"W. C. Fields halted the production of one of his movies and took an unscheduled vacation in Mexico. As he set out, Fields gleefully announced to the Press that he wasn't coming back until Baby LeRoy [a child star who had often upstaged him] was old enough to be drafted into the Army. Several days of serious drinking in a flea-bag hotel south of the border followed.
"One morning, Fields was woken by a loud, out-of-tune, brass band. Still half-cut, he headed for the balcony outside his room; he decided to answer a call of nature and relieved himself over the rail into the square below. Unfortunately, immediately below Fields stood a Mexican politician; a dignified figure in a medal-strewn uniform who was about to launch into a speech. Fields was deported."
[Even after entering a Pasadena sanitarium to dry out, Fields drank two bottles of gin -- smuggled in by friends -- every day. "I only drink to steady my nerves," he once remarked. "Sometimes I'm so steady I don't move for months."]
Sources
Special thanks to Dr. Renfield, bedlamasylum.com
