Actor, comedian, burlesquer, vaudevillian, writer, newspaper columnist and reporter.
Best known for his featured role on The Abbott and Costello Show, on both radio and television, Fields received his early training in burlesque houses and was one of the most famous comedians who came up through burlesque. He was also a top-notch and highly respected comedy writer who wrote and performed many of the classic burlesque routines. He wrote a version of 'Slowly I Turned' (also known as 'Niagara Falls') that has been performed by many comedians over the years. In 1965 he claimed that he had total recall of a quarter of a million sketches, monologues and one-liners and said, 'In comedy there is only one way to go and that is back. There are only a certain number of basic premises and a finite number of variations or switches.'
Sidney ('Sid') Fields was born Sidney H Feldman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on February 5, 1898 to parents Hirsh Feldman (1866-1917) and his wife Maia Paltzoff (1870-1940), both of whom were born in Odessa, Ukraine and emigrated to the United States in May 1892. He was one of 12 children. He married actress Marie E Collins, daughter of William and Laura (née Boutin) Collins, on December 27, 1928 in Luzerne, Pennsylvania. Neither had been married previously. (Note. The application for a marriage licence lists Fields' age as '29', which suggests a birth year of 1899.)
Fields was Jewish as have been so many other American comedians over the decades (eg The Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges, Jack Benny, George Burns, Sid Caesar, Phil Silvers, Henny Youngman, Red Buttons and Adam Sandler). He was sometimes credited as 'Sid Fields', 'Sidney Field', 'Sidney Fields' and 'Sidney H Fields in his professional career. He began his career as a teenager in 1912, working as a comedy monologist in Milwaukee local theatres in amateur shows and local hometown vaudeville before leaving for a succession of medicine wagons, carnivals and tent show troupes in the Midwest. He later became partner in a comedy team with vaudeville and burlesque performer Jack Greenman. The team made it to Minsky's in the 1920s and was cast by Harold Minsky in his family's celebrated burlesque theatre. By the early 1930s Minsky's Burlesque was being hounded by the New York City municipal authorities, so the team decided to move to the West Coast. (Note. The 1930 US Census lists Fields' occupation as 'producer' in the theatre. At the time he and wife Marie were listed as residing in St Louis MO.) The team of Fields and Greenman split up in Hollywood when Fields was hired to work on a feature film with Eddie Cantor, namely, Strike Me Pink (1936). Fields also supported the Ritz Brothers in the film Straight, Place and Show (1938) and wrote at least one script for comedian Joe Penner which the latter used in vaudeville and on radio.
In the ensuing years Fields performed on stage, radio, and occasionally in movies. He worked on Eddie Cantor's radio show, It's Time to Smile, as a writer and actor (often playing a character referred to as 'Guffy') for some 7 years. He also worked on radio with Fred Allen, Ben Blue, Rudy Vallee and Milton Berle. He appeared in small and often uncredited roles in 1930s and '40s film comedies, sometimes receiving screen credits as a writer. In 1944 he began working with Abbott and Costello. Firstly, he wrote some special material for the team in their film In Society (1944). He was also signed to perform one of his routines, 'The Language Scene', but that was deleted from the finished movie. Subsequently, he worked as a writer and performer on the team's radio series, The Abbott and Costello Show (NBC, 1942-47; ABC, 1947-49), in which he introduced his Professor Melonhead character. Playing that character, he performed the routine 'Who's on First' with Lou Costello on Walgreen's 44th anniversary radio special when Bud Abbott was ill and unable to perform. Other Abbott and Costello films in which he appeared included The Naughty Nineties (1945), Little Giant (1946) and Mexican Hayride (1948) [also writer (uncredited)]. He also wrote the story for the film Abbott and Costello Meet Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1953) and, sometimes uncredited, wrote additional material or dialogue for other films including My Wild Irish Rose (1947) and Duchess of Idaho (1950).
As straight man (comedy feed) for Ben Blue, he performed at Slapsy Maxie's, in Hollywood, in March 1948 and thereafter at other venues including Charley Foy's Supper Club (Sherman Oaks, California, 1949) and La Martinique (New York, January 1951). He also performed in gagster Benny Rubin's revue at Charley Foy's Supper Club in August 1949. From 1950 to 1951 he and Ben Blue performed regularly as comic relief on Frank Sinatra's musical variety television show The Frank Sinatra Show (on CBS-TV). In 1951 Fields made other TV appearances on The Saturday Night Revue with Jack Carter, Broadway Open House, and Big Joe's Happiness Exchange. Between 1951 and 1953 he supported Abbott and Costello on NBC-TV's The Colgate Comedy Hour, and between 1952 and 1954 he was cast in the team's filmed TV series, The Abbott and Costello Show. He wrote all but five of the 26 scripts for the first season and received a co-writing credit on five of the 26 episodes of the second season, including one written with Lou Costello. Fields played the hot-tempered, bald-headed landlord of the rooming house where Abbott and Costello lived. He was a frequent target of gags and schemes foisted by the two main characters. Fields played numerous other roles as well, almost always wearing a wig, glasses or other disguise. These characters were often related to the landlord. The show ran for two seasons and played in syndication for decades. In clips from the TV series, Fields can be seen in the documentaries Hey, Abbott! (1978), Abbott and Costello Meet Jerry Seinfeld (1994) and Behind the Burly Q (2010). Both seasons of The Abbott and Costello Show have been released on DVD by Entertainment One, which now owns the rights to the series. In addition, the TV series now streams on Amazon Prime. Fields considered his work on The Abbott and Costello Show to be his crowning achievement. Among other things, it preserved the work he had done for years in burlesque. In 1998 Entertainment Weekly praised the series as one of the '100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time', and in 2007 Time magazine selected the series for inclusion in its list of 'The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME'.
