W. C. Fields and The Bar Trailer (1934) đşđ¸
A Red-Nosed Romeo
Let W.C. goose-step out â and Hollywoodâs handsome heroesâ donât get a tumble
by Sara Hamilton
Heâs the high-stepping Romeo of Hollywood. The latest and the newest of the big-sheik daddies. The complete and total answer to any number of little blondesâ prayers. Only he doesnât know it, and isnât bothered. Thatâs W.C. Fields.
With that nose, crimson and gleaming like a lantern on a detour sign, that funny little walk with the knees popping well out, to say nothing of the stomach, those shrewd little blue eyes that have seen everything everywhere, and the whole ensemble (and oh, the voice!) topped by straw-colored hair â well, here is something!
Yet, for some reason, the girls go twittering about frantically begging people all over the place, âPlease tell me more about Mr. Fields.â âHeâs the most fascinating man.â âHeâs so blasĂŠ.â
What do you make of it?
Handsome, romantic actors, with melting eyes and slickem on the hair, stroll about the Paramount lot in droves. No one cares. Stalwart Roman soldiers from the Cleopatra set clinked and clattered in all their splendid uniforms. And never a tumble. But let W.C. go goose-stepping away from the set, and boy! the lovely honeys hang from dressing-room and studio office windows calling, âYoo-hoo, Mr. Fields!â âOh, you, Mr. Fields!â
And W.C., without even a backward or a sideward glance, will merely flick his fingers in a bored and weary gesture, the knees will hippety-hop, hippety-hop, the nose do a âShine On, Shine On Harvest Moon,â as into his own dressing-room, heâll pop. Let the rest of the world go by.
What a man!
And for the first time in the history of Hollywood, the favorite reigning Romeo of the day is also the favorite with every man in town, from the biggest producer to the lowliest extra. Heâs Hollywoodâs man-of-the-hour, I tell you. Every producer, supervisor, director, actor, sportsman, writer, or just plain every-day man in the suburb of Hollywood will trek out to Bill Fieldsâ at the slightest pretext. And sit for hours and often days, listening to his priceless yarns. Stories gathered on his round-the-world touring as a juggler. He knows everybody everywhere. His fund of material seldom runs out. And when it does, fear not; Bill makes up grand ones.
âOnly, you know,â he says, âIâm not nearly as good at it as I used to be. They ketch me up. Yes, sir, they ketch me up. Someone will say, âBill, tell so-and-so about you and the one-eyed acrobat.â And Iâll think, âOh, oh, they got me.â For the life of me I canât remember what I made up about that one.â
Thereâs one thing â or no â three or four things that set Bill Fieldsâ home apart from any other in town. Parked in the front-yard, for instance, are a kiddie-car, tricycle and a rubber ball that you trip over, sprawling you against a long, tan-colored trailer (also parked in the front-yard, mind you). Itâs fitted up like a bungalow on wheels.
And this, remember, is the entrance to a Hollywood bachelorâs home. Only, one discovers, the kiddie-car and the tricycle belong to the son of the Finnish couple who manage Billâs home. But the trailer, ah, that trailer... that belongs to W.C. himself. And remind me to tell you more about it later.
Well, sir, even that cluttered up front-yard doesnât discourage the little cutie-boopie-doopies one whit. For when Bing Crosby or Dick Arlen, his neighbors, throw a Party, youâll find those Lovely Little Ladies that Bing sings about, chirping across the Crosby back fence, âYoohoo, Mr. Fields.â âBring your kiddie-car and come on over.â âBingâs going to sing âYouâve Got Evervthing.ââ
Itâs simply beyond me.
But if you think the front-yard of Willie C.âs is cute, you should see Willie in his back-yard. Now thereâs something!
A bower of pink roses hangs over the balcony of that back-yard by the lake. Roses, mind you, in Willieâs backyard. And pink ones, too. Fancy Billâs face framed in that bower. Softly the ripples of old Toluca lap against the grassy shore while swans, necks curved in graceful arches, float majestically. Long graceful branches of weeping willow trees (âleaping villows,â as his Finnish man-servant calls them) sweep the edge of the water. An occasional canoe will silently glide by. There, in the midst of this scene of soft and tranquil beauty, will sit W.C. in a pair of the low-lifest carpet slippers in captivity. His shirt open at the throat, his hair blowing about in the soft breeze as he calls in that nasal, side-splitting voice to some groaning victim he has inveigled into his sun-cabinet nearby.
