Posted on 10/09/2010 7:03:06 AM PDT by lowbridge
There is a popular song that keeps coming back, asking the same question: “Who’s your daddy?”
I thought about that the other day as I sat and chatted with William Rexford Fields Morris. Bill went for years not knowing who his daddy was, and all that time (and even for evermore) he was the son of W.C. Fields, one of the most popular comedic actors ever to face a camera.
I had met Bill Morris before, but the Fields-Morris connection was not made. As we sat and talked, however, and as I glanced from a photo of W.C. Fields to Bill Morris in person, there was no doubt.
The picture of Fields showed off his bulbous nose, his trademark grin and eyes reflecting a joke that he just heard or is ready to tell. Look at Bill Morris and the comparison is sure, although the photo of Fields probably was made in his 50s and Morris is now 92.
Bill Morris lives in McAdenville with a daughter. And at 92, he still enjoys good health and continues to fill the hours of most days with volunteer work, devoted to the projects of the American Legion, the Gaston County Veterans Council and the Last Man Club, serving as judge advocate of the Marine Corps League, volunteering at Gaston Memorial Hospital and helping with Gastonia Rotary Club projects.
He said he first learned about his dad when he was 12.
“I was living in a foster home at the time, in New Jersey,” he said, “and was told by my foster mother. But there was no love in that foster home. I was very unhappy, doing a lot of wondering, I guess.”
After he graduated high school, he left that New Jersey home and hitchhiked west, ending up in Dallas, Texas. He banged around there for a few years, met a girl that he liked and fell in love. Her name was Roberta, and she was a doll — a Ziegfeld Follies doll. They were married before Uncle Sam put him on a ship heading for war.
He had joined the National Guard, which was federalized in 1941. He was trained until 1943 when his division set sail for Italy.
“We made the invasion of Italy and on Sept. 6 got the news that Italy had surrendered. We thought this was going to be a cakewalk. We figured that within a few hours we would be lounging on beaches with Italian girls, drinking lemonade.”
It didn’t turn out that way. Before the war was over, his division would battle from southern Italy to north of Rome, invade southern France and march on through Germany and into Austria.
After the war, he stayed busy — along the way working with Braniff Airlines. He also joined the Marines and worked as a recruiter (“I became a Hollywood Marine.”)
When Roberta produced their fourth child, that was enough to keep him from Korea. He fulfilled his Marine Crops obligations, retired and then spent 25 years with Junior Achievement, Inc., where he was executive director in Orlando, Fla.
In our interview, we had moved full circle and got back to the question of how he and his dad finally “hooked up.”
“I had a friend in Colorado who ‘found’ me, discovered where I was. He also was a friend of my father. My dad didn’t know I was alive. They ran a DNA and found that I was of the W.C. Fields lineage. It proved that I was his son. So I now belong to the W.C. Fields Fan Club.”
Morris remembers that his dad “always sent money to take care of me until I was out on my own.” In all those years, he saw his father only once.
“I went to see him in Encino, California. We sat in a car and talked. It was cold. My feet were cold. He gave me a pair of fur-lined boots and enough money to get home. I was about 16 or 17 then. Another time when I was a corporal in the Army and married, he sent me an autographed picture and 100 bucks.”
Bill Morris is an active, fun-loving, outgoing 92. He talks with a twinkle in his eye and with a spring in his cane-accompanied step. He can match your story with two of his own.
“You’ve got to keep your mind active,” he said, “and you must have the ability to laugh at yourself.” He also said you have to develop a love of people and a sense of caring for others.
One thing is certain, however. He knows the answer to the question: “Who’s your daddy?”
He had another son, born on August 15, 1917, with girlfriend Bessie Poole, named William Rexford Fields Morris.[10] Bessie was an established Ziegfeld Follies performer and met Fields while performing in New York City at the famous Amsterdam Theater. Her beauty and quick wit attracted Fields, who was the featured act from 1916 until 1922. She was killed in a bar fight several years later, leaving their son to be raised in foster care, where he acquired the surname Morris by his foster-mother. Fields sent voluntary support to young Bill in care of his foster mother until he graduated from high school, when he sent $300 as a gift.
Headstone of W.C. Fields.. “I would rather be Here, than in Philadelphia”...
Ah yes! Philadelphia - spent a week there one night...
But did W.C. Fields ever send him any kumquats?
Say, you wouldn't be one Jay Bruce from Cincinati, would you? ; )
W.C., shouting up the stairwell: "Carl LaFong! Capital L, small A, capital F, small O, small N, small G. La Fong. Carl LaFong!"
That’s a great scene from “It’s a Gift.” But it’s not the whole scene. Too bad they cut off the rest of it. I can see Fields standing on the porch with a shotgun saying, “Oh, vegetable man?”
“I didn’t squawk about the steak, dear. I merely said I didn’t see that old horse that used to be tethered outside here.”
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