On April 5, 1952 Fields performed on stage at the Fabian Theatre in Paterson, NJ, with Abbott and Costello and others, prior to the premiere of the Abbott and Costello film Jack and the Beanstalk (WB, 1952). In 1953 he appeared in the Ben Blue Revue at Charley Foy's Supper Club in Sherman Oaks, California. Two years later, in 1955, he appeared in another Ben Blue burlesque revue at the Chi Chi Starlite Room, in Palm Springs, California and also performed in a vaudeville-style show at the Beverly Hills Country Club with Ben Blue and bit movie actor Sammy Wolfe. He also with Blue and Wolfe in 1955 at the Dunes (Magic Carpet Revue) and also at the Thunderbird. In November 1955 Fields, Wolfe and 'Slapsie Maxie' Rosenbloom appeared in a revue staged at Billy Gray's Band Box, in Hollywood, titled Shower of Scars [sic]. A few years later, Fields performed at Ben Blue's nightclub/theatre restaurant in Santa Monica, California. (A colour photograph of Fields, Ben Blue and actress Danielle Aubry, taken at Ben Blue's, is featured on the front cover of Leo Guild's book Hollywood Screwballs (Los Angeles CA: Holloway House, 1962).) Fields made several TV guest appearances throughout the 1950s on such shows as The Pinky Lee Show (1954-1956) [on which he was a regular], The Saturday Night Revue (1954) [also writer], The Sunday Spectacular (1955), and The Milton Berle Show (1955), The Ed Sullivan Show (1956), and The Thin Man (1958) [uncredited]. In another uncredited role, he played Bob in the film noir Las Vegas Shakedown (1955).
In 1956 Harold Minsky brought the Minsky name to Las Vegas, Nevada in a revue at the Dunes Hotel. The November 17, 1956 issue of the journal The Cash Box reported that Ben Blue and Company along with Sammy Wolfe, Sid Fields and Girl Friend Dolly Barr were the then current attraction at Beverly Hills. Two years later, in 1958, Fields appeared with Lou Costello in Minsky's Follies of 1958, a burlesque revue staged at the Dunes which broke all house records at the hotel. Fields played straight man for Costello in familiar scenes such as 'Crazy House' and the 'Lemon Bit'. In addition, Fields also appeared in another Harold Minsky revue at the Dunes titled Folies International, with Smith and Dale, Joey Faye, Irving Benson, Boubouka, Cec Davidson and his Orchestra and several others. The year 1958 proved to be a very busy one for Fields, for he also appeared at the Sans Souci, in Las Vegas, in the revue Midnight in Havana which also featured Pat Moreno, Bobby Morris, Zabuda, Jerome Roberts, Olga Perez, Bobby Blue and his Orchestra and several others. Also in 1958, Fields also appeared in two other Sans Souci revues, namely, French Follies, and Artists and Models of Paris, in both of which Billie Bird, Boubouka, Bobby Blue and his Orchestra and several others also appeared.
In the early to mid-1960s he played occasional small roles in television shows (including The Ed Sullivan Show, in 1963) and worked as a staff writer and comedian on Jackie Gleason and His American Scene Magazine between 1963 and 1966. (Fields considered Gleason to be the best in his field.) In April 1963 he again played Las Vegas, appearing in Pat Moreno's Artists and Models Revue of 1963 at The Mint. Two years later, in 1965, and direct from Jackie Gleason's TV show, he attracted crowds at the Primadonna Club, in Reno, Nevada, in Pat Moreno's all-new revue Artists and Models of 1965. He also appeared in that revue at The Mint, in Las Vegas. The show was basically a Minsky-style burlesque show featuring young showgirls and comics along with some headlining strippers. In March 1967 Fields was still performing in Pat Moreno's Artists and Models, this time at the Sahara Casbar, playing straight man in scenes such as the 'Lemon Bit'. In 1968 he appeared in the TV special Carnival Nights, in which Jack Benny, Lucille Ball, Johnny Carson, Dean Martin, Bob Hope, Ben Blue and many others also appeared. In that special, which was his final TV appearance, he and Ben Blue performed their famous routine 'Chandu the Magician', which they performed over the years at many entertainment venues at Las Vegas, in nightclubs throughout the United States, and on television (eg The Ed Sullivan Show, on April 21, 1963).
In 1968 Fields also appeared in the revue A Night With Minsky at Hotel Thunderbird in Las Vegas; the revue, which was originally staged at the Continental Theatre as Thoroughly Modern Minsky, also starred Irving Benson, Barbara Curtis, Dick Bernie, Marty May and several others. Then, in March 1969, he appeared in the revue Minsky's Burlesque '69 at the Aladdin in Las Vegas. He also appeared in a Minsky revue at the Frontier before retiring. Over the years, he had played most of the leading entertainment venues in Vegas including the El Rancho, the Old Frontier, the Royal Nevada, the Dunes, the Desert Inn, the Flamingo and the Sahara, also appearing in nightclubs from coast to coast. At many of theses venues he performed with Ben Blue.
Fields and his wife Marie had moved to Las Vegas, Nevada around 1966. In his later years he wrote a regular newspaper column for Las Vegas Panorama titled 'Oldies But Goodies'. By 1974 both he and Marie were quite unwell but he kept writing his column into 1975. He died in Las Vegas of lung cancer on September 28, 1975, aged 77. His obituary appeared in Variety on October 8, 1975, on page 75. Marie died some two years later.
As a sidelight, comedian Jerry Seinfeld, a fan of the team of Abbott and Costello, volunteered to care for a grumpy, bad-tempered elderly man named Sid Fields in a 1993 episode of the TV sitcom Seinfeld called 'The Old Man'. Actor and cartoonist Bill Erwin played the character Sid Fields.
References: 'Sidney Fields', Wikipedia; Bruce Eder, 'Sid Fields', Rovi; 'Sid Fields', Fandango; 'Sid Fields', IMDb; 'Sidney H Feldman', ancestry.com; findmypast.com.au; 'Sid Fields', billiongraves.com; The Billboard [various issues]; Variety [various issues]; 'Sid Fields Featured In Primadonna's Show', Reno Gazette, Jun 5, 1965, p24; R Musel, 'Romans Started TV Gags', The Desert Sun, Aug 3, 1965, p9; 'Jack Benny Special On Wednesday', Geneva Times, Mar 16, 1968; F Cullen, with F Hackman & D McNeilly, 'Sid Fields', in Vaudeville Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America, vol 1 (Routledge, 2006).
