Man on the Flying Trapeze

Clyde A. Bruckman was an American writer and director of comedy films during the late silent era as well as the early sound era of cinema. Bruckman collaborated with such comedians as Buster Keaton, W. C. Fields, Laurel and Hardy, The Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello and Harold Lloyd. Bruckman ... may be best known for his collaborations with Buster Keaton, as Bruckman co-wrote several of Keaton's most popular films, including Our Hospitality, Sherlock Jr., The Navigator, Seven Chances, The Cameraman and The General, which Bruckman also co-directed. Bruckman continued directing comedies during the sound era, his most famous credit being The Fatal Glass of Beer, W. C. Fields' esoteric satire of Yukon melodramas. Unfortunately for his career path, Bruckman's fondness for alcohol caused production delays that cost him directorial assignments. From 1935 forward, Bruckman would be limited to writing scripts. Bruckman's wealth of silent-comedy experience earned him a steady position in Columbia Pictures' short-subject department.
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William Claude Dukenfield , better known as W. C. Fields, was an American comedian, actor, juggler and writer. Fields was known for his comic persona as a misanthropic and hard-drinking egotist who remained a sympathetic character despite his snarling contempt for dogs, children and women. The... characterization he portrayed in films and on radio was so strong it became generally identified with Fields himself. It was maintained by the movie-studio publicity departments at Fields's studios and further established by Robert Lewis Taylor's 1949 biography W.C. Fields, His Follies and Fortunes. Beginning in 1973, with the publication of Fields's letters, photos, and personal notes in grandson Ronald Fields's book W.C. Fields by Himself, it has been shown that Fields was married , and he financially supported their son and loved his grandchildren.
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