Elysian Fields

Elysian Fields"Got the theater in my blood," he once explained with profound gravity. "My great-uncle Fortescue used to be a Swiss bell ringer at Elks' smokers." Whatever his inherited leanings, W. C. Fields--born William Claude Dukenfield in 1879--growled, blustered and hustled his way to a high place among the funniest men who ever lived. Turned into an existential hero by the Beat Generation a decade after his death in 1946, and subsequently dubbed an archetypal black humo...