Acknowledgements. This biographical profile was originally written by Dr Ian Ellis-Jones of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Best known for his featured role on The Abbott and Costello Show, on both radio and television, Fields received his early training in burlesque houses and was one of the most famous comedians who came up through burlesque. He was also a top-notch and highly respected comedy writer who wrote and performed many of the classic burlesque routines. He wrote a version of 'Slowly I Turned' (also known as 'Niagara Falls') that has been performed by many comedians over the years. In 1965 he claimed that he had total recall of a quarter of a million sketches, monologues and one-liners and said, 'In comedy there is only one way to go and that is back. There are only a certain number of basic premises and a finite number of variations or switches.'
Sidney ('Sid') Fields was born Sidney H Feldman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on February 5, 1898 to parents Hirsh Feldman (1866-1917) and his wife Maia Paltzoff (1870-1940), both of whom were born in Odessa, Ukraine and emigrated to the United States in May 1892. He was one of 12 children. He married actress Marie E Collins, daughter of William and Laura (née Boutin) Collins, on December 27, 1928 in Luzerne, Pennsylvania. Neither had been married previously. (Note. The application for a marriage licence lists Fields' age as '29', which suggests a birth year of 1899.)
Fields was Jewish as have been so many other American comedians over the decades (eg The Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges, Jack Benny, George Burns, Sid Caesar, Phil Silvers, Henny Youngman, Red Buttons and Adam Sandler). He was sometimes credited as 'Sid Fields', 'Sidney Field', 'Sidney Fields' and 'Sidney H Fields in his professional career. He began his career as a teenager in 1912, working as a comedy monologist in Milwaukee local theatres in amateur shows and local hometown vaudeville before leaving for a succession of medicine wagons, carnivals and tent show troupes in the Midwest. He later became partner in a comedy team with vaudeville and burlesque performer Jack Greenman. The team made it to Minsky's in the 1920s and was cast by Harold Minsky in his family's celebrated burlesque theatre. By the early 1930s Minsky's Burlesque was being hounded by the New York City municipal authorities, so the team decided to move to the West Coast. (Note. The 1930 US Census lists Fields' occupation as 'producer' in the theatre. At the time he and wife Marie were listed as residing in St Louis MO.) The team of Fields and Greenman split up in Hollywood when Fields was hired to work on a feature film with Eddie Cantor, namely, Strike Me Pink (1936). Fields also supported the Ritz Brothers in the film Straight, Place and Show (1938) and wrote at least one script for comedian Joe Penner which the latter used in vaudeville and on radio.
In the ensuing years Fields performed on stage, radio, and occasionally in movies. He worked on Eddie Cantor's radio show, It's Time to Smile, as a writer and actor (often playing a character referred to as 'Guffy') for some 7 years. He also worked on radio with Fred Allen, Ben Blue, Rudy Vallee and Milton Berle. He appeared in small and often uncredited roles in 1930s and '40s film comedies, sometimes receiving screen credits as a writer. In 1944 he began working with Abbott and Costello. Firstly, he wrote some special material for the team in their film In Society (1944). He was also signed to perform one of his routines, 'The Language Scene', but that was deleted from the finished movie. Subsequently, he worked as a writer and performer on the team's radio series, The Abbott and Costello Show (NBC, 1942-47; ABC, 1947-49), in which he introduced his Professor Melonhead character. Playing that character, he performed the routine 'Who's on First' with Lou Costello on Walgreen's 44th anniversary radio special when Bud Abbott was ill and unable to perform. Other Abbott and Costello films in which he appeared included The Naughty Nineties (1945), Little Giant (1946) and Mexican Hayride (1948) [also writer (uncredited)]. He also wrote the story for the film Abbott and Costello Meet Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1953) and, sometimes uncredited, wrote additional material or dialogue for other films including My Wild Irish Rose (1947) and Duchess of Idaho (1950).
As straight man (comedy feed) for Ben Blue, he performed at Slapsy Maxie's, in Hollywood, in March 1948 and thereafter at other venues including Charley Foy's Supper Club (Sherman Oaks, California, 1949) and La Martinique (New York, January 1951). He also performed in gagster Benny Rubin's revue at Charley Foy's Supper Club in August 1949. From 1950 to 1951 he and Ben Blue performed regularly as comic relief on Frank Sinatra's musical variety television show The Frank Sinatra Show (on CBS-TV). In 1951 Fields made other TV appearances on The Saturday Night Revue with Jack Carter, Broadway Open House, and Big Joe's Happiness Exchange. Between 1951 and 1953 he supported Abbott and Costello on NBC-TV's The Colgate Comedy Hour, and between 1952 and 1954 he was cast in the team's filmed TV series, The Abbott and Costello Show. He wrote all but five of the 26 scripts for the first season and received a co-writing credit on five of the 26 episodes of the second season, including one written with Lou Costello. Fields played the hot-tempered, bald-headed landlord of the rooming house where Abbott and Costello lived. He was a frequent target of gags and schemes foisted by the two main characters. Fields played numerous other roles as well, almost always wearing a wig, glasses or other disguise. These characters were often related to the landlord. The show ran for two seasons and played in syndication for decades. In clips from the TV series, Fields can be seen in the documentaries Hey, Abbott! (1978), Abbott and Costello Meet Jerry Seinfeld (1994) and Behind the Burly Q (2010). Both seasons of The Abbott and Costello Show have been released on DVD by Entertainment One, which now owns the rights to the series. In addition, the TV series now streams on Amazon Prime. Fields considered his work on The Abbott and Costello Show to be his crowning achievement. Among other things, it preserved the work he had done for years in burlesque. In 1998 Entertainment Weekly praised the series as one of the '100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time', and in 2007 Time magazine selected the series for inclusion in its list of 'The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME'.
