© by Howard Tyson. Used by permission. Comments to Jhtysoniii@aol.com
Although W. C. Fields poked fun at
William Claude Dukenfield
was probably born in Darby (
According to Betty Shell, archivist for the Darby Free Library Co., some
local residents believe W. C. Fields was born in the Arlington Hotel, 7th
& Main Sts., which burned down years ago.
Others claim the blessed event took place at The Buttonwood Hotel (9th
& Main Sts.,) later called The National, which was torn down in the
1970’s. The third large hotel in Darby
was The Blue Bell Inn at Cobbs Creek & Main St.,
the closest of the three to the Dukenfields’
apartment at
James Dukenfield was born in
The 1860 census enumerates the family as
follows: John Duckenfield,
50, Combmaker, 19th Ward (near Front &
Norris Sts.), born in England, Ann, Wife, 44, Walter 25, Combmaker,
John 23, Bricklayer, Edmund 21, Bricklayer, Farris (?) 20, Peddler, George 18,
Weaver, Clara 16, Arthur, 14, Aspen (?) 11, Mary 8, and Godfrey 5. W. C.’s 19 year old
father James is not on the census sheet.
1861 John Duckenfield, Combmaker,
Norris E. of Front
“ “ “ & Ann, Trimmings Store, Same Address
1865 “ “ Tavern, 510 E. Norris St.
1868 Ann Duckenfield,
Liquors,
(The John Duckenfield who had a bar at 135 Dauphin St. in the early
1870’s was James’ older brother John Duckenfield Jr.,
the former bricklayer.)
James and George Duckenfield
joined the PA 72nd Regiment on
The 1870 census lists Ann Duckenfield, who gave her age as 49, in the 19th
Ward (5th & Norris Sts.) as an innkeeper with household
residents Alfred 21, Huckster, Godfrey 15, Huckster, and Mary 17. John Duckenfield passed away about a
year after his 26 year old son Edmund’s death, which occurred on
On
Kate’s father, Thomas Felton, was a pumpmaker who lived at 6th & York Sts.
(1855,) Manor (near
James Dukenfield
did not stay long in southwest
…1840 or 1841 James Duckenfield, born Feb. 16, (1840 or 1841,)
…1854 Emigrated with family to
…1861 James Duckenfield, Driver, Norris E. of Front,
Enlisted in 72nd Regiment of Union
Army with brother George on
…1862 Shot in hand
at
…1863 Lived at
recovering
from Civil War wounds.
…1866 Death of 26 year old brother Edmund
(February 7, 1866.)
…1867 (Approx.) Death of father
John Duckenfield.
…1870 James Duckenfield, Huckster, 19th Ward, (1870 Census)
near
4th & Diamond Sts.
…1873 “ “ Salesman, 3rd &
Diamond Sts.
…1875 “ “ Bartender, 2132 Market St.
…1876 “ “ Clerk, 270 Diamond St.
…1879 Married Kate
Spangler Felton on
Episcopal
Church, 8th &
…1880 James Dukenfield, Hotelkeeper, 64th &
Birth of son William Claude Dukenfield
…1882 “ “ Provisions, 2552
(
…1883 “ “ Bartender, “
“
…1884 “ “ “
(S. Louvish includes
…1886 Birth of daughter Elsie May (
…1888 “ “ Driver, “ “ Birth of
daughter Adele
(September 21, 1888.)
…1889 “ “ Huckster, 2803
…1893 “ “ Huckster, 92 Goodman St. (11th &
…1895 “ “ “ Birth of son Leroy (
…1897 “ “ “ 25 Rising Sun Lane (12th
&
…1898 “ “ Produce,
…1902 “ “ Salesman, “
“
…1904 Traveled to
…1905 “ “ Produce, 615 Pike St.
…1906 “ “ Huckster, 3923 N.
…1910 “ “ Retired, 3923 N.
…1913 “ “ “ “
“ “
(He died of cancer
on
The 1914 City
Directory states Kate, widow of James,
Friends called young Claude Dukenfield “Whitey” because of his light blonde hair. He probably attended
W. C. Fields was a self-educated man, who
avidly read Charles Dickens, Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, William Shakespeare,
and others. While on the road, he always
carried a trunk-full of classics with him.
