The Breakup with Ziegfeld

Abstract

In the 1921 Follies Fields appears in five sketches with a salary of 700 dollars a week, an acknowledgment of his versatility and growing importance in the revue. “The Subway—Off to the Country” is an expansion of the “The Family Ford” routine with Fields again playing Fliverton; Brice, Mrs Fliverton; Dooley, daughter Ray; and Raymond Hitchcock, the baby Sap, a new character. The episode is a spoof on a family vacation, which begins with the relatives trying to enter a subway car with too much luggage. The doors are continually slammed in their face leaving them standing on the platform. Fliverton gets a fishing rod stuck in the door, and other obstacles prevent the family from boarding the subway. The two children play pranks on their father. A disguised policeman faints and asks Fliverton for some brandy. When Fliverton gives him brandy from the baby’s bottle, the policeman arrests him for violating Prohibition’s Volstead Act. He drags Fliverton off to jail as the distraught family follows. Once again the beleaguered father is the victim.

With the two Fliverton sketches Fields is beginning to create the harassed husband who comes in several varieties—blunderer, duffer, milquetoast, or looser.

Fields returned to the front lines during the 1921 Follies. He was Equity’s representative with the 1921 Follies. Showgirls had lacked a strong union to defend their rights until the Chorus Equity Association was formed on August 12, 1919. Before its founding most chorines in the Follies received twenty-five dollars weekly, were unpaid for rehearsals, and could be easily fired. The argument was over Equity’s “Eight Performance Clause,” which stipulated that an actor’s workweek consisted of eight performances. Any extra appearances by Equity members beyond that time frame must be compensated by one-eighth of salary. Eleven Equity members among the chorus girls, including Bessie Poole, were denied payment by the Follies management for an extra performance on Thanksgiving Day. To force Ziegfeld to capitulate, Equity plotted a walkout to occur on Christmas evening in Chicago. The show was delayed for twenty minutes as the audience sat there wondering what had happened. Not wanting to lose that night’s box-office revenue or future ticket purchases, Ziegfeld agreed to Equity’s demands. The chorus members received back pay for their extra performances and a guarantee that the “Eight Performance Clause” would be honored in the future. Ziegfeld refused to rehire anyone who had spearheaded the walkout. The 1922 Follies therefore opened without Fields. He would not return until 1925.