Man on the Flying Trapeze: The Life and Times of W. C. Fields

<em>Man on the Flying Trapeze</em> is the first biography in decades -- and the only accurate one -- of the beloved cinematic curmudgeon and inimitable comic genius W. C. Fields. Simon Louvish brilliantly sifts through evidence of Fieldss own self-creation to illuminate the vaudeville world from which Fields sprang and his struggles with studios and censors to make his hilarious films-in the process confirming suspicions (yes, he did drink) and confounding them (he doted on his grandchildren). "One of the best movie biographies to come along in quite some time. . . . [A] book to cherish."--<em>Film Review</em> "[<em>Man on the Flying Trapeze</em>] nicely regales us with many vaudevillian stories. . . . Louvish does a heroic job."--Katharine Whittemore, <em>New York Times Book Review</em> "A rapturous, giddy, and irrepressible book. . . . Let us be clear: this is a delight, a marvel of research . . . and a superb argument for the case that William Claude Dukenfield was, and is, the greatest comic the movies have given us."--David Thomson "At last the Great Man (as Fields called himself, accurately) has a great biography."--<em>Kirkus Reviews</em> (starred review)