On the set of “It’s a Gift”This summer, LPA is currently presenting a wonderful exhibition developed by the Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. The Peregrinations & Pettifoggery of W. C. Fields will be on view here through August 21st.  There is also a screening series of Fields silent and sound films on Tuesday aftenoons. 

On the third floor, The Billy Rose Theatre Division has mounted an exhibition of W. C. Fields material from its collections.  This artifact celebrates one of Fields less remembered skills. 

He was a wonderful cartoonist.   He has shown dance director Ned Wayburn in 1920 being lured out of semi-retirement by a trio of major producers— Charles B. Dillingham (co-producer with Ziegfeld at the New Amsterdam Theater), Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., theater mogul Abraham Lincoln Erlanger, and Edward Albee of the Keith-Albee vaudeville circuit.  Wayburn returned to Ziegfeld for the next two Follies seasons.

For more information on Fields, please check out the official W. C. Fields website—www.wcfields.com.  There are countless sources on Fields, Wayburn, and the Broadway popular entertainment world in the Performing Arts Library.