Although intelligent and well-read, he did not advance beyond the 4th
grade in school. From the age of 10 he
helped out with his father’s produce business, occasionally shouting out
“rutabagas!” “artichokes!” or “pomegranates!” even
though his father had none. James Dukenfield seems to have had both a stand, and a wagon
pulled by a horse named “White Swan.” At
one time he also owned a thoroughbred, which he never raced. According to Leroy Dukenfield,
The Valley Green Inn at that time offered a bottle of
The produce business did not intrigue
Whitey, so when the boy turned 13 Grandmother Ann Felton steered him to a job
as counter boy in a cigar store. The
shop sold only 3 cent cigars, but the boss instructed him to accept nickels
from patrons desiring a 5 cent cigar on the grounds that “the customer is
always right.” After falling asleep at
the counter one night, knocking over a kerosene lamp, and nearly catching
himself and the store on fire, Claude ended his career as a tobacconist in 1893
and applied to Strawbridge & Clothier’s department store as a “cash boy”
for a weekly salary of $2. Strawbridge’s
required him to replenish cash registers with change. He had to fight a nagging temptation to
sprint out the door with the till.
Whitey soon became bored with the routine, and tried to get fired by
intentionally falling through a skylight.
Worried about a lawsuit, the Quaker management not only retained Dukenfield, but gave him a raise.
Claude quit Strawbridge’s after three
months. His antics may have induced the
company to install a pneumatic tube system for transferring cash throughout the
store. He ended up back at James Dukenfield’s produce stand, where he often seemed more of a
liability than a help. Ever since seeing
the Byrne Brothers (dressed as clowns) juggle in a circus performance, he
practiced tossing and catching apples, oranges, and sickle pears. “By the time I could keep two oranges going,
I’d ruined $40. worth of fruit.” (Robert Lewis Taylor, p.
16.) He ate most of his
mistakes. James Dukenfield
frequently reprimanded and sometimes smacked his son for these
shenanigans. One day in the spring of
1894 he caught “Whitey” juggling and stepped on a rake the boy had left in the
aisle, knocking himself upside the head before he could launch into a
tirade. Claude failed to stifle a smirk
and got chased down the street by his furious, rake-wielding father. “My father, unfortunately, lost his poise and
angrily pursued me. Finding that he
could not catch me, he shouted through the balmy air that I was never to
return.” (Smart, p. 7.)
The runaway story comprises an integral part
of the “Whitey Myth.” It contains both
fact and fiction. Over the years the
comedian told different versions to various people. The one related to Alva Johnston in 1935 has
it that James stepped on a shovel, barked his shin, then
struck 14 year old Claude on the shoulder blade with the shovel. A short time later the resentful boy climbed
onto the storeroom loft, dropped a lug box onto his father’s head, exited from
a second story window, and ran off to join a traveling carnival, where he took
care of elephants and learned to juggle.
Fields’ sister Adele Dukenfield Smith
dismissed both the assault on her father and the carnival tale as apocryphal,
adding: “father was very strict. W.C. and Walter used to needle him
mercilessly to get his goat, but it was all for fun. We all respected and loved our parents.” (R. Fields p. 12)
Claude did run away from home for several
weeks, perhaps months, but never strayed far from his own neighborhood. As a young fugitive he first slept in a
“dug-out”—that is, a hole in a field covered by boards. His friends brought him food pilfered from
their mothers’ pantries. He made up the
difference by shoplifting and soliciting hand-outs from Kate during his
father’s absences. The fort’s roof
leaked and his friends’ care packages soon ceased. During inclement weather Claude slept at
Grandmother Ann Felton’s house (921 Sterner St.), Uncle William Felton’s house
(1153 Venango St.), the cellar of a neighbor (with a broken window he could
crawl through,) the backroom of a saloon, “Pothead” Edwards’ basement, on a
billiard table in a pool hall, and “The Orlando Social Club”—a vacant second
floor space above a blacksmith’s forge at 11th & Ontario, which he and his
buddies used as a hideout. Claude often
returned home during the day to visit his mother, get a bite to eat, and
perhaps bum a few cents for the road.
Once he strolled in the house, almost bumped into his father, quickly
swiped a packed lunch from the parlor table, and ran out the door.