On April 5, 1952 Fields performed on stage at the Fabian Theatre in Paterson, NJ, with Abbott and Costello and others, prior to the premiere of the Abbott and Costello film Jack and the Beanstalk (WB, 1952). In 1953 he appeared in the Ben Blue Revue at Charley Foy's Supper Club in Sherman Oaks, California. Two years later, in 1955, he appeared in another Ben Blue burlesque revue at the Chi Chi Starlite Room, in Palm Springs, California and also performed in a vaudeville-style show at the Beverly Hills Country Club with Ben Blue and bit movie actor Sammy Wolfe. He also with Blue and Wolfe in 1955 at the Dunes (Magic Carpet Revue) and also at the Thunderbird. In November 1955 Fields, Wolfe and 'Slapsie Maxie' Rosenbloom appeared in a revue staged at Billy Gray's Band Box, in Hollywood, titled Shower of Scars [sic]. A few years later, Fields performed at Ben Blue's nightclub/theatre restaurant in Santa Monica, California. (A colour photograph of Fields, Ben Blue and actress Danielle Aubry, taken at Ben Blue's, is featured on the front cover of Leo Guild's book Hollywood Screwballs (Los Angeles CA: Holloway House, 1962).) Fields made several TV guest appearances throughout the 1950s on such shows as The Pinky Lee Show (1954-1956) [on which he was a regular], The Saturday Night Revue (1954) [also writer], The Sunday Spectacular (1955), and The Milton Berle Show (1955), The Ed Sullivan Show (1956), and The Thin Man (1958) [uncredited]. In another uncredited role, he played Bob in the film noir Las Vegas Shakedown (1955).
In 1956 Harold Minsky brought the Minsky name to Las Vegas, Nevada in a revue at the Dunes Hotel. The November 17, 1956 issue of the journal The Cash Box reported that Ben Blue and Company along with Sammy Wolfe, Sid Fields and Girl Friend Dolly Barr were the then current attraction at Beverly Hills. Two years later, in 1958, Fields appeared with Lou Costello in Minsky's Follies of 1958, a burlesque revue staged at the Dunes which broke all house records at the hotel. Fields played straight man for Costello in familiar scenes such as 'Crazy House' and the 'Lemon Bit'. In addition, Fields also appeared in another Harold Minsky revue at the Dunes titled Folies International, with Smith and Dale, Joey Faye, Irving Benson, Boubouka, Cec Davidson and his Orchestra and several others. The year 1958 proved to be a very busy one for Fields, for he also appeared at the Sans Souci, in Las Vegas, in the revue Midnight in Havana which also featured Pat Moreno, Bobby Morris, Zabuda, Jerome Roberts, Olga Perez, Bobby Blue and his Orchestra and several others. Also in 1958, Fields also appeared in two other Sans Souci revues, namely, French Follies, and Artists and Models of Paris, in both of which Billie Bird, Boubouka, Bobby Blue and his Orchestra and several others also appeared.
In the early to mid-1960s he played occasional small roles in television shows (including The Ed Sullivan Show, in 1963) and worked as a staff writer and comedian on Jackie Gleason and His American Scene Magazine between 1963 and 1966. (Fields considered Gleason to be the best in his field.) In April 1963 he again played Las Vegas, appearing in Pat Moreno's Artists and Models Revue of 1963 at The Mint. Two years later, in 1965, and direct from Jackie Gleason's TV show, he attracted crowds at the Primadonna Club, in Reno, Nevada, in Pat Moreno's all-new revue Artists and Models of 1965. He also appeared in that revue at The Mint, in Las Vegas. The show was basically a Minsky-style burlesque show featuring young showgirls and comics along with some headlining strippers. In March 1967 Fields was still performing in Pat Moreno's Artists and Models, this time at the Sahara Casbar, playing straight man in scenes such as the 'Lemon Bit'. In 1968 he appeared in the TV special Carnival Nights, in which Jack Benny, Lucille Ball, Johnny Carson, Dean Martin, Bob Hope, Ben Blue and many others also appeared. In that special, which was his final TV appearance, he and Ben Blue performed their famous routine 'Chandu the Magician', which they performed over the years at many entertainment venues at Las Vegas, in nightclubs throughout the United States, and on television (eg The Ed Sullivan Show, on April 21, 1963).
In 1968 Fields also appeared in the revue A Night With Minsky at Hotel Thunderbird in Las Vegas; the revue, which was originally staged at the Continental Theatre as Thoroughly Modern Minsky, also starred Irving Benson, Barbara Curtis, Dick Bernie, Marty May and several others. Then, in March 1969, he appeared in the revue Minsky's Burlesque '69 at the Aladdin in Las Vegas. He also appeared in a Minsky revue at the Frontier before retiring. Over the years, he had played most of the leading entertainment venues in Vegas including the El Rancho, the Old Frontier, the Royal Nevada, the Dunes, the Desert Inn, the Flamingo and the Sahara, also appearing in nightclubs from coast to coast. At many of theses venues he performed with Ben Blue.
Fields and his wife Marie had moved to Las Vegas, Nevada around 1966. In his later years he wrote a regular newspaper column for Las Vegas Panorama titled 'Oldies But Goodies'. By 1974 both he and Marie were quite unwell but he kept writing his column into 1975. He died in Las Vegas of lung cancer on September 28, 1975, aged 77. His obituary appeared in Variety on October 8, 1975, on page 75. Marie died some two years later.
As a sidelight, comedian Jerry Seinfeld, a fan of the team of Abbott and Costello, volunteered to care for a grumpy, bad-tempered elderly man named Sid Fields in a 1993 episode of the TV sitcom Seinfeld called 'The Old Man'. Actor and cartoonist Bill Erwin played the character Sid Fields.
References: 'Sidney Fields', Wikipedia; Bruce Eder, 'Sid Fields', Rovi; 'Sid Fields', Fandango; 'Sid Fields', IMDb; 'Sidney H Feldman', ancestry.com; findmypast.com.au; 'Sid Fields', billiongraves.com; The Billboard [various issues]; Variety [various issues]; 'Sid Fields Featured In Primadonna's Show', Reno Gazette, Jun 5, 1965, p24; R Musel, 'Romans Started TV Gags', The Desert Sun, Aug 3, 1965, p9; 'Jack Benny Special On Wednesday', Geneva Times, Mar 16, 1968; F Cullen, with F Hackman & D McNeilly, 'Sid Fields', in Vaudeville Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America, vol 1 (Routledge, 2006).