âWhat?â heâll say, âonly a hundred and eighteen degrees? Why, that isnât warm. What âdâya wanta do, freeze to death? Waitâll she gets to a hundred and thirty-five. No, youâre not coming out. Youâre staying there.â
And then, â Yoo-hoo, W.C.!â And directly across the lake will be Mary Brian calling from her own back-yard. âOh, Mr. Fields, how are you?â
âIâm swell, Mary Iâm swell. Shut up. No, I didnât say it to you, Mary. Iâm talking to this guy in the sun-cabinet. Itâs only a hundred and twenty-five degrees. Heâs a sissy, canât take it.â
Maryâs laugh echoes among the sighing trees.
Silence again, except for fainter groans from the cabinet. Presently, Thomas, âthe leaping villow Finn,â will emerge and carry the practically unconscious victim from the sun-cabinet.
And Willieâs indifferent fingers will flick the air and unconcernedly heâll pick up a couple of stones and a stray visitor, and go juggling into the house.
What do you still make of it?
A swivel chair is set between his desk and bar. âNow, gentlemen, weâll get down to business,â heâll say. And swish â the chair will be turned to the desk. âAll right, gentlemen, now weâll have a little snort of refreshments.â And swish, with Bill never having to leave the chair, heâs at the bar.
Oh, yes, about the trailer. On location for a picture, a well-to-do tourist drove up by the roadside, with a trailer fastened to the back of a high-priced car, to watch Bill at work. Bill spied it and, walking over, looked carefully in all the windows and doors.
âHow much?â he asked the owner.
âNot for sale,â the owner grunted.
âDidnât ask that,â Bill replied. âI said how much? â
âEr... why... fifteen hundred dollars,â the owner gulped in surprise.
âSold!â snapped Bill. âUnhook her.â
And the trailer became Billâs.
Never in all his life has he had enough sleep, and here was a golden opportunity for sleep. So, back to town came Bill â asleep in his trailer. And from then on, where Willie went, there also went the trailer. His people were its people. And its people, as often as not, are the elite of the town, usually on their way to the prize-fights or some late spot. For no matter how swanky the guests at Billâs house, they all must pile into the trailer and go places.
If itâs only a ten minutesâ drive, no difference. Coffee and sandwiches, for no reason, are served in the trailer. Take âem or leave âem.
The sight of Billâs trailer pulling up to the swanky Colony Club door with ladies and gentlemen in full evening dress alighting from the back door â a sandwich in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other â is just one of those things, thatâs all. And even that doesnât discourage the girls.
âWeâd rather,â they avow with loud squeals, âdrive with Willie in his trailer, than Gable in his roadster.â
Whatâs the man got, anyhow?
That trailer, the most notorious object in all Southern California, has allowed Bill to catch up on no less than ten years of lost sleep. Days heâs called out on location he merely steps out of bed and, still in pajamas, goes to bed in the trailer. Half an hour before he gets on location, he has breakfast in bed, reads the paper, shaves, takes exercises (thereâs a pretty sight!), waves to the people along the highway, and is ready for work pronto. Or nearly pronto, Iâll tell you.
When Bill returns from the studio after a dayâs work, and must attend some gala party, he merely says, âToodlyooâ to the Finns and, falling headlong over the Finnish offspringâs kiddie-car, retires to the trailer to go to sleep. When the driver arrives at the party, he merely parks and waits patiently until, ting-a-ling, the phone rings. Or didnât you know about the phone from the trailer to the chauffeur in the car ahead? Well, Bill telephones and says, âOkay, now Iâll dress.â And there he is. Much to all the ladiesâ delight.
Not satisfied with the telephone, he now has a dictaphone installed in his trailer and there sits Bill, for hours at a time, making records for the poor, bewildered Finns to pick up and play when he wants service. âWhere are my gray pants?â will scream from one record. Or, âWho drank up all that sherry?â will come from another. And the records are scattered all over the place.
Lunch time in any other actorâs dressing-room is just a time for lunch. But not in W.C. Fieldsâ.