It seems that W.C. often embellished stories
in his later years, especially when in his cups. Over cocktails in a Hollywood restaurant
Fields confessed the robbery of a Chinese laundry to Alva Johnston of The New
Yorker. This store had a bell on the
door to alert its proprietor when a customer entered. “Whitey” devised a plan to foil this
alarm. He had an accomplice stand in the
middle of the trolley tracks outside the shop.
When the streetcar driver loudly rang his bells at the boy, “Whitey” dashed
in, grabbed cash from the drawer, and fled.
A similar strategy was employed to steal lemon meringue pies from a
bakery. Young Dukenfield
could not have avoided Eastern Penitentiary if he actually perpetrated all the
thefts later described to
In 1935 Fields told Alva Johnston that his
life as a tramp taught him that the lower orders of humanity enjoyed kicking
those down on their luck. He got into
more of his share of fights simply because of his lowly status as a
“street-person.” Though 14 year old Dukenfield could hold his own in fights, a nineteen year
old sailor on leave from the Navy once beat him severely. The combination of sleeping outside in cold
weather and frequently getting punched in the face gave Fields nasal problems,
which aggravated the alcohol-induced nose-swelling of later years.
At this time Claude became a habitué of bars
which offered free buffet lunches. He’d
buy a nickel glass of ginger ale, then eat pickled
herring, hardboiled eggs, bread, salad, cheese, pretzels, sausages, and
anything else he could snatch. This
practice rapidly wore out his welcome in the pubs along
How long this homeless period lasted must
remain a subject for speculation. It
seems that he spent between six weeks and four months on the lam during the
spring and summer of 1894, but never left
After a few months of washing dishes and
lugging fetid ashcans full of oyster shells around
(c. 1895,) Whitey left the mollusk emporium and secured more congenial
employment in a billiard hall, where he supplemented his income by
hustling. Here he expanded his repetoire to include trick pool shots, and balancing stunts
with cue sticks and cigars. In his 40’s
and 50’s Fields retained the hustler mentality when he played handball, tennis,
and golf for money with
Whitey always had superior athletic
ability. He ran fast, boxed cannily,
and effortlessly smashed hard line drives with a baseball bat. His hand-eye coordination
bordered on the phenomenal. He
now juggled teacups, hats, Indian clubs, fruit, billiard balls, frying pans,
golf balls, and almost anything else you could grab with a hand. To get tennis balls for juggling, Whitey, jumped on the back of the
Kate Dukenfield
and Grandmother Ann Felton regarded the pool room as a hangout for low-lifes, and persuaded Claude to take a job on “one of the
leading ice wagons in Philadelphia,” (Smart, p. 10) as assistant to proprietor
Andy Donaldson (address: 2935 N. 11th St.) Fields may have developed his hearty
dislike for dogs as an ice delivery boy in 1896. Fields later reminisced: “Strange are the furbelows of destiny. My superior on the ice wagon was a juggling
enthusiast. After teaching him to juggle
the accounts, I remained with him for two years…” (Smart p. 11)
Andy Donaldson apparently introduced Whitey
to 27 year old Reading Railroad clerk Bill Dailey (address:
Young Dukenfield now realized that the 9-to-5
working world held no attraction for him.
“I was always a lazy boy (and) hated to get up and go to school. I loved to stay in bed. The thought of having to work for a living
filled me with horror… The stage
appealed to me at once…” (Ronald Fields, p. 6)
In 1896 Bill Dailey became his agent.
“Whitey” played his first engagement at a
Fields claimed to have acted as a shill for part-time thimble-rig Bill
Dailey. One early Saturday morning in
October, 1896 the pair snatched bread, butter, and milk from doorsteps for
breakfast, (as well as newspapers for edification), hopped a
freight to
Better gigs were to come. Dailey booked him at Bately
Hall (
In August, 1898 a small theatrical company
held auditions in
Fields regularly visited his family in
On his first tour in the fall of 1898 young
W. C. Dukenfield traveled for three months on the
circuit, playing in
This initial adventure on the vaudeville
circuit was not without its bumps.
Whitey had signed on for $18. per week, but
often did not get paid. Right before
Christmas the manager absconded with the show’s receipts in
Because of his hard-knock youth and bitter
experiences with show-biz crooks, W. C. Fields always drove a hard bargain with
producers, agents, and managers. When
audience attendance increased, he’d demand a raise. If an impresario offered
him $50. a week, he’d insist on $100. He was unpredictable in money matters: alternately cheap and generous, according to
no discernible pattern.
