Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Friday my fellow Curmudgeons, Curmudgeonessas and CurmudGenXers!

Curmudgeon Spotlight for Friday. W. C. Fields - From the Portable Curmudgeon.

WILLIAM CLAUDE DUKENFIELD was born in Philadelphia in 1880 and was raised above the saloon where his father tended bar. His mother was a strong woman, bitter about her lot in life, and he probably inherited his wisecracking, side-of-the-mouth style from her: She would sit on the porch with her young son and entertain him with a snide, running commentary about passing neighbors.

Contrary to legend, he didn’t run away from home after a fight with his father but left under amicable circumstances at the age of eleven to earn his fortune in show business. He was inspired by vaudeville performers of the day and he discovered early on what he described as his “fatal facility” for juggling. He taught himself juggling routines and developed brilliant sight gags involving hats, golf clubs, and pool cues through long hours of practice and eventually earned a reputation as a disciplined professional.

He lost his illusions early; after being cheated by unscrupulous booking agents and crooked theater managers, he never again felt financially secure. At the height of his movie career, when he was earning $100,000 a picture, he regularly deposited money in banks all over the country under fictitious names. Since he never revealed the account numbers to anyone, and since no bank records were found among his possessions, the money was never recovered by his heirs.

He married a showgirl named Harriet Hughes in 1900. They lived together for seven years and produced a son, then separated, never to reconcile. He subordinated his family, his social life, and ultimately his happiness to the demands of his career and turned his personal tragedies into comedy: The characters in his pictures usually include a bratty son, a shrewish wife, a domineering mother-in-law, and a loving daughter (the daughter he never had).

He was naturally undemonstrative and easily hurt, so he affected a phony manorial demeanor to conceal his vulnerability. He once told an interviewer that he decided at an early age to become “a definite personality.” He strove to be a part of the world but was an outcast. According to Louise Brooks, the former ingénue who wrote perceptively about the Hollywood of the twenties and thirties, Fields “stretched out his hand to Beauty and Love and they thrust it away.”

Even his legendary drinking was an outgrowth of his loneliness: He secured the companionship of his fellow vaudeville performers with free whiskey, even though he was himself a teetotaler (as a juggler he didn’t want to hurt his timing). But once he learned how to drink, he would consume at least a quart of gin a day for the rest of his life. He played himself in most of his pictures (with the exception of Micawber in David Copperfield).

He played lovable rogues, bumbling dipsomaniacs, harassed family men plagued by domineering wives and mothers-in-law. He wrote all his pictures under assumed names—Mahatma Kane Jeeves, Charles Bogle, Otis Criblecoblis—but seemed incapable of delivering the lines as written.

Fields died on Christmas Day in 1946. Contrary to legend, he isn’t buried in Philadelphia; his ashes are in an unmarked urn at Forest Lawn in Hollywood. During his last illness he was confined to a hospital bed, and a visitor was shocked to catch him reading the Bible. “Just looking for loopholes,” he explained.

A few fun quotes from this Iconic Curmudgeon!

A woman drove me to drink, and I never had the courtesy to thank her.

The cost of living has gone up another dollar a quart.

I like children. If they are properly cooked.

Never try to impress a woman, because if you do she’ll expect you to keep up to the standard for the rest of your life.

I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally.

The final quote on the photo for the day. Happy Friday ADD Irregulars and and Wanderers of the WSN!