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 Fields's 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."— "[ ] nicely regales us with many vaudevillian stories. . . . Louvish does a heroic job."—Katharine Whittemore, "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."— (starred review)