It is a truism that comics are mostly sad men, and Fields was no exception, in fact he was almost a classic exemplar of the adage. His origins were in vaudeville, a field from which early Hollywood drew much of its talent, and from there he moved into silent films and finally into the talkies. Arguably, he remained at heart a vaudevillian and his early training - he had written his own sketches - stayed with him to the end. A melancholy man with alcoholic tendencies, he was unhappy with the new respectability as Hollywood increasingly geared itself to sanitised "family entertainment", and was often at odd with the studio bosses. This knowledgeable, lively biography claims to be based on lavish new archive material, and Simon Louvish demonstrates that Fields propagated numerous myths about himself and his background.
Brian Fallon