Even at age 20 Whitey didn’t trust
banks. He bought $210. worth of gold pieces in
(Taylor, p. 71)
After the
While on tour with the Orpheum Circuit,
Claude fell in love with
The 1902 Philadelphia City Directory records
W. C. Fields as “Claude Dukenfield, Actor,
Hattie became his assistant in the juggling
act until 1904 when their son Claude was born.
Although happy at first, this marriage did not last. Hattie wanted him to settle down in one
place, but he simply could not. Long
periods on the road in the company of beautiful chorus girls finally took their
toll. W. C. & Hattie split up for
good in 1907. He faithfully sent her
money for the rest of his life and she inherited the bulk of his $771,000. estate. Other women
in Fields’ life were Ziegfeld girls Grace George,
Bessie Poole, Linelle Blackburn, Fay Adler, and
Mexican actress Carlotta Monti.
The rift between W. C. Fields and his father
had healed by 1899. Fields invited his
parents to
Fields’ career had three stages, which sometimes overlapped. He toured the world between 1903 and 1914, juggling before
several crowned heads of
Fields had grown weary of
vaudeville juggling by 1914, and wanted to branch out into comedy acting. When
W. C. soon signed with the Ziegfeld
Follies. He juggled and did comedy
skits, such as “A Game of Golf,” “A Metropolitan Tube Station,”and “The
Fields became disenchanted with the
Widely viewed as a has-been, Fields received no offers for 18
months. Finally, he prevailed upon Mack Sennett, who hired him to make some comedy shorts,
including classics such as “The Dentist” (released Dec. 9, 1932,) “The Barber,”
and “The Pharmacist.”
Following the success of the Sennett shorts,
he became a leading comic actor for
“Y-a-a-s,” replied the
politician, “why not find him yourself?”
Opponent (and drinking companion) James H. Lewis, once attacked Penrose
on the senate floor over the tariff question.
Reporters asked him whether he and Lewis were still friends. “Y-a-as, after dark.” James Smart theorizes that Claude also imitated
his father’s huckster calls:
“Watermelons! Red ripe
tomatoes! Sweet Sugar Corn! He drew out each vowel, prolonged each
syllable…” (Smart, p. 3) Of course, several Fields’ movie characters (Garry Gilfoil, Eustace McGargle,
Cuthbert Twillie, Larson E. Whipsnade) were charlatans of the P. T. Barnum stamp, who
spoke in the melodramatic style of 19th century ham actors.
“Last week I went to
“In
“Anyone smiling
after curfew in
After beholding a
bad publicity photo of himself as a tramp juggler he commented: “This kind of thing might get back to
Proposed
epitaph: “Here lies W. C. Fields. I would rather be living in
“A woman dropping a glove on a
street in
Five funny minutes
of My Little Chickadee: Cuthbert
J. Twillie cuts the deck at a table in a western
saloon. A rube (Fuzzy Knight) asks: “Is this a game of chance?” Twillie: “Not the way I play it.” The cowboys catch him cheating. Twillie inquires: “Do you know where I might purchase a book of
rules?” In a later scene a mob drags him
out to a gallows, under suspicion of being the masked bandit. With the rope around his neck he states: “This will be a great lesson to me.” They ask him if he has any last
requests: “I’d like to see
In his letters to
Mr. Thos. A. Hunt,
Dear friend Tom:
I was glad to get
your letter and to know that you were well,
and to also know that you listened to the
broadcast a couple
of Sundays ago.
You wrote me some
while back, telling me you were slightly
financially distressed but I was not hitting on all
cylinders at
the time myself, but have since garnered a few
elusive kopeks
and am enclosing you a check for $25. in case you can use it.
I have never
forgotten the old days at the Orlando Social Club,
over Mr. Wright’s wheelwright shop. . . up at the
shady trees,
when you had me elected janitor without dues;
when I slept
in the back room on an improvised bed made by
removing
one of the doors and using several bags of hay
to pinch hit
for a box-springs mattress. Those were the happy days. Of
all my friends—Eddie Tishner,
Jack Sparks, Charlie Tishner,
Dick Gamble, Martin
Quinn, the Kanes, the McCaffreys,
the
Garrs, Eddie Roach, Feet Leibie,
etc.—you are the most vivid
in my memory.
