Around 1912, WC Fields was in a Broadway production of 'Poppy.' After his success in films, he reprised his role in The film. As Lux Radio Theater often did, they revised the film script for a one hour radio format.
If any film captures WC Fields, this one does. His career started out moving to crime. Then he discovered juggling and went on the vaudeville circuit. After becoming world famous, because his act involved no dialog, he became part of the Ziegfeld Follies where he worked with Ed Winn, Fanny Brice and others. Ed Winn takes credit for writing the first spoken words on stage for Bill Fields, or Whitey, as he was known by his friends.
As mentioned, he did Poppy on Broadway, then in 1925 went to Hollywood to break into pictures. Eventually, in the mid 1930's he would slowly move into radio. He worked a great deal on the Bergen and McCarthy show.
WC Fields was, and still is one of those characters that remain recognized as an icon today. Long after their passing people recognize Groucho Marx's bushy eyebrows, May West's embodiment as a sex symbol, and then there's WC Fields. He was the original humbug. A charming con man, heavy drinker and hater of kids, dogs, and women. Unless, of course, they were the right kind of women. Even if young folks today don't know his name, they would recognize his image of the soft spoken, nasal voice. The manner of speech that uses a lot of words to say what a few would do much easier. The con man attitude of 'Never give a sucker and even break." The appearance of the large, red nose, the high silk hat. ,
William 'Whitey' Claude Dukenfield really liked kids more than his character let on,but hated dogs. He only hated kids, or really anybody, when he was being upstaged by them.
The recording for today's podcast, was recorded right from 78rpm records, converted to digital format. For this podcast I compressed it down to 32bit audio.
To read more on WC Fields, you can find 'W.C. Fields: A Biography' by James Curtis - 2004 - Biography & Autobiography - 593 pages.




