This Week in Cigar History: January 28th-February 3rd

Known for his wicked wit as well as his bulbous nose and portly stature, W.C. Fields actually began his successful entertainment career as “The Eccentric Juggler” on the vaudeville circuit.

Beloved and detested, sometimes at the same time by the same person, the cigar puffing “I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally” comedic movie and radio star William Claude Duckenfeld- aka W.C. Fields- was born this week on January 29th 1880.

Known for his wicked wit as well as bulbous nose and portly stature, W.C. Fields actually began his successful entertainment career as “The Eccentric Juggler” on the vaudeville circuit. His genius for the conscious blunder involved taking to a cigar box strewn stage in shabby, genteel tramp clothes…where he would juggle three boxes, then bend low to ‘accidentally’ drop one box and pick up another from the floor, without missing a beat. Another nifty Field’s maneuver was balancing a top hat, cigar box, and broom on his foot… toss the three objects in the air…and has the cigar land in his mouth, the top hat on his head, and the broom in his back pocket.

Field’s evolving comedic Broadway stage career eventually led him to Hollywood (1931) where his star turns as hustlers, down-on-his luck gamblers, and hapless victims in movies like My Little Chickadee (with blonde bombshell Mae West) and The Bank Dick are now cinema classics. Most appropriately, Field’s noted:

“Comedy is a serious business. A serious business with only one purpose-to make people laugh.”

news@doubledownmedia.com

1/28/08

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