was born William Claude Dukenfield in Darby, Pennsylvania, the oldest child of a working-class family. Beginning in 1973, with the publication of Fields's letters, photos, and personal notes in grandson Ronald Fields's book W.
It was maintained by the publicity departments at Fields's studios ( Paramount and Universal) and was further reinforced by Robert Lewis Taylor's 1949 biography W. His film and radio persona was generally identified with Fields himself. His subsequent stage and film roles were often similar scoundrels or henpecked everyman characters.Īmong his trademarks were his raspy drawl and grandiloquent vocabulary. He became a star in the Broadway musical comedy Poppy (1923), in which he played a colorful small-time con man. He began to incorporate comedy into his act and was a featured comedian in the Ziegfeld Follies for several years. Fields's comic persona was a comedically crude and hard-drinking egotist who remained a sympathetic character despite his supposed contempt for children and dogs.įields's career in show business began in vaudeville, where he attained international success as a silent juggler. Fields, was an American actor, comedian, juggler, and writer. William Claude Dukenfield (Janu – December 25, 1946), better known as W.
0 kommentar(er)
