Know Yourself!

Know Yourself!

Most parents would rather their children not decide to join the acting profession because it is so hard to earn a living. They would rather their children choose secure, well-paid jobs. But if you ask actors themselves, they always tell you there is nothing they sooner do. An actor is a person who would rather a different man or woman. An actor would rather talk, walk, and behave like someone else. That's what acting is about. Many actors would rather be called something other than their real names. The great American comic actor Claude William Dukenfield would rather be called W.C. Fields, which was the name he adopted when he became an actor. Fields was eccentric and would rather live in a world in which there were no dogs or children. He used to wear a funny top hat and carry a walking-stick. He loved to pretend to be other people in real life as well. He opened bank accounts all over America using comic names. He died in 1946 and the epitaph he wrote for his tombstone clearly expressed a healthy preference for life: “On the whole, I would rather in Philadelphia!”