Article: W.C. Fields: a Biography.(Book Review)

by James Curtis. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. 593 pp., illus. Hardcover: $35.00.

Drunk. Mean. Hated his family. Hated kids. Hated Mac West. Stashed money in secret bank accounts all over the world. Said he kept a Bible in his library to "look for loopholes."

That was the W. C. Fields we knew, through accounts passed down through the years, and constantly embroidered, by his cronies, and publicists and journalists who were all too happy to print the legend. It is to the credit of biographer James Curtis, author of esteemed volumes on directors James Whale and Preston Sturges, that in this new volume he slices through the flab of fiction and finds a ...

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