I hope you are well
and happy.
Sincerely, your old
tramp friend,
“Whitey”
One of the heirs in Fields’ will
was: “Mabel Roach, a life-long friend,
now residing at 1931
Grudging praise from
Caesar: Fields once admitted to
drinking companion Gene Fowler that
Police arrested
Fields several times in his younger days:
c. March, 1901 for punching a bobby in
c. May, 1901 in
c. May, 1902, for racing a bicycle down
c. June, 1903 for fighting in an
Australian pub. “I was defending a dame
whose virtue was impugned… and may have been a little hasty.”
c.
April, 1905 for throwing
an “overripe bockwurst” on the floor of a restaurant
in
c.
September, 1928 in
Fields rated
More Fields movie character
names: Augustus Winterbottom,
Harold Bissonette, Chester Snavely,
Elmer Finch, Samuel Bisbee, Effingham Bellweather,
and Egbert Souse (pronounced “Soosay.”) Historian James Smart notes that several of
Fields’ characters’ surnames derive from Philadelphia families, including Bogle, Wolfinger, Muckle, Hoffnagle, Bensinger, Twillie (proper
spelling Twilley,) Ogilby,
Dunk, and McGonigle.
.
A Fields Sampler
“A rich man is
nothing but a poor man with money.”
On life: “A man’s lucky if he gets out of it alive.”
On
“My family was poor,
but dishonest.”
“
“It used to be the
idle rich we had to contend with, now it’s the idle poor.”
“I am free of all
prejudice. I hate everyone equally.”
“Everything I like
is either immoral, illegal, or fattening.”
“I never drink
anything stronger than gin before breakfast.”
In Never Give a
Sucker an Even Break a rock from an avalanche hits Fields in the head. His movie niece Gloria runs over to his
supine form and asks if he is injured.
“No. How could a rock falling
10,000 feet possibly hurt anyone?”
While doing a comedy
sketch on stage with Fields a pretty actress inadvertently knocked down a
scenery backdrop with houses painted on it.
Fields quipped: “They sure don’t
build…houses the way they used to.”
In a cranky mood one
day, Fields told friend Gene Fowler that he was cutting the local orphanage out
of his will. Fowler: “Such a narrow gesture will make you much
disliked.” Fields: “Have you ever heard a corpse complain about
being unpopular?”
Gene Fowler had a
near-fatal auto accident and lay unconscious in an intensive care unit. Fields phoned his room and told the nurse
who answered: “Tell that son of a bitch
to get up and quit faking.”
On his early show
business days (from Fields for President): “I was with Colonel Catnip’s Dog & Cat
Circus, and appeared after the trained armadillos. My specialty was getting out of a
straightjacket in two minutes flat.”
Lady reporter: “Do you like children at all?” Fields:
“Only if they’re properly cooked.”
Mack Sennett: “I saw you
juggle when I was a kid, Bill…”
Fields: “That’s a damned lie. You’re old enough to be my father.”
When criticized for
doing a act set in a smoke-filled pool room before an
audience of ladies, he responded: “I
strive to instruct and uplift as well as entertain.”
Fields hated scene-stealers
(hence his hostility toward children and dogs.)
While doing his billiard routine in
A group of kids
badgered Fields for an autograph as he left the cemetery after John Barrymore’s
burial (May, 1942.) When he refused, one
shouted: “We’re not going to any more of
your movies.” Fields growled: “Back to reform school, you little
nose-pickers!”
In It’s A Gift, Baby Leroy dips storeowner Harold Bissonette’s watch in molasses. His mother laughs, then
says: “I don’t know why he’s behaving
like this. You should see him when he’s
alone.” Bissonette
mumbles: “Yes, I’d like to see him
alone.”
Fields never stuck
to a script if he could help it. Some
ad-libbed comments to wooden dummy Charlie McCarthy:
“You animated hitching post… I’ll sic a
beaver on you.”
Fields:
“I have a warm place for you.”
McCarthy: “In your heart, Bill?
Fields:
“No, my fireplace.”
“Behave, or I’ll put a wood tick on
you.”