Acknowledgements. This biographical profile was originally written by Dr Ian Ellis-Jones of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Actor, comedian, burlesquer, vaudevillian, writer, newspaper columnist and reporter.
Best known for his featured role on The Abbott and Costello Show, on both radio and television, Fields received his early training in burlesque houses and was one of the most famous comedians who came up through burlesque. He was also a top-notch and highly respected comedy writer who wrote and performed many of the classic burlesque routines. He wrote a version of 'Slowly I Turned' (also known as 'Niagara Falls') that has been performed by many comedians over the years. In 1965 he claimed that he had total recall of a quarter of a million sketches, monologues and one-liners and said, 'In comedy there is only one way to go and that is back. There are only a certain number of basic premises and a finite number of variations or switches.'
Sidney ('Sid') Fields was born Sidney H Feldman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on February 5, 1898 to parents Hirsh Feldman (1866-1917) and his wife Maia Paltzoff (1870-1940), both of whom were born in Odessa, Ukraine and emigrated to the United States in May 1892. He was one of 12 children. He married actress Marie E Collins, daughter of William and Laura (née Boutin) Collins, on December 27, 1928 in Luzerne, Pennsylvania. Neither had been married previously. (Note. The application for a marriage licence lists Fields' age as '29', which suggests a birth year of 1899.)
Fields was Jewish as have been so many other American comedians over the decades (eg The Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges, Jack Benny, George Burns, Sid Caesar, Phil Silvers, Henny Youngman, Red Buttons and Adam Sandler). He was sometimes credited as 'Sid Fields', 'Sidney Field', 'Sidney Fields' and 'Sidney H Fields in his professional career. He began his career as a teenager in 1912, working as a comedy monologist in Milwaukee local theatres in amateur shows and local hometown vaudeville before leaving for a succession of medicine wagons, carnivals and tent show troupes in the Midwest. He later became partner in a comedy team with vaudeville and burlesque performer Jack Greenman. The team made it to Minsky's in the 1920s and was cast by Harold Minsky in his family's celebrated burlesque theatre. By the early 1930s Minsky's Burlesque was being hounded by the New York City municipal authorities, so the team decided to move to the West Coast. (Note. The 1930 US Census lists Fields' occupation as 'producer' in the theatre. At the time he and wife Marie were listed as residing in St Louis MO.) The team of Fields and Greenman split up in Hollywood when Fields was hired to work on a feature film with Eddie Cantor, namely, Strike Me Pink (1936). Fields also supported the Ritz Brothers in the film Straight, Place and Show (1938) and wrote at least one script for comedian Joe Penner which the latter used in vaudeville and on radio.
In the ensuing years Fields performed on stage, radio, and occasionally in movies. He worked on Eddie Cantor's radio show, It's Time to Smile, as a writer and actor (often playing a character referred to as 'Guffy') for some 7 years. He also worked on radio with Fred Allen, Ben Blue, Rudy Vallee and Milton Berle. He appeared in small and often uncredited roles in 1930s and '40s film comedies, sometimes receiving screen credits as a writer. In 1944 he began working with Abbott and Costello. Firstly, he wrote some special material for the team in their film In Society (1944). He was also signed to perform one of his routines, 'The Language Scene', but that was deleted from the finished movie. Subsequently, he worked as a writer and performer on the team's radio series, The Abbott and Costello Show (NBC, 1942-47; ABC, 1947-49), in which he introduced his Professor Melonhead character. Playing that character, he performed the routine 'Who's on First' with Lou Costello on Walgreen's 44th anniversary radio special when Bud Abbott was ill and unable to perform. Other Abbott and Costello films in which he appeared included The Naughty Nineties (1945), Little Giant (1946) and Mexican Hayride (1948) [also writer (uncredited)]. He also wrote the story for the film Abbott and Costello Meet Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1953) and, sometimes uncredited, wrote additional material or dialogue for other films including My Wild Irish Rose (1947) and Duchess of Idaho (1950).
As straight man (comedy feed) for Ben Blue, he performed at Slapsy Maxie's, in Hollywood, in March 1948 and thereafter at other venues including Charley Foy's Supper Club (Sherman Oaks, California, 1949) and La Martinique (New York, January 1951). He also performed in gagster Benny Rubin's revue at Charley Foy's Supper Club in August 1949. From 1950 to 1951 he and Ben Blue performed regularly as comic relief on Frank Sinatra's musical variety television show The Frank Sinatra Show (on CBS-TV). In 1951 Fields made other TV appearances on The Saturday Night Revue with Jack Carter, Broadway Open House, and Big Joe's Happiness Exchange. Between 1951 and 1953 he supported Abbott and Costello on NBC-TV's The Colgate Comedy Hour, and between 1952 and 1954 he was cast in the team's filmed TV series, The Abbott and Costello Show. He wrote all but five of the 26 scripts for the first season and received a co-writing credit on five of the 26 episodes of the second season, including one written with Lou Costello. Fields played the hot-tempered, bald-headed landlord of the rooming house where Abbott and Costello lived. He was a frequent target of gags and schemes foisted by the two main characters. Fields played numerous other roles as well, almost always wearing a wig, glasses or other disguise. These characters were often related to the landlord. The show ran for two seasons and played in syndication for decades. In clips from the TV series, Fields can be seen in the documentaries Hey, Abbott! (1978), Abbott and Costello Meet Jerry Seinfeld (1994) and Behind the Burly Q (2010). Both seasons of The Abbott and Costello Show have been released on DVD by Entertainment One, which now owns the rights to the series. In addition, the TV series now streams on Amazon Prime. Fields considered his work on The Abbott and Costello Show to be his crowning achievement. Among other things, it preserved the work he had done for years in burlesque. In 1998 Entertainment Weekly praised the series as one of the '100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time', and in 2007 Time magazine selected the series for inclusion in its list of 'The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME'.
