W.C. Fields

W.C. Fields was born William Claude Dukenfield on January 29, 1880, in Darby, Pennsylvania. He adopted the stage name early in his career as a vaudeville performer, where he first gained fame as a masterful silent juggler before transitioning to comedy.

Fields starred in several iconic 1930s Hollywood comedies, including It's a Gift (1934), The Bank Dick (1940), and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941). He also appeared in Mississippi (1935) and co-starred with Mae West in My Little Chickadee (1940), which they co-wrote.

Yes, Fields began his entertainment career as a traveling vaudeville juggler, developing a reputation as one of the world's finest silent comedy jugglers. He performed juggling routines in the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway and incorporated some of those skills into his later film comedies.

Fields is widely associated with the line "Go away, kid, you bother me" and the apocryphal quote "I love children... fried," which reflected his comic persona as a misanthropic, child-hating drunk. His 1941 film Never Give a Sucker an Even Break crystallized this curmudgeonly image that defined his public identity.