In the Pussycat Café
bank guard Egbert Souse asks bartender Shemp Howard: “Did I
spend $20. in here last night?”
Howard: “Why, yes, you did, Mr. Souse.”
Fields: “Thank Heaven! I thought I lost it.”
Fields’ Chinese
restaurant order in International House (1932): “A bird nest and 2 hundred-year-old-eggs
boiled in perfume.”
Question to a waiter
in another eatery: “Has the chef by some
mischance omitted the paprika?”
Fields’ solution to
World War II: Bring Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito, Stalin, Churchill, and FDR into the Rose Bowl,
and let them fight it out with stockings full of horse dung.
Fields’ friend Greg LaCava had been directing William Powell and Carole Lombard
in My Man Godfrey. He invited
Fields to come on the set and see some “new comedy techniques.” Fields snapped: “I’ll be in the front row with a basket full
of last month’s eggs.”
Larson E. Whipsnade to circus ticket-collector he catches taking a
nip of whiskey: “Get your hands off my
lunch.”
“A woman drove me to
drink and I never had the courtesy to thank her.”
Cuthbert J. Twillie in My Little Chickadee: “We lost our corkscrew in the wilds of
An actor accused
Fields of being intoxicated: “I may be
drunk, but you’re crazy. I’ll be sober
in the morning, but you’ll still be crazy.”
Winston Churchill
used similar lines (substituting “ugly” for “crazy”) on the floor
of Parliament, when Bessie Braddock, Socialist M. P. from
A friend chided
Fields for drinking heavily without eating enough. The comedian replied: “I don’t believe in dining on an empty
stomach.”
On the advantages of
whiskey over dogs: “It does not have to
be wormed, fed, or kept in a kennel.
True, whiskey has a nasty habit of running out, but then so does a dog.”
Fields became an alcoholic in his mid-30’s,
consuming “seven or eight drinks of red-eye per day.” The heavy drinking
started in earnest during the
“Dear John,
…I just made up a big pitcher of
Martinis and brought it back in with me so I’d have it right here beside me and
wouldn’t have to waste time making more of them. So now I’m all set and here goes. Besides Mratinis are great drink. For some reson they never seeme to effec me in the
slightest. And drink thrm all day long. ..The
greatest think in the whole wokld, John, is
friendship. Anebelieve me pal you are the gertests pal anybody ever had. Do you remember all the
swell times we had together? The wonderful camping trisp. I*ll never forget
the time yoi put the dead skunnk
in my sleeping bag. He ha Bow how we laughued didn we. Never did the stinkout
ouut od
it. Bit it was pretty funnya anywayh.
.. Dam pitcher is impty so I just went outand ma deanotherone and I sure
wisch you wee here old pal to help me drink these marotomi because they are simply sdeliuccious.
Parn me whil I lieft my glass to you good helahth
oncemroe John.. Off cours why a pal would do a dirty thinb
lek putting a skunnk in nother pals sleping bagg I&m dash if I kno. That was a lousi thing for anybodyhdy todo an only a frist clas heel would di it…wasn a dm dam bit funney. Stil stinkkks. And
if you thininkit funny you’re a dirity lous anasd far as Im concrened you cn go plum to helll and stya ther… To hel
with ouy.
Yours very truly,
Bill Fields”
W.C. nearly died from the effects of alcohol abuse in 1935. He tried to dry out at Soboba
Hot Springs, but continued drinking, and ended up being admitted to
When his lease at
Fields’ bottom-line pragmatism, mistrust of glitz, and trouper’s work
ethic were all Philadelphian. The very
idea of a middle-aged guy from 9th &
Sources
William K. Everson, The Art of
W.C. Fields, Bobbs-Merrill
Co.,
Ronald J. Fields, ed., W.C.
Fields By Himself, Prentice-Hall,
Johnston, Alva, “Legitimate
Nonchalance,” Profiles Section of New
Yorker Magazine, Feb. 2, 1935, Feb. 9, 1935, and Feb. 16, 1935.
Simon Louvish,
Man on the Flying Trapeze: The Life
& Times of W.C. Fields, W.W.
Norton & Co., N.Y., 1977.
James Smart, “W.C. Fields in
Robert Lewis Taylor, W.C.
Fields: His Follies & Fortunes,