On April 5, 1952 Fields performed on stage at the Fabian Theatre in Paterson, NJ, with Abbott and Costello and others, prior to the premiere of the Abbott and Costello film Jack and the Beanstalk (WB, 1952). In 1953 he appeared in the Ben Blue Revue at Charley Foy's Supper Club in Sherman Oaks, California. Two years later, in 1955, he appeared in another Ben Blue burlesque revue at the Chi Chi Starlite Room, in Palm Springs, California and also performed in a vaudeville-style show at the Beverly Hills Country Club with Ben Blue and bit movie actor Sammy Wolfe. He also with Blue and Wolfe in 1955 at the Dunes (Magic Carpet Revue) and also at the Thunderbird. In November 1955 Fields, Wolfe and 'Slapsie Maxie' Rosenbloom appeared in a revue staged at Billy Gray's Band Box, in Hollywood, titled Shower of Scars [sic]. A few years later, Fields performed at Ben Blue's nightclub/theatre restaurant in Santa Monica, California. (A colour photograph of Fields, Ben Blue and actress Danielle Aubry, taken at Ben Blue's, is featured on the front cover of Leo Guild's book Hollywood Screwballs (Los Angeles CA: Holloway House, 1962).) Fields made several TV guest appearances throughout the 1950s on such shows as The Pinky Lee Show (1954-1956) [on which he was a regular], The Saturday Night Revue (1954) [also writer], The Sunday Spectacular (1955), and The Milton Berle Show (1955), The Ed Sullivan Show (1956), and The Thin Man (1958) [uncredited]. In another uncredited role, he played Bob in the film noir Las Vegas Shakedown (1955).
In 1956 Harold Minsky brought the Minsky name to Las Vegas, Nevada in a revue at the Dunes Hotel. The November 17, 1956 issue of the journal The Cash Box reported that Ben Blue and Company along with Sammy Wolfe, Sid Fields and Girl Friend Dolly Barr were the then current attraction at Beverly Hills. Two years later, in 1958, Fields appeared with Lou Costello in Minsky's Follies of 1958, a burlesque revue staged at the Dunes which broke all house records at the hotel. Fields played straight man for Costello in familiar scenes such as 'Crazy House' and the 'Lemon Bit'. In addition, Fields also appeared in another Harold Minsky revue at the Dunes titled Folies International, with Smith and Dale, Joey Faye, Irving Benson, Boubouka, Cec Davidson and his Orchestra and several others. The year 1958 proved to be a very busy one for Fields, for he also appeared at the Sans Souci, in Las Vegas, in the revue Midnight in Havana which also featured Pat Moreno, Bobby Morris, Zabuda, Jerome Roberts, Olga Perez, Bobby Blue and his Orchestra and several others. Also in 1958, Fields also appeared in two other Sans Souci revues, namely, French Follies, and Artists and Models of Paris, in both of which Billie Bird, Boubouka, Bobby Blue and his Orchestra and several others also appeared.
In the early to mid-1960s he played occasional small roles in television shows (including The Ed Sullivan Show, in 1963) and worked as a staff writer and comedian on Jackie Gleason and His American Scene Magazine between 1963 and 1966. (Fields considered Gleason to be the best in his field.) In April 1963 he again played Las Vegas, appearing in Pat Moreno's Artists and Models Revue of 1963 at The Mint. Two years later, in 1965, and direct from Jackie Gleason's TV show, he attracted crowds at the Primadonna Club, in Reno, Nevada, in Pat Moreno's all-new revue Artists and Models of 1965. He also appeared in that revue at The Mint, in Las Vegas. The show was basically a Minsky-style burlesque show featuring young showgirls and comics along with some headlining strippers. In March 1967 Fields was still performing in Pat Moreno's Artists and Models, this time at the Sahara Casbar, playing straight man in scenes such as the 'Lemon Bit'. In 1968 he appeared in the TV special Carnival Nights, in which Jack Benny, Lucille Ball, Johnny Carson, Dean Martin, Bob Hope, Ben Blue and many others also appeared. In that special, which was his final TV appearance, he and Ben Blue performed their famous routine 'Chandu the Magician', which they performed over the years at many entertainment venues at Las Vegas, in nightclubs throughout the United States, and on television (eg The Ed Sullivan Show, on April 21, 1963).
In 1968 Fields also appeared in the revue A Night With Minsky at Hotel Thunderbird in Las Vegas; the revue, which was originally staged at the Continental Theatre as Thoroughly Modern Minsky, also starred Irving Benson, Barbara Curtis, Dick Bernie, Marty May and several others. Then, in March 1969, he appeared in the revue Minsky's Burlesque '69 at the Aladdin in Las Vegas. He also appeared in a Minsky revue at the Frontier before retiring. Over the years, he had played most of the leading entertainment venues in Vegas including the El Rancho, the Old Frontier, the Royal Nevada, the Dunes, the Desert Inn, the Flamingo and the Sahara, also appearing in nightclubs from coast to coast. At many of theses venues he performed with Ben Blue.
Fields and his wife Marie had moved to Las Vegas, Nevada around 1966. In his later years he wrote a regular newspaper column for Las Vegas Panorama titled 'Oldies But Goodies'. By 1974 both he and Marie were quite unwell but he kept writing his column into 1975. He died in Las Vegas of lung cancer on September 28, 1975, aged 77. His obituary appeared in Variety on October 8, 1975, on page 75. Marie died some two years later.
As a sidelight, comedian Jerry Seinfeld, a fan of the team of Abbott and Costello, volunteered to care for a grumpy, bad-tempered elderly man named Sid Fields in a 1993 episode of the TV sitcom Seinfeld called 'The Old Man'. Actor and cartoonist Bill Erwin played the character Sid Fields.
References: 'Sidney Fields', Wikipedia; Bruce Eder, 'Sid Fields', Rovi; 'Sid Fields', Fandango; 'Sid Fields', IMDb; 'Sidney H Feldman', ancestry.com; findmypast.com.au; 'Sid Fields', billiongraves.com; The Billboard [various issues]; Variety [various issues]; 'Sid Fields Featured In Primadonna's Show', Reno Gazette, Jun 5, 1965, p24; R Musel, 'Romans Started TV Gags', The Desert Sun, Aug 3, 1965, p9; 'Jack Benny Special On Wednesday', Geneva Times, Mar 16, 1968; F Cullen, with F Hackman & D McNeilly, 'Sid Fields', in Vaudeville Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America, vol 1 (Routledge, 2006).
