I ended up doing W.C. Fields. Happy Birthday W.C. Fields. He was born William Claude Dukenfield in Darby, Pennsylvania in 1880. He showed his remarkable talents early, beginning with a juggling act when he was a teen. He left home and worked that act in vaudeville, later travelling to Europe, and appearing on Broadway in 1906,
Although he had initially been a non-talking juggler (this helped when he performed in countries where they did not speak English) he started making comic asides in his act, and soon they were a bigger and bigger part of his appeal. In 1915, Fields made the short film, Pool Sharks, where he performed his tricks on a specially made pool table (a routine he performed in the Ziegfeld Follies). He also made another short film that was shown during his Follies Act, His Lordship's Dilemma. But otherwise Fields spent all his time on his stage act. In 1924 Fields took a minor role in a Marion Davies movie, and that led to two starring roles in movies directed by D.W. Griffith, and suddenly Fields was a major movie star in his mid forties! Fields was one of the few great silent comedians who was able to seamlessly made the transition to sound movies (another was Laurel and Hardy). While he was a great physical slapstick comedian, sound actually added quite a bit to his appeal. In the early 1930s he not only appeared in some marvelous features (Million Dollar Legs, It's a Gift, and many others) but he also made the series of wonderful shorts for Paramount Pictures (The Fatal Glass of Beer, The Dentist, and more). Fields made some great movies in 1939 and 1940 (when he was 60!), You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, My Little Chickadee, and The Bank Dick (where he played Egbert Souse, pronounced "Soo-say"). But he had many ailments related to his alcoholism, and he made just a few film appearances in the early 1940s. When Fields was dying in 1946, the story goes that a friend visited him at the sanitarium where he was staying, and found the lifelong atheist reading a Bible. When asked why, Fields replied, "I'm checking for loopholes"! Fields made many wonderful movies, but if I had to recommend two to start with, it would be It's a Gift (which includes the great sequence in the store with Mr. Muckle, the nearly blind and deaf old man) and The Bank Dick (which includes the great sequences of Fields being conned into buying the worthless Beefstake Mine stock, and subsequently re-selling it to the hapless Og Oggilby. As Fields tells Og, "Don't be a luddy-duddy! Don't be a mooncalf! Don't be a jabbernowl! You're not one of those, are you? On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 6:16 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Well practice makes perfect! > > fwf > > In a message dated 1/29/2010 3:59:47 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, > [email protected] writes: > > My wife like's to say "You're as old as dirt". She's seven years younger > than me. Funny, my previous wife was twelve years younger and she never said > anything about being old. I guess I wasn't then. My wife before her...I > forget. > > ------------------------------ > *From:* Richard Halegua Comic Art <[email protected]> > *To:* [email protected] > *Sent:* Fri, January 29, 2010 6:44:55 PM > *Subject:* Re: [MOPO] Want to feel REALLY old? > > we're old enough, but Bruce is like 5000 years older.. he's ancient > > > > > At 03:30 PM 1/29/2010, Roland Lataille wrote: > > I don't know how old you guys are but, I remember going to the movies as a > child, by myself walking a few miles, and it was 35 cents to see a double > feature with short subjects and/or cartoons. They were continuous > performances so you didn't have to leave after the movies were over, you > could stay and watch them again. In fact, back in the 1980's the first run > multiplexes were charging around $4 for a movie but the second run movie > theatres would charge 99 cents. Soon, all the second run theatres closed as > not enough people were willing to pay 99 cents for a old movie. Now its $15 > to see a 3-D movie. > > > *From:* Bruce Hershenson <[email protected]> > *To:* [email protected] > *Sent:* Fri, January 29, 2010 9:12:22 AM > *Subject:* Re: [MOPO] Want to feel REALLY old? > > I guess that makes Dave Eve Harrington! And are you Addison DeWitt? > > Bruce > > On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 8:08 AM, Kirby McDaniel <[email protected]> > wrote: > Now, Bruce, don't go all Margo Channing on us. AGED IN PAPER. > > K. > > On Jan 28, 2010, at 11:24 PM, Richard Halegua Comic Art wrote: > > you're old.. too old to sell posters > you should let me take over the poster reins now > then you can retire for the rest of your old age and I can sell your > posters & send you a check every month > > > At 08:58 PM 1/28/2010, Bruce Hershenson wrote: > > I was just looking up whose birthday it is tomorrow (for my daily birthday > tribute on Facebook) and I saw that it was Katherine Ross' birthday. > > Now Ross was my "dreamgirl" from the first moment I saw her in The Graduate > when I was 15, and I would have to think there were quite a few others who > felt the same way. > > I guess it is just because she was so youthful looking in The Graduate (and > she played a college student) but I imagined she was just a few years older > than me. > > Imagine my shock when I saw that tomorrow she turns 70! > > She was 27 when she made The Graduate (Dustin Hoffman was 30, and Anne > Bancroft, who played her mother, was 36). Mrs Robinson was only 8 years > older than her "daughter" and she was only 6 years older than her > "neighbor's son" (hardly a May/December relationship!). > > But Katherine Ross is 70. That makes me feel REALLY old! > > Bruce > Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com > ___________________________________________________________________ > How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List > Send a message addressed to: [email protected] > In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L > The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. > > Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com > ___________________________________________________________________ > How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List > Send a message addressed to: [email protected] > In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L > The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. > > > Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com > ___________________________________________________________________ > How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List > Send a message addressed to: [email protected] > In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L > The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. > > > Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com > ___________________________________________________________________ > How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List > Send a message addressed to: [email protected] > In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L > The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. > > Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com > ___________________________________________________________________ > How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List > Send a message addressed to: [email protected] > In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L > The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. > Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com > ___________________________________________________________________ How to > UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: > [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF > MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. > > Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com > ___________________________________________________________________ How to > UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: > [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF > MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. > > Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com > ___________________________________________________________________ How to > UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: > [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF > MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. > > Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