Lunch time in Billâs dressing-room, is Field-Day, the Junior-Senior egg throw, a story conference, a benefit performance for an old, dilapidated actor, and an amazing exhibition of the daring-young-man-on-the-flying-trapeze.
No need to stand at Forty-Second Street and Broadway to see everyone you know. Sit in Billâs dressing-room and the whole world goes in and out. Old, tired-out actors, servants of all the other actors, world-famous writers, artists, everyone, to get that quizzically comical âHelloâ from Bill. Right outside the door will be Billâs necktie parked across the potted shrub and his white shirt hanging over a chair outside to dry. Marlene Dietrich, who has the dressing-room next door, will stand gazing out at the family wash murmuring, âOh, that Mr. Fields! Heâs such a one â and so-o-o nice.â
Hollywood has seen plenty of strange sights and peculiar objects in its gay, young, hoodlumish life, but never, never, has it seen anything like Bill on his way to the golf links. With much groaning he manages to get his canoe onto the lake, and heâs off. Over the rippling water to the golf links. Even the âleaping villowsâ bow their heads to hide their snickers, and the swans pause in open-billed astonishment to stare at a gentleman with an amazing nose rowing blithely along, singing âIâm Just a Vagabond Lover.â
Can you, or can you not, picture it?
All of Billâs gorgeous indifference to the ladies may be attributed to two things:
One is, when Bill was a young man juggling himself around the world, he spied on ship-board a charming little creature, whom he thought a pretty cute number. Those small baby-blue peepers of Billâs kept themselves fastened on the fair charmer. But somehow she never noticed Bill.
And then came the night of a fancy-dress ball, and Bill decided not to doll up. Heâd just dress as usual and see howâs about meeting the charmer. Looking up at him and clapping her little hands together, she squealed, âOh, Mr. Fields, thatâs the funniest false nose Iâve ever seen.â
It was Billâs own, of course. But the remark ruined his life â for two whole hours. The other reason â and the main one, probably â is that Billâs already engaged. His heart has been taken completely. He shows you the bracelet, with a little gold heart dangling from it, which she put on his wrist. It never comes off. Her name is Angela Moran, and sheâs just four-and-a-half years old. Her daddy was the Moran of the Two Black Crows, you remember.
She loves Bill, and Bill loves her. And thatâs why, as I say, Hollywood beauties can âYoo-hoo, Mr. Fieldsâ all day long if they want. Bill Fields is true to a little gold heart that dangles forever from his wrist.
With every girl on the lot yoo-hooing him, W. C. Fields is completely indifferent to ladies. Bill here resists Adrienne Ames, who played with him in âYouâre Telling Meâ
Bill sits in his back-yard in the shade of a palm, inhaling the pleasant aroma of foamy fluid. Truly this is paradise now, without feminine intrusion.
What! Only a hundred and eighteen degrees? Bill says any man who canât stay in his sun cabinet till it hits a hundred and thirty-five is a sissy. Yes, he can.
Nobody can vamp W.C. For on his wrist he wears a bracelet and a tiny gold heart. To it he is true.
Billâs trailer has modern conveniences. To direct the driver in the car ahead, all he has to do is pick up this telephone. Where he goes, the bar goes.
The owner refused to sell, so Fields bought this trailer in spite of him. He rides in it wherever he goes, parties his friends in it, and the girls think itâs grand!
Bill Fields and Baby LeRoy borrow the kiddie-car and the tricycle from the Finnish youngster at Billâs home and stage a contest on the Paramount lot. Very sporting, eh? Who said they were having a âfeudâ?
Fay Wray, star of the Universal picture, âCheating Cheaters,â tries a Hawaiian âHereâs Howâ made by Alan Mowbray featured in the Lowell Sherman Universal picture, âNight Life of the Gods.â
Hollywood Goes for New Hawaiian âHereâs Howâ in a Big Way!
âHereâs Howâ always starts with one-third Hawaiian Pineapple Juice as a base. Miss Wrayâs favorite is made like this: Fill a tall glass one-third full of DOLE Pineapple Juice, then add three jiggers of grape juice, half a lime, cracked ice, and fill with seltzer water... To be amply prepared for the Holiday season order a dozen cans of DOLE Pineapple Juice now from your grocer!
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Collection: Photoplay Magazine, December 1934
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