Simon Louvish is the author of nine critically acclaimed novels, including The Days of Miracles and Wonders. He teaches film at the London International Film School and writes frequently about the Golden Age of comedy.
The self-created mythology of the great vaudevillian and screen comedian W.C. Fields (1880-1946)‘of hilarious misanthropy and a prodigious taste for drink, of a Dickensian childhood in Philadelphia and of hundreds of bank accounts under strange names‘often threatens to overshadow his actual performances. Fields's catchphrases and delivery‘"It ain't a fit night out for man nor beast"‘are known by millions who have never seen his films (The Fatal Glass of Beer; Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, etc.). In this exhaustively researched and witty biography, novelist and film historian Louvish (The Resurrections, etc.) redresses the balance, presenting Fields as a hardworking and inventive performer who often recreated his past and himself. Born William Claude Dukenfield, he made his career at first as Wm. C. Fields, Tramp Juggler, going on to become a leading star of American vaudeville and the English music hall. He made the transition to film in the early 1930s, in movies structured around routines and characters he had been polishing for years. Louvish sorts out the fact from the fiction in Field's life and career, and presents as well a first-rate social history of a vanished world of entertainment. Along the way are vivid portraits of such colleagues and friends of Fields as Houdini, Eddie Cantor, Fannie Brice and Will Rogers. This is a compelling portrait of a melancholy genius who kept a terrifying world at bay by mocking it. Photos and drawings. Movie Book Club selection. (Sept.)
This spirited inquiry into the bitter conflict and high political drama between the leaders of the moderate (Johnson) and the liberal (Kennedy) factions of the Democratic Party was selected as an LJ Best Book of 1997 (LJ 2/1/98). Their enmity‘although perhaps inevitable‘ensued from Johnson's perceived rudeness following JFK's assassination and was further inflamed by the Vietnam tragedy. (LJ 9/15/97)
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