W. C. Fields from Burlesque and Vaudeville to Broadway

Arthur Frank Wertheim has written several books on twentieth-century American culture, including Vaudeville Wars, The New York Little Renaissance, and Radio Comedy. He has co-edited three volumes: The Papers of Will Rogers and edited Will Rogers at the Ziegfeld Follies and American Popular Culture. A former American history professor at the University of Southern California, USA, as well as visiting professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA, his awards range from a Fulbright grant to teach at the University of Indonesia to a fellowship on biography at The Norman Mailer Center, USA.

"W.C. Fields From Burlesque and Vaudeville to Broadway is an outstanding piece of scholarship. ... W.C. Fields From Burlesque and Vaudeville to Broadway really is a fantastic resource book for anyone wanting to know more about the man and his times." (Hubert O'Hearn, By the Book, bythebookreviews.blogspot.it, December, 2015)

• Prologue: It's the Old Army Game Introduction PART I: THE FLEDGLING YEARS 1. Meet the Dukenfields 2. Life with Father PART II: THE TRAINING GROUND 3. The Tramp Juggler 4. Initiation Rites 5. The Sly Conjurer 6. The Big Time PART III: "ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE" 7. "A Master Pantomimist" 8. "My Art Never Satisfies Me" 9. To the Antipodes 10. The Trouper on the Flying Trapeze 11. The Ham Tree PART IV: "WHAT THEREFORE GOD HATH JOINED TOGETHER, LET NOT MAN PUT ASUNDER" 12. The Breakup 13. The Affair PART V: THE LABYRINTH TO THE ZIEGFELD FOLLIES 14. The Road to the Palace 15. The Second Home 16. "They Had Me Sweating Blood" 17. Backstabbed Epilogue: The Defining Moment