W.C. Fields (Playing Cards/Graphic with Vintage Rock Tee Effect)

W.C. Fields — Playing Cards Tee

Nobody ever looked quite as suspicious of a perfectly innocent deck of cards as W.C. Fields.

With his battered top hat, bulbous nose, narrowed eyes, and expression suggesting he'd already discovered three different ways to cheat you, W. C. Fields created one of the most recognizable comic personas of early Hollywood. The classic image of Fields sitting at the card table, cards in hand and making that unmistakable face, captures the character perfectly.

Fields built his comedy around the gloriously disreputable. His screen persona was a hard-drinking, cigar-smoking misanthrope perpetually irritated by children, dogs, respectable society, and anyone foolish enough to interrupt his afternoon cocktail. Yet beneath all the grumbling was extraordinary comic precision, developed during a career that began not in movies but as a celebrated vaudeville juggler.

Films including It's a Gift, The Bank Dick, My Little Chickadee, and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break turned Fields into one of the great eccentrics of American comedy. His muttered insults, elaborate wordplay, and permanently exasperated expression influenced generations of comedians who followed.