His birth name was William Claude Dukenfield, and he was originally slated to play the Wizard in The Wizard Of Oz. He was one of the most original performers, in appearance and voice. WC was one of those people that everyone was convinced they could imitate well, and SO couldn’t. Ed McMahon pretty much defines this.

Fields did well in vaudeville and burlesque, starting as a juggler, and eventually moving into films, mostly for Paramount.

WC loved the bottle. He was plagued with many illnesses, mostly all rooted in his alcoholism. He lived in a section of LA now called Laughlin Park, and in his house now resides Lily Tomlin. Can't see the front of the house, but you can see the garage.  Here’s a funny: If you go up to the Observatory in Griffith Park, to the back stairs where those telescope things are, you can put fifty cents in and see Lily’s house.

An interesting slice of Hollywood history happened there. Across the road from Fields, lived Cecil B. Demille. The street they lived on was Demille Drive, dontcha know. Want proof?  Well, Cecil’s daughter Katherine was married to actor Anthony Quinn. On March 15^th, 1941, their little 2-year-old son Christopher wandered on to WC Fields property, fell in the pool, and drowned.

WC was mortified and devastated, especially because of his reputation for hating children. Legend has it, he had the pool filled in. If that’s true, Lily must have had it unfilled, because if you look closely through these shrubs, you can see it.

Findadeath.com friend E.J. Fleming clears this up:  He didn't actually drown in a pool, per se.  He had a large circular fountain in front of the house (beneath the stairs off the front porch that you can see in your photo).  Fields used to leave model boats floating in the fountain - he collected them - and the kid went into the fountain to get one of the boats.  That's how he drowned.  The story goes that Fields took the boats and burned them and had the fountain torn out and filled in the hole.  I think the pool came later, actually.

Thanks EJ!

Back to WC, he died. It was Christmas day of 1946, and he was admitted to the Los Encinas Sanitarium. His immediate cause of death was Cirrhosis of the liver. He died in here somewhere.  Fields was cremated and his ashes are interred in the Great Mausoleum in Forest Lawn, Glendale.

WC left a $770,000 estate behind, as well as an estranged wife and a mistress, Carlotta Monti. Through a lengthy court battle, Carlotta won two trust funds that paid her about 50 bucks a week. She claimed that it ran out in 1954. Monti also claimed that she never saw Fields drunk. There was a movie about the situation made in 1976, which starred Rod Steiger as Fields, and Valerie Perrine as Monti. Lord help us.

Trivia: He turned down the role of the Wizard because he didn’t think the film would be successful.

He appears on the Sgt. Pepper album cover.

More: Remember when Frito’s used a cartoon WC Fritos as their spokesperson? They finally ditched their offensive Frito Bandito – the little Mexican bandit that would steal everyone’s Fritos. The worst stereotype in the world. Almost equal to Taco Bell’s "Run for the border" campaign.

UPDATE February 2005, from Findadeath friend Lex:

No big deal here,

I used to place flowers for Forest Lawn Glendale. Nearly every week, we would place flower orders on W.C.'s internment; these
were paid for by a man who had purchased a niche just across the marble isle from W.C.

The flower order also requested a card; on this card the holiday or event was quipfully homaged to Mr. Fields, and then was signed with "across the way from niche #???"

This guy visited the Great Mausoleum quite often; he had a car with a license plate frame which read "Follow Me to the Great Mausoleum." I can't recall the license plate #, but it was something like "gr8 maus."

 During this time, I heard through the grapevine that he was hired as a
 mortician.  But he was quickly let go, after being caught for taking
 pictures of cadavers.

 Lex

Thanks for the info, Lex!