Acknowledgements. This biographical profile was originally written by Dr Ian Ellis-Jones of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Best known for his featured role on The Abbott and Costello Show, on both radio and television, Fields received his early training in burlesque houses and was one of the most famous comedians who came up through burlesque. He was also a top-notch and highly respected comedy writer who wrote and performed many of the classic burlesque routines. He wrote a version of 'Slowly I Turned' (also known as 'Niagara Falls') that has been performed by many comedians over the years. In 1965 he claimed that he had total recall of a quarter of a million sketches, monologues and one-liners and said, 'In comedy there is only one way to go and that is back. There are only a certain number of basic premises and a finite number of variations or switches.'
Sidney ('Sid') Fields was born Sidney H Feldman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on February 5, 1898 to parents Hirsh Feldman (1866-1917) and his wife Maia Paltzoff (1870-1940), both of whom were born in Odessa, Ukraine and emigrated to the United States in May 1892. He was one of 12 children. He married actress Marie E Collins, daughter of William and Laura (née Boutin) Collins, on December 27, 1928 in Luzerne, Pennsylvania. Neither had been married previously. (Note. The application for a marriage licence lists Fields' age as '29', which suggests a birth year of 1899.)
Fields was Jewish as have been so many other American comedians over the decades (eg The Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges, Jack Benny, George Burns, Sid Caesar, Phil Silvers, Henny Youngman, Red Buttons and Adam Sandler). He was sometimes credited as 'Sid Fields', 'Sidney Field', 'Sidney Fields' and 'Sidney H Fields in his professional career. He began his career as a teenager in 1912, working as a comedy monologist in Milwaukee local theatres in amateur shows and local hometown vaudeville before leaving for a succession of medicine wagons, carnivals and tent show troupes in the Midwest. He later became partner in a comedy team with vaudeville and burlesque performer Jack Greenman. The team made it to Minsky's in the 1920s and was cast by Harold Minsky in his family's celebrated burlesque theatre. By the early 1930s Minsky's Burlesque was being hounded by the New York City municipal authorities, so the team decided to move to the West Coast. (Note. The 1930 US Census lists Fields' occupation as 'producer' in the theatre. At the time he and wife Marie were listed as residing in St Louis MO.) The team of Fields and Greenman split up in Hollywood when Fields was hired to work on a feature film with Eddie Cantor, namely, Strike Me Pink (1936). Fields also supported the Ritz Brothers in the film Straight, Place and Show (1938) and wrote at least one script for comedian Joe Penner which the latter used in vaudeville and on radio.
In the ensuing years Fields performed on stage, radio, and occasionally in movies. He worked on Eddie Cantor's radio show, It's Time to Smile, as a writer and actor (often playing a character referred to as 'Guffy') for some 7 years. He also worked on radio with Fred Allen, Ben Blue, Rudy Vallee and Milton Berle. He appeared in small and often uncredited roles in 1930s and '40s film comedies, sometimes receiving screen credits as a writer. In 1944 he began working with Abbott and Costello. Firstly, he wrote some special material for the team in their film In Society (1944). He was also signed to perform one of his routines, 'The Language Scene', but that was deleted from the finished movie. Subsequently, he worked as a writer and performer on the team's radio series, The Abbott and Costello Show (NBC, 1942-47; ABC, 1947-49), in which he introduced his Professor Melonhead character. Playing that character, he performed the routine 'Who's on First' with Lou Costello on Walgreen's 44th anniversary radio special when Bud Abbott was ill and unable to perform. Other Abbott and Costello films in which he appeared included The Naughty Nineties (1945), Little Giant (1946) and Mexican Hayride (1948) [also writer (uncredited)]. He also wrote the story for the film Abbott and Costello Meet Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1953) and, sometimes uncredited, wrote additional material or dialogue for other films including My Wild Irish Rose (1947) and Duchess of Idaho (1950).
As straight man (comedy feed) for Ben Blue, he performed at Slapsy Maxie's, in Hollywood, in March 1948 and thereafter at other venues including Charley Foy's Supper Club (Sherman Oaks, California, 1949) and La Martinique (New York, January 1951). He also performed in gagster Benny Rubin's revue at Charley Foy's Supper Club in August 1949. From 1950 to 1951 he and Ben Blue performed regularly as comic relief on Frank Sinatra's musical variety television show The Frank Sinatra Show (on CBS-TV). In 1951 Fields made other TV appearances on The Saturday Night Revue with Jack Carter, Broadway Open House, and Big Joe's Happiness Exchange. Between 1951 and 1953 he supported Abbott and Costello on NBC-TV's The Colgate Comedy Hour, and between 1952 and 1954 he was cast in the team's filmed TV series, The Abbott and Costello Show. He wrote all but five of the 26 scripts for the first season and received a co-writing credit on five of the 26 episodes of the second season, including one written with Lou Costello. Fields played the hot-tempered, bald-headed landlord of the rooming house where Abbott and Costello lived. He was a frequent target of gags and schemes foisted by the two main characters. Fields played numerous other roles as well, almost always wearing a wig, glasses or other disguise. These characters were often related to the landlord. The show ran for two seasons and played in syndication for decades. In clips from the TV series, Fields can be seen in the documentaries Hey, Abbott! (1978), Abbott and Costello Meet Jerry Seinfeld (1994) and Behind the Burly Q (2010). Both seasons of The Abbott and Costello Show have been released on DVD by Entertainment One, which now owns the rights to the series. In addition, the TV series now streams on Amazon Prime. Fields considered his work on The Abbott and Costello Show to be his crowning achievement. Among other things, it preserved the work he had done for years in burlesque. In 1998 Entertainment Weekly praised the series as one of the '100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time', and in 2007 Time magazine selected the series for inclusion in its list of 'The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME'.
