W.C. Fields

A renowned gambler and card-shark, a gin drinker, and hater of children, iconic actor- comedian W.C. Fields was known as all these things and more - a pool hustler, a juggler and an ordinary man struggling against life. Some widely held beliefs were true; some were part of the act, but above all the cantankerous man with a bulbous nose and a drawling voice was one of the funniest, richest and most influential comics of the twentieth century. While Charlie Chaplin drew our sympathy, Buster Keaton earned our astonishment and the Marx Brothers made us blush, Fields spoke directly to what made us human - our dark desires, the unspoken urge for meanness, the depravity which we all held quiet, all the while making us laugh when he got away with it. Fields was the man whom audiences hated to admit reminded them of themselves.