Credit: Image Donated by Corbis-Bettmann
After dropping out of school by the age of eight, William Claude Dukenfeld worked as a stock boy, shill for a shell game, pool hustler, petty thief, and professional drowner in Atlantic City before landing his first full-time job as a juggler in a traveling show. Fields would draw on those youthful experiences to create some of the most memorable characters of his film career, including down-and-out carnival man Gabby Gilfoil in Two Flaming Youths.