On April 5, 1952 Fields performed on stage at the Fabian Theatre in Paterson, NJ, with Abbott and Costello and others, prior to the premiere of the Abbott and Costello film Jack and the Beanstalk (WB, 1952). In 1953 he appeared in the Ben Blue Revue at Charley Foy's Supper Club in Sherman Oaks, California. Two years later, in 1955, he appeared in another Ben Blue burlesque revue at the Chi Chi Starlite Room, in Palm Springs, California and also performed in a vaudeville-style show at the Beverly Hills Country Club with Ben Blue and bit movie actor Sammy Wolfe. He also with Blue and Wolfe in 1955 at the Dunes (Magic Carpet Revue) and also at the Thunderbird. In November 1955 Fields, Wolfe and 'Slapsie Maxie' Rosenbloom appeared in a revue staged at Billy Gray's Band Box, in Hollywood, titled Shower of Scars [sic]. A few years later, Fields performed at Ben Blue's nightclub/theatre restaurant in Santa Monica, California. (A colour photograph of Fields, Ben Blue and actress Danielle Aubry, taken at Ben Blue's, is featured on the front cover of Leo Guild's book Hollywood Screwballs (Los Angeles CA: Holloway House, 1962).) Fields made several TV guest appearances throughout the 1950s on such shows as The Pinky Lee Show (1954-1956) [on which he was a regular], The Saturday Night Revue (1954) [also writer], The Sunday Spectacular (1955), and The Milton Berle Show (1955), The Ed Sullivan Show (1956), and The Thin Man (1958) [uncredited]. In another uncredited role, he played Bob in the film noir Las Vegas Shakedown (1955).
In 1956 Harold Minsky brought the Minsky name to Las Vegas, Nevada in a revue at the Dunes Hotel. The November 17, 1956 issue of the journal The Cash Box reported that Ben Blue and Company along with Sammy Wolfe, Sid Fields and Girl Friend Dolly Barr were the then current attraction at Beverly Hills. Two years later, in 1958, Fields appeared with Lou Costello in Minsky's Follies of 1958, a burlesque revue staged at the Dunes which broke all house records at the hotel. Fields played straight man for Costello in familiar scenes such as 'Crazy House' and the 'Lemon Bit'. In addition, Fields also appeared in another Harold Minsky revue at the Dunes titled Folies International, with Smith and Dale, Joey Faye, Irving Benson, Boubouka, Cec Davidson and his Orchestra and several others. The year 1958 proved to be a very busy one for Fields, for he also appeared at the Sans Souci, in Las Vegas, in the revue Midnight in Havana which also featured Pat Moreno, Bobby Morris, Zabuda, Jerome Roberts, Olga Perez, Bobby Blue and his Orchestra and several others. Also in 1958, Fields also appeared in two other Sans Souci revues, namely, French Follies, and Artists and Models of Paris, in both of which Billie Bird, Boubouka, Bobby Blue and his Orchestra and several others also appeared.
In the early to mid-1960s he played occasional small roles in television shows (including The Ed Sullivan Show, in 1963) and worked as a staff writer and comedian on Jackie Gleason and His American Scene Magazine between 1963 and 1966. (Fields considered Gleason to be the best in his field.) In April 1963 he again played Las Vegas, appearing in Pat Moreno's Artists and Models Revue of 1963 at The Mint. Two years later, in 1965, and direct from Jackie Gleason's TV show, he attracted crowds at the Primadonna Club, in Reno, Nevada, in Pat Moreno's all-new revue Artists and Models of 1965. He also appeared in that revue at The Mint, in Las Vegas. The show was basically a Minsky-style burlesque show featuring young showgirls and comics along with some headlining strippers. In March 1967 Fields was still performing in Pat Moreno's Artists and Models, this time at the Sahara Casbar, playing straight man in scenes such as the 'Lemon Bit'. In 1968 he appeared in the TV special Carnival Nights, in which Jack Benny, Lucille Ball, Johnny Carson, Dean Martin, Bob Hope, Ben Blue and many others also appeared. In that special, which was his final TV appearance, he and Ben Blue performed their famous routine 'Chandu the Magician', which they performed over the years at many entertainment venues at Las Vegas, in nightclubs throughout the United States, and on television (eg The Ed Sullivan Show, on April 21, 1963).
In 1968 Fields also appeared in the revue A Night With Minsky at Hotel Thunderbird in Las Vegas; the revue, which was originally staged at the Continental Theatre as Thoroughly Modern Minsky, also starred Irving Benson, Barbara Curtis, Dick Bernie, Marty May and several others. Then, in March 1969, he appeared in the revue Minsky's Burlesque '69 at the Aladdin in Las Vegas. He also appeared in a Minsky revue at the Frontier before retiring. Over the years, he had played most of the leading entertainment venues in Vegas including the El Rancho, the Old Frontier, the Royal Nevada, the Dunes, the Desert Inn, the Flamingo and the Sahara, also appearing in nightclubs from coast to coast. At many of theses venues he performed with Ben Blue.
Fields and his wife Marie had moved to Las Vegas, Nevada around 1966. In his later years he wrote a regular newspaper column for Las Vegas Panorama titled 'Oldies But Goodies'. By 1974 both he and Marie were quite unwell but he kept writing his column into 1975. He died in Las Vegas of lung cancer on September 28, 1975, aged 77. His obituary appeared in Variety on October 8, 1975, on page 75. Marie died some two years later.
As a sidelight, comedian Jerry Seinfeld, a fan of the team of Abbott and Costello, volunteered to care for a grumpy, bad-tempered elderly man named Sid Fields in a 1993 episode of the TV sitcom Seinfeld called 'The Old Man'. Actor and cartoonist Bill Erwin played the character Sid Fields.
References: 'Sidney Fields', Wikipedia; Bruce Eder, 'Sid Fields', Rovi; 'Sid Fields', Fandango; 'Sid Fields', IMDb; 'Sidney H Feldman', ancestry.com; findmypast.com.au; 'Sid Fields', billiongraves.com; The Billboard [various issues]; Variety [various issues]; 'Sid Fields Featured In Primadonna's Show', Reno Gazette, Jun 5, 1965, p24; R Musel, 'Romans Started TV Gags', The Desert Sun, Aug 3, 1965, p9; 'Jack Benny Special On Wednesday', Geneva Times, Mar 16, 1968; F Cullen, with F Hackman & D McNeilly, 'Sid Fields', in Vaudeville Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America, vol 1 (Routledge, 2006).
Acknowledgements. This biographical profile was originally written by Dr Ian Ellis-Jones of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
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