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December 11, 2006 W.C. Fields Returns
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W.C. Fields as "Egbert Sousé" in The Bank Dick (1940), one of his most memorable films. |
Beverly Hills, CA — Larson E. Whipsnade, Egbert Sousé, The Great McGonigle and numerous other memorable comedic characters will again take center stage when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences opens its new exhibition spotlighting the life and career of the man who created them, W.C. Fields. “The Peregrinations & Pettifoggery of W.C. Fields” will open to the public on January 19, 2007, in the Academy’s Fourth Floor Gallery. Admission is free.
Celebrating the donation of the W.C. Fields Collection by the Fields family to the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library, “Peregrinations & Pettifoggery” will be a multifaceted survey of the life and work of one of America’s greatest native humorists. Assembled primarily from the trove of Fields’s own memorabilia, the exhibition – the full title of which is “The Amazing Peregrinations & Pettifoggery of One William Claude Dukenfield, late of Philadelphia, Pa., familiarly known to Crowned Heads and Hoi Polloi alike as W.C. Fields” – will shed new light on the many talents of the legendary comedian and actor. Posters, photographs, publicity materials, letters, scripts, personal documents and other artifacts, as well as film clips and sound recordings, will illustrate Fields’s skills in cartooning, pantomime and juggling in addition to his amazing physical dexterity and unique verbal delivery.
Born in 1880 on the west side of Philadelphia, Fields entered show business as a “comic juggler” while still in his teens and rose quickly to become an international vaudeville star. By the time he joined the cast of the Ziegfeld Follies in 1915, he was already enormously popular with audiences across the United States and in Europe, Australia and South Africa. His Broadway success with “Poppy” in 1923 led to a notable career in silent films. It was not until the advent of talking pictures, however, that Fields was finally able to embellish his inventive physical comedy with his distinctive vocal talents, and to achieve major stardom in Hollywood. During the 1930s and early 1940s, he did his most memorable and enduring screen work, starring in such films as “It’s a Gift,” “David Copperfield” and “The Bank Dick.” He also wrote the stories and collaborated on the scripts for many of his films.
By emphasizing the many interrelated aspects of Fields’s life and work, including artistic influences, recurring characters and themes, and family and personal undercurrents, “Peregrinations & Pettifoggery” will capture not only the larger-than-life character “W.C. Fields,” but also will pay tribute to the complex man known to his family and close friends as simply “Bill” or “Uncle Claude.” Many rare items never before seen outside the Fields family will help to reveal both the man and the artist, who died on Christmas day in 1946.
One highlight of the installation will be the famous John Decker painting of Fields as Queen Victoria, loaned by the family of Dave Chasen, in whose Beverly Hills restaurant it hung for decades prior to the restaurant’s closing in 1995.
Viewing hours for “The Peregrinations & Pettifoggery of W.C. Fields” are Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and weekends, noon to 6 p.m., through April 15. The Academy is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. For more information, please call (310) 247-3600.
Editors: Please note that downloadable images from this exhibition are available at http://photos.oscars.org/.
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©A.M.P.A.S.®
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
8949 Wilshire Boulevard Beverly Hills, CA 90211-1972
(310) 247-3000
www.oscars.org
publicity@oscars.org
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